40 Rabbis Plan Shavuot Vigil for Detained Africans
Image by Haaretz
More than 40 rabbis from all streams of Judaism will hold a prayer vigil and pre-Shavuot study session at the Holot detention center for African immigrants.
The program, organized by leaders in Rabbis for Human Rights, and supported by the New Israel Fund, was scheduled for Wednesday outside the open-detention facility in the Negev Desert.
The event was scheduled, according to organizers, “to mark Shavuot, our turning point from freed slaves to a nation in covenant with God, by demanding that Israel honor our most commanded mitzvah,” citing Leviticus 19:33-34 which calls on Jews to love the stranger.
The date also was chosen because 12 of the detainees are facing immediate deportation, according to Haaretz.
Rabbi Nava Hefetz, educational director of Rabbis for Human Rights, and Rabbi Susan Silverman, planned the vigil.
”God repeated the commandment to protect the stranger at least thirty-six times because it’s a really hard thing to do. Now that we are in our own land, it is something that takes real faith in God, and embracing discomfort — in a way that keeping kosher or Shabbat does not. But it is the real test of the Jewish soul. In that way, the refugees hold up a mirror to our inner character. And they give us an opportunity to rise to our highest selves,” the organizers wrote in promoting the event.
Some 42,000 Eritrean and Sudanese citizens are living in Israel, with 2,000 in the Holot detention facility, where residents are required to check in twice a day. Many have made their home in south Tel Aviv.
Israel has granted official refugee status to just four of more than 5,500 official asylum seekers.
Over 9,000 African migrants have left Israel in the last two years in voluntary departures, according to Haaretz. The Israeli government provided them with airplane tickets and grants.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
