Israel, Country of Refuge?
A Sudanese refugee at Yad Vashem. Image by Getty Images
Crossposted from Haaretz
A Sudanese refugee at Yad Vashem. Image by Getty Images
“The issue of refugees is not foreign to us; not to Jews, and not to the State of Israel,” says award-winning filmmaker Shai Carmeli-Polak. Shai’s documentary, “Ha’plitim,” (The refugees) seeks to expose the moral and legal questions underlying refugee status in Israel.
The film follows African asylum-seekers as they cross the Egypt-Israel border to escape life-threatening conditions, and won the Bronze Olive Award at the Montenegro International TV Festival in 2009. Shai captures their arrival and detention in Israel, interspersed with scenes of parliamentary debates surrounding Israel’s policies on refugees.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
