Asylum-seekers Detained in Israel’s Desert from Jewish Daily Forward on Vimeo. (Reuters) — Israel’s high court on Monday outlawed a detention center where African migrants are held without trial and ordered some 2,000 inmates there released over the next three months. The ruling struck down a measure passed by Israel’s parliament in December to indefinitely incarcerate…
Israel has illegally coerced nearly 7,000 Eritrean and Sudanese nationals into returning to their home countries, where they risk serious abuse, Human Rights Watch said. Returning Sudanese have faced torture, arbitrary detention and treason charges in Sudan for setting foot in Israel, according to a report released Tuesday by the international human rights group. “Israeli…
From whence my nostalgia for the fourth matzo? A relic of the 1980s, the fourth matzo was added to the already crowded Seder plate as an expression of solidarity with oppressed Jews in the Soviet Union. In most homes, when the ’80s ended and Glasnost took off, the fourth matzo went the way of Betamax,…
One doesn’t expect to see a mezuzah outside a restaurant in the midst of a bustling Harlem street. The block of 116th street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard is lined with bodegas, hardware stores and soul food spots. But upon closer inspection the embellished clay ornament at the light blue store front of Silvana, a café…
Demonstrators in Nairobi, Kenya rally against wave of anti-gay legislation in Africa. Getty Images. The ancient rabbi Hillel famously asked: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” I feel it is important to answer the first two questions…
The shiva period of mourning for Anne Heyman has only just ended, but the American philanthropist’s heartbroken family is already taking concrete steps to make sure her legacy of caring for orphans of Rwanda’s genocide never dies. Heyman’s 19-year-old son, Jonathan Merrin, journeyed to Africa for a month-long stint at the unique youth village Heyman…
The first utility-scale solar power field in East Africa will be built on land belonging to a Jewish-sponsored youth village in Rwanda. The nearly $24 million project was announced Monday by Yosef Abramowitz, the president of Gigawatt Global Cooperatief, which arranged for its financing. Construction has already started on the solar field on land belonging…
An array of U.S. Jewish groups urged Israel’s government to introduce refugee asylum reforms, saying that a major holding facility was indistinguishable from a jail. The letter sent Wednesday to the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that Israeli authorities have ordered asylum seekers to move to the Holot facility in Israel’s south. “While…
