Families from the Kibbutz movement and peripherial towns throughout Israel have volunteered to take in some 2,250 African refugee asylum seekers ahead of their planned deportation. One of the organizers of the project, Dr. Avi Ofer said: “This whole episode makes me understand how the Jews felt in Europe during the second world war.”
Ofer, who is a resident of Kibbutz Maanit in the Galil, said: “Many refugees are already living with families around the country and these families don’t want to be exposed, so I won’t speak about them at length. There are currently three initiatives being undertaken by Ofer and other leaders of the Kibbutz movement to hide African refugee asylum seekers so that they will not be deported back to Africa. According to a report in Ynet, some 2,250 Jewish families have signed up to take in a refugee or a family of refugees.
Kibbutz Sasa in the northern Galilee has taken the first step of any town in revealing in public that it has agreed to take in refugee asylum seekers and that it will offer them fair work in the industries run by the kibbutz. The kibbutz has offered four apartments to refugees, with the first expected to move in before Pesach. The first family that will be moving in is that of a single mother and her two daughters.
Ofer said: “While the planned deportation hangs like a mark of Cain on the country, seeing the immense response of individuals in Israel who are willing to take in a family whom they have never met, in an act which can be interpreted as going against the law, warms the heart. I have never seen such a quick and widespread response such as this, and I’ve been involved in public appeals and campaigns for more than 35 years.”
“While most of the refugees are willing to go to prison and continue the fight from there, rather than return to Africa, some who are weaker, sick, or afraid of prison, have asked for our help to find them shelter and asylum. We are looking for legal work for these asylum seekers and the hopeful solution to the rule of deportation once and for all.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
These same kibbutzniks would kick out the frum community’s in a heartbeat!
the kibbutz movement is as Jewish as the pope.
Reply to nowecant: No Jew is Jewier than any other Jew. Maybe you are observant, but you are not “more” of a Jew than a non-observant Jew. And the kibbutzniks have played, and continue to play, an important role in the State of Israel, one that no Jew should disparage.
Someday, Hashem will render judgment on non-observant – and all other – Jews. Are you sure you will find favor in Hashem’s eyes?
Disgusting that he compares Jews being hunted and murdered by Nazis to deportations of illegal immigrants who only recently snuck in as economic refugees and are being paid to leave. Virtue signaling at its worst.
But will the law against harboring illegals be enforced ? or because they are secular Ashkenazi kibbutzniks will the police just look the other way?