(JTA) — A Democratic congressional delegation that met this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the release of African asylum seekers being held in an Israeli prison. In a letter Tuesday that originated in the office of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, 11 Democrats said they met with representatives of asylum seekers who…
In late February, the Jewish Agency joined a long list of groups opposed to Israel’s deportation of African asylum-seekers. Its board urged that Israel should grant legal status to 500 young people who had grown up in Israel and asked Jerusalem to ensure that “every migrant has an opportunity to apply for asylum and receive…
In the basement of a synagogue in Jerusalem, almost 100 people have turned out on a cold and rainy January night to hear about what they can do to help African asylum-seekers in Israel who are in danger of being deported. The point of the gathering is to sign up families, many of them English-speaking…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel began the process of serving deportation notices to African refugees from Eritrea and Sudan. The notices started being distributed on Sunday, according to reports. The first notices will be issued to single men without children, a total of about 20,000 men. The men, who have to renew their residence visas every…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros of funding the widespread public campaign against the Israeli government’s plan to deport thousands of African migrants and asylum-seekers. Netanyahu made his remarks during a meeting of ministers from his Likud party, according to Israel’s Channel 10. Netanyahu was reportedly responding to Science…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, likened African migrants in Israel to the “Dreamers” at the heart of a contentious U.S. immigration debate and suggested that deporting them would make Israel appear racist. “African refugees, who seem like the Dreamers in the U.S. — young people who by dint of…
(JTA) — A fossil found in Israel indicates modern humans may have left Africa as much as 100,000 years earlier than previously thought. Scientists say that an ancient upper jawbone and associated stone tools could also mean that Homo sapiens, modern humans, arose in Africa far earlier than fossils now show, according to a study…
A group of Israeli rabbis, including the sister of comedian Sarah Silverman, cited Anne Frank as inspiration for a program calling on Israelis to hide African asylum seekers facing forced expulsion from Israel in their homes. The Anne Frank Home Sanctuary movement hopes to assist the near 40,000 African asylum seekers predominately from Eritrea and…
