Month: March 2011

Deployed

by adminin Migrant workers, Writing

dsc01218Tablet, March 11, 2011

On a Friday night, Filipino congregants are praying in a tiny, unmarked church tucked off a nameless alley in south Tel Aviv. The church is one room, with wood laminate floors and plastic chairs. Burgundy banners read “Elohim” and “Yahweh” in Roman letters. A Star of David made of spoons hangs in the window that looks out over the Neve Sha’anan neighborhood, four floors below.

The congregants are evangelical Christians—a group that is sometimes referred to in the Philippines as “charismatics”—and their love for both the Bible and the Jewish people inspires them to use bits of Judaism in their services. About a year and a half ago, the church was raided by Israeli immigration authorities. Standing here, I try to imagine police swarming the place. But the service is so peaceful, the praying so earnest, that I can’t imagine anything but this.

The pastora of the church, who asked that her name not be used, to protect the privacy of her congregants, stands at the clear acrylic pulpit, which also holds a menorah and kiddush cup. A guitarist, keyboardist, drummer, and an Israeli flag are behind her. Her eyes are closed, her face tipped up. She pushes her hands to her heart as she leads the group in song: “We worship you,” the congregation sings. Then the music slows, softens, and stops. Someone blows a shofar. The congregants cry out to God in Hebrew.

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House evictions forge new alliances in Israel

by adminin Writing

dsc03488Al Jazeera English, March 11, 2011

Yafit Cohen is a wife and mother of four – her youngest child is just a few months old. Cohen makes her way up the stairs, slowly, easing her baby carriage around a gaping hole. “Watch out,” she says to me.

I look down. I can easily imagine her 8-year-old son, a talkative little boy who has raced ahead, falling through. I gasp at the thought.

“I know. It’s dangerous,” Cohen says, adding: “And it’s not legal.”

Cohen, a Jewish Israeli, lives in low-income, subsidised housing. Worried that her children, or those of her Palestinian neighbours, could be injured or killed, she has asked the state to fix the stairs. They have not.

What the state is working on, however, is making Cohen and her family homeless. The housing authority wants to put Cohen, her husband, their four children, her brother-in-law and niece – “eight souls,” as she says – on the street.

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Xenophobia in Tel Aviv

by adminin Migrant workers, Writing

dsc02822Guernica, March 8, 2011

This morning, I woke to the news that a woman had been stabbed to death in South Tel Aviv. Two men—dubbed migrant workers by the Hebrew press, but referred to as “African descent” in the English-language media, suggesting they were probably asylum seekers—were briefly held under suspicion for the crime. They were interrogated and released without being charged.

The story hit me on many levels: I used to live in South Tel Aviv, an impoverished area that is home to migrant workers, African refugees, and poor Jews. During my time there, I volunteered in a black market Filipino kindergarten. I developed a deep attachment for the “foreign” community. I put quotes around the word “foreign” because, as cliché as it might be to say this, I quickly realized that migrant workers and African refugees aren’t foreign at all. I have never met anyone, anywhere in the world, that I have been unable to connect with on some basic level, even if I don’t agree with their politics or decisions.

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“We don’t have another country”

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

dsc00262Al Jazeera English, March 7, 2011

Last week, as Israeli president Shimon Peres was calling a South Tel Aviv school to congratulate it for its role in Oscar-winning documentary, the state was preparing to expel 120 of the school’s students, including a twelve-year-old girl who starred in the film.

“Strangers No More” was produced and directed by American filmmakers Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon. The film focuses on South Tel Aviv’s Bialik-Rogozin school, which is attended by children of African refugees and migrant workers. The film side-steps the subject of deportation and focuses, instead, on the story of three kids who adjust, successfully, to life in Israel.

Despite the fact that the film is American-made, Israelis have widely celebrated the Oscar win as their own.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs—the government body that, amongst other duties, actively promotes a positive image of Israel—was quick to add a congratulatory headline to its website. And Israeli president Shimon Peres called Bialik-Rogozin’s principal, Karen Tal, to remark that the school “had cast a beam of light on the country’s humanity.”

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