T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, an organization of 1,800 rabbis and cantors from all streams of Judaism, is denouncing the Israeli Government’s new “Anti-Infiltration” Law that the Knesset passed in the early morning hours of December 10, International Human Rights Day.
The new law will take effect 48 hours after its approval; so on December 12th, the remaining 1,000 plus African detainees will be transferred to a fenced-in “open facility.” Israel intends to round up and transfer thousands of other African asylum seekers to be housed in “open facilities.” According to the law, these individuals will be required to report in three times a day and they will be locked in at night, to prevent work or flight, and there will be no limit on the length of residence.
The law raises serious questions about compliance with a recent Israeli High Court of Justice decision. In September, the High Court ruled that detaining asylum seekers without trial for a minimum of three years violates Israel’s Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty, and it set a December 15 deadline for when 1,750 asylum seekers and migrants must be individually examined for release. Prior to the passage of the new law today, Israeli authorities released fewer than 700 asylum seekers from detention.
“Some have tried to justify the forced detention of asylum seekers, many of whom have suffered persecution and abuse in their home countries, by characterizing Africans as criminals, infiltrators, or threats to the Jewish character of the state,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of T’ruah. “But the true threat to the Jewish character of the state is the government’s abandonment of the Jewish imperative of care for the gerim–the landless sojourners who seek refuge among us.”
Last month, T’ruah joined with HIAS, Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights of AJC, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and ten other Jewish organizations to urge the withdrawal of the legislation in a public letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu. (https://www.truah.org/media/press-releases/524-jewish-organizations-speak-out-for-asylum-seekers.html)
There are approximately 55,000 asylum seekers in Israel. Most of these individuals are from Eritrea and Sudan which they fled because of repressive regimes, conflict, or forced conscription. Tens of thousands of these asylum seekers were kidnapped, tortured, and held for ransom by human traffickers in the Sinai desert before they secured their freedom and made it to Israel.
“Human Rights Day should be a day of celebration,” said Rabbi Lev Meirowitz Nelson, T’ruah’s Director of Education. “Instead of celebrating k’vod habriot(human dignity), and commitment to equality as all of humanity is createdb’tzelem elohim (in the image of God), we lament the Israeli government’s decision to detain victims of torture and persecution on Human Rights Day.”
More than 175 Jewish communities are joining with T’ruah in honoring the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with Human Rights Shabbat programming around the world.