May Newsletter
News
Ending Israel's Version of Slavery
Sandeep Lama says, "good Israelis have helped me and now the future looks bright again."
In 2004, Lama was working in a hotel in New Delhi when he was told he could earn much better money in Israel. He paid $4,000 to a disabled Jerusalem woman who agreed to employ him as her caregiver and Lama received a work visa for Israel. The woman paid him $550 per month plus food and board. When Lama's visa expired after six months, she demanded more money from him to extend the visa.
"This was blackmail and I wasn't going to give in to it," recalls Lama, whose face takes on the determined look of a fighter. "But I could not change employers because Israeli government regulations for foreign workers do not permit it."
So Lama continued to work illegally for the disabled woman. He was arrested by the immigration police on a Jerusalem street and spent the night in Ramle prison. He was released on $1,000 bail, which he paid himself, and was ordered to leave the country.
"I had heard from friends about the marvellous things that Kav LaOved can do for foreign workers," says Lama. "So I took my case to them and they were able to have the expulsion order put on hold until after my court case against the Interior Ministry."
Lama's nightmare ended in December when Israel 's Interior Ministry agreed to extend his visa even though he had changed employers. The decision came before the judge could rule on Lama's case in the Jerusalem Magistrates Court following a petition by Kav-LaOved.
Together with New Israel Fund grantees Hotline for Migrant Workers in Israel and Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Kav LaOved scored an even greater legal victory at the end of March when Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government to formulate new arrangements for foreign workers. In particular, the justices condemned the regulation that migrant workers can only receive work visas with a specific employer stamped in their passport, and are then unable to change employers. Justice Michael Cheshin labelled this practice "a modern version of slavery."
Dr. Yuval Livnat, head of Kav LaOved's Legal Department, who handled Lama's case, explains that his organisation has only had the resources to help 60 or 70 migrant workers a year in Lama's position, although it also helps hundreds more who have major salary claims against employers. "But following the Supreme Court ruling," he adds, "we hope Lama's situation will soon become a thing of the past for all foreign workers in Israel." After Lama's court victory in December he found work with a new employer, a disabled man confined to a wheelchair. "Good Israelis have helped me and now the future looks bright again."
Cooking Up a Better Future
Rimon Ajami is a flamboyant, larger-than-life character whose reputation as a talented caterer is growing rapidly. But two years ago the 55-year-old Jerusalemite was destitute, as bailiffs impounded her belongings after her husband's business went bankrupt. A New Israel Fund economic empowerment course set her back on the road to financial solvency and restored her dignity.
"When I see the poor lining up for Pesach hand-outs," says Rimon Ajami. "I think, 'That could so easily have been me.'
For the first Pesach in years Ajami is earning a living. She is one of 20 graduates of the Women Cook Up Businesses course conceived and run by Yosepha Tabib with New Israel Fund's Yaffa London Ya'ari Scholarship. Ajami heard about the course back in 2004. "I was going crazy," recalled Ajami. "My life was in ruins. I had returned from Holland where I'd worked as an artist for 20 years, to marry Shmuel my husband. He had a successful infrastructure building business. But his failing eyesight from glaucoma meant that his business started collapsing around him. He was deep in debt and the bailiffs came to our apartment and seized all our furniture, including items belonging to me.
Our daughter Sara asked me in the morning why she had heard me screaming at people during the night not to take our belongings. Do you know what it is like for a child to wake up in the morning and find the TV and furniture gone?"
At her wit's end, Ajami spoke to a neighbour who works for former New Israel Fund grantee Kol Ha'Isha: Jerusalem Women's Centre, which was running the Women Cook Up Businesses course with New Israel Fund grantee Sister for Women in Israel. "She was an angel," Ajami recalls. "We talked through my problems and when she discovered I liked cooking, she suggested I take the Women Cook Up Businesses course."
The yearlong course included economic and personal empowerment components as well as cooking classes, and for their first year in business; the women were accompanied by business experts. Ajami swept the course organisers off her feet with an array of unique vegetarian dishes adapted from classic Mizrachi Jewish cuisine. "I only eat kosher," she explained, "and during my years in Holland it wasn't always easy to get hold of kosher meat so I improvised with vegetarian substitutes."
With a modest income, Ajami is now planning for the future. "I'd like to rent a larger apartment and use this small place as my kitchen," she says.
Economic empowerment is a central strategy of New Israel Fund and SHATIL in their efforts to advance the status of Israel 's disadvantaged populations. A second Women Cook Up Businesses course is now being run in Jerusalem.
United As Neighbours
Sami Nahmias, 71, has maintained close ties with the Arabs of the Sheikh Saed village near Jerusalem since childhood. He grew up on the story of how Ahmed Saed saved the Nahmias family's stolen furniture nearly 80 years ago and has a close friendship with one of Ahmed's grandsons.
Sami Nahmias (right) celebrates with the elders of Sheikh Saed following the ruling to change the route of the Fence.
Now, Nahmias has been involved in saving the entire village following last month's ruling in the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court ordering the Israeli government to redraw the route of the Security Fence. The original planned route ran through Jabel Mukaber in southeast Jerusalem, cutting it off from the Sheikh Saed neighbourhood to the east, which is in the West Bank outside city limits.
Local Arabs and their Jewish neighbours petitioned the court, aided by advice and financial assistance from New Israel Fund and SHATIL. They were inspired by the successful court action in 2004 of a group of Jewish residents of Mevasseret Zion and their Arab neighbours in Bet Sorik, which was also supported by New Israel Fund.
"I still live in the home in Talpiot that my grandparents abandoned in 1929 during the Arab riots," recounts Nahmias. "Sheikh Saed saw Arabs from another village stealing our property. He alerted the British police who returned the stolen items to my grandfather."
Nahmias has frequently visited the Saed family and their community over the years. "There are nearly 1,000 people in Sheikh Saed today," said Nahmias. "Their schools, health and other services and jobs are in Jerusalem. If the Wall had been built west of Sheikh Saed the neighbourhood could not function".
Government Asks SHATIL's Help in Implementing New Law
In a precedent-setting move, the State Comptroller's office called SHATIL in March to ask for help in implementing the Crime Victims' Rights Law.
An initiative of the SHATIL-initiated and coordinated Coalition for the Promotion of Crime Victims' Rights, the law passed the Knesset in 2001. It took another four years to get the government to write the regulations needed to implement the law. The regulations passed the Knesset in 2005 but the law has yet to be implemented.
Coalition Coordinator Shlomit Asheri is thrilled. "This is an important precedent," she said. "I don't know of any other instance in which the State Comptroller initiated an investigation to see if a law has been implemented. The new State Comptroller, Judge Micha Lindenstrauss, has a very active approach – something new in this office."
Cooperation between a civil society organisation and one arm of the state to pressure another arm of the state is testimony to the respect in which the government holds SHATIL .
"The government is sending a clear message that it sees itself as responsible for the implementation of this law," Shlomit said. "I'm happy that the State Comptroller sees the Coalition and SHATIL as his partners."
In Israel, getting civil and human rights laws passed, though very difficult, is just half the battle. The hard part is the implementation. "The Coalition is cooperating with the State Comptroller," Shlomit said. "Our goal is the publication of a report by the State Comptroller's office showing that the police, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Attorney's Office and the Justice Department are not implementing the law. We will also petition the relevant Knesset committees immediately after the 17th Knesset begins meeting, and demand that they hold deliberations on the implementation of the law."
The law gives crime victims legal standing from which stem all his or her other rights, such as the right to information about the perpetrator and the right to speak at the trial not just as a witness.
Shlomit explains: "Say a woman is raped and the perpetrator is caught. Before this law, the victim could only be called as a witness in the trial to state the facts. We wanted the judge to also hear how this rape affected her life, her ability to work, her family, her emotional and psychological state."
While the victim is legally entitled to these rights, in reality it doesn't happen. Neither the police nor the courts inform victims of their new legal rights, and most people don't know the law exists, according to the Coalition.
The Coalition is now trying to have psychological counselling and financial reparations written into the law. Shlomit says she thinks there is a greater chance to get these aspects into the law now that the newly elected government is friendlier to social issues.
The eight-year-old Coalition for the Promotion of Crime Victims' Rights consists of seven organisations, including Na'amat, the Israeli Women's Network, the National Council for the Child and Bizchut: Centre for Human Rights for Persons with Disabilities, and focuses mainly on violent crimes.
Everett Fellows Tour Unrecognised Bedouin Villages
On 10th March, the Everett Fellows for Social Justice, a Shatil project in which students receive fellowships and work as interns for social change organisations Israel, toured Wadi el Na'am, one of 46 unrecognised Bedouin villages in the Negev. They had their eyes opened to an issue many in Israel don't even see: 76,000 citizens of Israel who live in abject poverty without electricity, running water, roads, sewage lines and medical clinics.The 50 fellows saw first-hand what life is like in these villages: they have no electricity except from generators, no clinics except for one built by volunteers, which remains unstaffed; no paved roads; no services of any kind – and no real roofs on the shacks so that they won't be considered illegal.
"The unrecognised villages are not on the map," said Kinneret Milgrom, a Be'er Sheva University student of anthropology, sociology and gender studies and an Everett Fellow at Physicians for Human Rights. "There are no street signs, no public transportation. We turned off the road and drove through rocks and sand and dust for 10 minutes until we got to Wadi el Na'am. Our host, Najib Abu Araybeh, led us into the sheeg, a traditional meeting place usually reserved for men, where he presented the situation of the Bedouin. While the Israeli government wants the population of the unrecognised villages to move to one of seven towns it has created for Bedouin in the Negev, the villagers say they want to continue living an agricultural life. Najib told us: 'We want to be able to herd our sheep, to live close to the earth as we always have. The country is trying to urbanize us, but we believe we have the right to choose how we live.'"
The Everett Fellowships give students a chance to gain hands-on experience by working on the front lines of social justice efforts in Israel and to broaden their knowledge of social issues in the country. It's a win/win project: Understaffed social change organisations get much needed staffing and students interested in social change work get hands-on experience in the field, creating a cadre of young leaders in the social change arena.
Against All Odds – Empowering Arab Women
We bring you the seventh program in New Israel Fund's Against All Odds series. This programme featured Aida Touma-Suliman, Executive Director of veteran New Israel Fund grantee Women Against Violence (WAV), which established the first shelters for women in Israel's Arab sector and has pioneered the fight against domestic violence in Arab society. In the programme she reveals details of a recent survey, which showed that 30% of Israeli Arabs "understand" reasons for murdering a woman to protect family honour.
View the program with English subtitles.
Against All Odds – Gay Pride in the Holy City
We bring you the eighth programme in New Israel Fund's Against All Odds series. This programme featured Hagai El-Ad, Executive Director of former New Israel Fund grantee Jerusalem Open House, which provides a venue for the city's gay community and offers assistance to Jerusalem's gays and lesbians who come from all sectors of the city's population. El-Ad abandoned postgraduate studies in astrophysics at Harvard to found Jerusalem Open House, which has become Israel 's largest gay organisation. He has also been instrumental in initiating Jerusalem 's annual Gay Pride Parade and the World Pride Parade, which will take place in Jerusalem this summer.
View the program with English subtitles.
Message from Alan Bolchover, New Israel Fund UK Chief Executive
Here's a suggestion. A Seder service on Yom Ha'atzmaut in addition to the Seder we have on Pesach.
Crazy? Read on…
People of all ages and diverse backgrounds spend hours at the Pesach Seder discussing the meaning of freedom and liberation in a multiplicity of formats. Perhaps the time has come to create a Haggadah that will allow us to gather at a Yom Ha'atzmaut Seder in order to celebrate, to debate, to sing, to learn, to dream. A time to seriously grapple with the meaning of Israel in our time. The new questions and truths that have emerged may then yield the new meanings and the renewed connection that the State of Israel deserves.
It is my growing belief that Yom Ha'atzmaut should not just be seen as a cheesy celebration at our local community centre. In fact so much more could be gained if we reconceived it as a day of searching for the meaning of the State of Israel, our Jewish identity and our Jewish vision.
For some, Israel represents the dawning of our redemption - while for others; Israel has no religious meaning whatsoever.
Some might think it unfair to judge Israel by prophetic standards and demand that it be "holier than thou." At the same time it would be an act of betrayal of our Jewish legacy not to hope and expect that Israel would seek to implement the dreams and aspirations of our past and the highest values of Judaism.
For some, Israel must be a light unto the nations . For others Israel should be no different . Must Israel remain a Jewish state (after all there is only one Jewish state) implying some exclusion of its non-Jewish citizens or become a state of all its citizens (since Israel has never achieved being Jewish and fully democratic)? Imagine a day where thousands upon thousands of Jews join in study, discussion and debate, in either Beit Midrash or town meeting style. Imagine the crossing of boundaries secular-religious, Ashkenazi-Sephardi, Jewish-Palestinian, right-left.
Imagine the creativity that could be unleashed by bringing together businessmen, artists, social activists, scientists, intellectuals and students…
It will certainly bring us closer to Israel. It might even bring us closer together as people.
Thank you for your continued support.
