Seeking Refuge Behind a Blue Door in Neve Shaanan

By Daniel Cherrin

On the Neve Sha’anan pedestrian mall, between the old and the new Central Bus Stations, there is a blue metal door. This unmarked door conceals a shelter housing Sudanese refugees from Darfur.

Until very recently, between 80-100 Darfuri men lived in the 5-room shelter at any given time. The shelter was, for most, an intermediate stop between prison and a rented apartment.

In mid-September, however, immigration police arrested several residents of the shelter. Hamed, a Darfuri refugee himself who has been running the shelter since March, decided to evacuate it, in order to protect its residents from deportation or incarceration.

Many of the residents are now scattered around the city, or have left for other cities, such as Ashdod, where there is factory work to be found and a local community of refugees from Darfur. The few that remain in the shelter are teenage students and a few wounded adults.

Even before the evacuation, the shelter had difficulty paying its bills and was in constant danger of being closed down. But the residents managed to scrape by, with everyone pitching in the little they had to cover expenses.

A few months ago, another large shelter across from the Old Central Bus Station was closed. This shelter was the first one that we visited, way back in February 2008. Back then, hundreds of people were living in the building. People were sleeping on staircases, and the dozens of boxes of food that we brought were not enough to feed everyone.

These refugees are not economic immigrants; they have been driven out of their homeland by war and conflict. These shelters provide them with some sense of stability, so that they can go out and look for work and better housing in the frenetic metropolis that is Tel Aviv.

These photos reflect the life that existed in the shelter, before and after its occupants were forced to leave.

Daniel Cherrin is a photographer/filmmaker, activist and cofounder of Fugee Fridays. He can be contacted at nooshguy@gmail.com.

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From War-Torn Sudan to a Tiny Classroom in South Tel Aviv

The Educational Challenges Facing Newly Arrived Refugees

by David Oppenheim

When African refugees began piling into Israel in greater numbers during late 2007, it was a story I followed with only a passing interest.

At a Shabbat dinner party, I came across a Tel Aviv University grad student who mentioned she was collecting clothes for the refugees and their children. I began to inquire more about the situation, and offered my help. She put me in touch with a friend of hers connected with the ARDC, the African Refugee Development Center, and I agreed to come teach English once a week at their shelter.

I traveled to Shapira, one of south Tel Aviv’s most dejected neighborhoods, where I was shocked upon arriving at the “shelter” – a three-bedroom apartment housing over 20 inhabitants. One of the bedrooms, a small, unairconditioned space with a table and chairs, was allotted as a “classroom” for the kids.

Here, a group of 10-15 kids of varying ages, backgrounds and education levels were given an irregular schedule of classes by volunteers, some qualified and others (like me) unqualified to teach. Nevertheless, the kids craved any opportunity to learn whatever their teachers could teach them. Contrary to my expectations, both the students and the parents displayed a remarkably high value for education.

To add to the difficulties, all the kids and none of the teachers spoke Arabic. Using a few students who had been in Israel for a few months as translators, a classroom environment was created using a mix of Hebrew, English and Arabic.

Studying in the shelter also posed challenges. Eight year old kids cannot effectively focus with crying babies heard through the wall, and knowing that their mother is just around the corner. In the following weeks, students brought their notebooks and pens and followed me to a nearby park where they instinctively kicked aside used needles (a trademark of the neighborhood) to sit on the hot cement and listen attentively to their teacher.

I believe that there are several relevant points that the Israeli public needs to understand about these African refugees living in their midst.

The kids and their families have left war-torn Sudan and persecution of the sort Jews faced in Nazi Germany to make it to Israel. Many of them have lost relatives en route. These children have post-traumatic stress of the kind that requires attention by appropriate professionals is common.

These kids are now living in economically depressed communities in South Tel Aviv. As they grow up, they are exposed to the influence of the drug dealers and pimps working in their neighborhood. I particularly fear for the fate of the young girls to whom I taught the alphabet.

In September, the kids were absorbed into a few schools in the area. These schools are ill-equipped to deal with the concentration of students likely to have residual problems from the trauma they have experienced.

Additionally, the students have not been in an educational environment for years. They will not be academically on par with native Israeli students their age. The refugee pupils need to be spread out amongst Israeli schools to improve their access to needed resources and encourage integration, rather than ghettoization.

The ARDC is not an established organization with appropriate budgets. It is an unorganized team of volunteers with only a few full time staff members. The intentions of everyone involved are sincere, but real resources urgently need to be made available to help these families in need.

In a nation like Israel, which is founded on the ashes of the Holocaust, more needs to be done to help with the refugees who now live among us. These families have been through a recent trauma which can be compared to that of Holocaust survivors, and are living inside Israel’s borders today. Israelis and Jews have a unique responsibility to do more in caring for the African refugee population in Israel.

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