This is taken from the Deform "Zionst" Youth Movement's webpage. This is disgusting. I first heard about it a few years ago. I guess they do it every year now. It reminds me of how Liberals in the US compare the blacks on the Underground Railroad escaping slavery to the Jews in the Bible. You can't compare it. We came out of Egypt to be Bnei Horin. Blacks were freed to be Chofshi'im (Free of anything.) with no purpose and we saw how that worked out for them. Jews were freed to serve G-d. To compare the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt to Sudanese infiltrators is like comparing the Holocaust to other mass killings. The Holocaust is a unique genocide in the World that wiped out a large segment of the entire Jewish People. Africans killing each other is not comparable at all.
"Refugee Seder In South Tel Aviv"
Written By Nicci Shall
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Living in South Tel Aviv, you see lots of different things going on in the Levinsky Park, right next to the infamously confusing and downtrodden Central Bus Station. On Tuesdays there is refugee football and sometimes there is Yair (a wonderful Israeli on shnat Netzer) playing guitar with his friend from Sudan.
More often then not there is a large variety of drunkards and an equally large variety of children playing in the playground. Forty tables, four hundred chairs and enough cheap crystal fizzy drink to go round is one of the rarer sights. But by 1pm on Friday the 3rd of April the basketball court in the park had been transformed into a seder of new proportions. Over 500 guests gathered to focus not only on the Jewish exile from Egypt but also on the experiences of 17 000 asylum seekers and refugees living in Israel today, many of whom also arrived in Israel through the Egyptian border.
And despite losing severe amounts of sleep over when there would be time to paint the post box, this ‘Out of Egypt’ Refugee Seder was definitely the most relevant way to mark the anniversary of ancient Jewish emancipation. Painting the said post box (necessary to collect letters addressed to the Ministry of the Interior asking for a fairer treatment of asylum seekers in Israel) was but one of the many tasks that filled the days of the shnatties living in Tel Aviv in the week before the seder. Another job involved handing out multiple fliers to everyone and thing that could walk or move - including a dog.
Although it was a Friday and there had been a late birthday celebration the night before, most Netzerniks still managed to arrive in the Levinsky Park by 10 am, in time for the construction of the pyramids that gave the whole scene a surreal and slightly bizarre appearance.
You could hear the 4 questions, the Christian gospel and ‘Hinei matov u manyim’ throughout the area, even in the most desolate corner of the central bus station where I was meeting some people from the Southern Machon to bring them to the festivities. People all around were wondering why there were over 500 people in the basketball court in Levinsky Park reading prayers in Tigrinya (Eritrean language), French, English, Hebrew. Music followed the meal. It was noticeable that more people were taking photos during the Ambassadors’ performance. This can probably be explained by the fact that the drummer, Elise, from the Ivory Coast is very possibly one of the best looking people in the whole world.
My personal role involved running around taking photos of everyone and anyone who would write their name on one of the Amnesty white boards with the ‘because we were strangers slogan’. We managed to take over 300 photographs to contribute to the photo petition I have been organizing as part of my Shnat B’Ir placement. We are calling for the Israeli government to establish a clear, fair and efficient refugee determination policy. By linking our Jewish refugee history to that of contemporary refugees and asylum seekers we are targeting people both from the diaspora and from Israel.
I honestly don’t think there is a cause more fitting to the reform movement: our Jewish education leads us to be responsible for those in need, from Hillel to Tikun Olam. Reform Zionist values drive us to want to improve Israel to make it a place to love and be proud of. I am confident that most reform Zionists want to be associated with an Israel that ‘uphold(s) the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race’ as was stated in the declaration of Independence in 1948. This is precisely what we are trying to achieve by improving the situation in Israel for the asylum seeker and refugee populations.
The highlight for me was seeing a wiry a little ten year old from Eritrea watching the bands with his usual cheeky glint in his eye. He is one of the children living in the ARDC family shelter who some of the Netzer group take to a nearby park twice a week where we are either under attack or stopping them from attacking each other. Until very recently he had been in a psychiatric hospital because he had tried to commit suicide. According to Yotam, one of the big bosses at the ARDC (African Refugee Development Centre) he has one of the worst stories imaginable.
Of course the seder didn’t solve his problems; neither did it succeed in changing Israel’s policy towards refugees and asylum seekers. However, we did get over 250 photos for the photo petition and the same number of letters signed addressed to the Israeli Minister of the Interior, and that is definitely something. It’s rare to see so many Israelis and asylum seekers in the same place at the same time having so much fun, handing out food, and working on stalls together.
By next year - let’s hope there will be a governmental policy to improve the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. If you want to take part in the photo petition, you just need to write your name, age and home country with ‘because we were strangers’ and email it to
[email protected]
Topic: Deform "Zionist" Youth Movement Compares Passover With "Sudanese Exodus" (Read 492 times)