{"id":1468,"date":"2021-10-27T12:57:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T09:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/assafv2.wpengine.com\/?p=1468"},"modified":"2021-11-14T10:29:56","modified_gmt":"2021-11-14T07:29:56","slug":"no-status-no-future-the-life-of-a-child-asylum-seeker-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/assaf.org.il\/en\/no-status-no-future-the-life-of-a-child-asylum-seeker-in-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"No status, no future: The life of a child asylum seeker in Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tel Aviv, Israel \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0When Yonas Kidane* was born in a hospital just south of Tel Aviv eight years ago, his parents were given a light-blue piece of paper. On it was his name, the name of his mother, and his date and place of birth. But it was more notable for what was not there \u2013 an ID number that is given to all Israeli residents and citizens.<\/p>\n

His parents could go to the Ministry of Interior to obtain an official birth certificate but, without an ID number, it wouldn\u2019t do much for him.<\/p>\n

he Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education would later give Yonas separate ID numbers to use when obtaining health insurance or starting school, but Yonas has never had a cohesive legal identity and he won\u2019t until he is at least 16.<\/p>\n

The reason for this is that the Israeli government considers Yonas\u2019s family \u201cinfiltrators\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fleeing Eritrea<\/h2>\n

Thirty-six-year-old Tesfay* and 29-year-old Winta Kidane*, Yonas\u2019s parents, live in a cosy two-bedroom apartment in south Tel Aviv\u2019s Hatikvah neighbourhood. On its walls are family photos, posters commemorating their two children\u2019s baptisms, and images of Jesus.<\/p>\n

From their narrow kitchen, Winta produces beers, snacks and a generous dish of Eritrean adas (lentils) served over injera (flatbread), along with a staccato laugh for every joke her husband shares with their Israeli neighbour who has come along to translate for us.<\/p>\n

But the mood shifts from light-hearted to something more solemn as Tesfay and Winta share their stories. They are not dissimilar to those of other Eritreans, who today make up 71 percent of Israel\u2019s approximately 31,000 asylum seekers, according to October 2020 figures from the Population and Immigration Authority.<\/p>\n

In August 2008, Tesfay was a conscripted soldier in the Eritrean army when Winta, pregnant with their first child, fell sick. She sent an urgent letter asking him to visit her. His base was a day\u2019s travel away. He asked for permission to leave, but was refused.<\/p>\n

Tesfay was 24 at the time and had already been in the army for more than five years. Army service in Eritrea is mandatory, indefinite, harsh and low-paying. \u201cIn Eritrea, you can\u2019t think for yourself, work for yourself, or do whatever you want,\u201d Tesfay explained.<\/p>\n

Concerned about his wife\u2019s health, he snuck out of the base to visit her. But he was caught and taken to a police station where he says he was beaten. He tried to escape from the station but was caught again. From there, he was transferred from one military prison to another. He was beaten, tortured and prevented from showering, he says. He soon became infested with lice.<\/p>\n

When Tesfay was transported to a prison near the border with Ethiopia, he saw an opportunity to escape. He managed to make his way across the border to a refugee camp. A few months later, back in Eritrea, Winta gave birth to their son, Sheshy*.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really tough,\u201d said Winta of that time. When Tesfay fled, the army arrested her. But she was released after a month because she was just 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to cross the border, too,\u201d she explained. \u201cBut in the village, they didn\u2019t want me to go because other people were supposed to go first.\u201d More than 12 percent of Eritrea\u2019s population has\u00a0fled<\/a>\u00a0the country, with villages organising measures to determine who can discreetly leave, and when.<\/p>\n

So, during her pregnancy and after her son was born, she worked on her family\u2019s farm to provide for herself, her baby and her widowed mother.<\/p>\n

From Ethiopia to Israel<\/h2>\n

After nearly a year in the refugee camp, Tesfay managed to get enough money from a cousin who was already in Israel to pay smugglers $3,400 to transport him from Ethiopia across Sudan and Egypt to Israel.<\/p>\n

With 19 others, he squeezed into the back of a pick-up truck driving at 140km\/h (87 mph). If anyone fell out, \u201cthat\u2019s it. They\u2019re done,\u201d said Tesfay. They travelled like that for five days. He recalls how the smugglers put petrol in their water so that they wouldn\u2019t drink it too quickly.<\/p>\n

Others have endured the journey by camel or foot \u2013 sometimes against their will. Eritreans have been frequently kidnapped for ransom in and around refugee camps in Egypt and Sudan, as well as on the journey to Israel and subsequently held by smugglers in Egypt\u2019s Sinai Peninsula. They were sometimes tortured and abused as they waited for their families \u2013 who often avoided undertaking the journey together for this reason \u2013 to pay tens of thousands of dollars in ransoms.<\/p>\n

According to the Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel (ASSAF), there are some 4,000 African asylum seekers in the country \u2013 more than one in eight \u2013 who were victims of torture in the Sinai Peninsula. Approximately 500 of them have been recognised as such by the state and offered psychological rehabilitation and care. The 3,500 others have not.<\/p>\n

Before Tesfay\u2019s caravan could cross the Israeli border on foot, they were intercepted by Egyptian soldiers. \u201cThe Egyptians fired at us, and my friend was hit three times in the leg and thigh,\u201d said Tesfay. \u201cWe expected it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the period of extended African migration into Israel from 2006 to 2012, until a fence was erected along Israel\u2019s southern border, asylum seekers were frequently shot at by Egyptian soldiers crossing the border, as a part of its \u201cshoot-to-stop\u201d policy.<\/p>\n

\n

But, after a five-day journey, Tesfay and his friend made it across the Israeli border on January 20, 2010. Wary and dehydrated in the desert, they spotted Israeli soldiers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouted to the Israeli soldiers anything we could in Arabic, Hebrew, or English \u2013 \u2018Shalom! We are here!\u2019\u201d recalled Tesfay.<\/p>\n

The soldiers took them to a nearby military base where they were given food and water before they were taken to a detention facility. There, the immigration officials asked him why he came to Israel. Tesfay told them he came to seek asylum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018No, give us another reason. You don\u2019t want to say that here.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that moment, I already realised that it might be a problem here,\u201d he said. \u201cThis might not be the best place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reunited<\/h2>\n

Israel was an original signee to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which was created initially to protect mostly Jewish refugees after World War II, and its 1967 Protocol, which mandates that no person claiming asylum should be returned to a country where they likely face danger or persecution.<\/p>\n

This principle of nonrefoulement, fundamental to international law, mostly prevented Israel from deporting asylum seekers. But while about\u00a070 percent<\/a>\u00a0of Eritrean asylum applications are accepted in Europe, the Israeli government refused to even begin processing the claims of Eritrean asylum seekers until 2013.<\/p>\n

After 40 days in the detention facility, Tesfay was released with a temporary one-month permit to stay, which later evolved after 2015\u2019s Anti-Infiltration Law amendment to be the 2A5 visa. Israel\u00a0maintains<\/a>\u00a0a \u201ctemporary delay of deportation\u201d policy for Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers. Under this \u201cconditional release\u201d visa, there is a pending deportation order for each asylum seeker, which has merely been delayed. When the asylum seekers first arrived, they would have to renew it every one to four months. Today, it is typically every six to nine months.<\/p>\n

Tesfay went to stay with a cousin living in the port city of Ashdod and found work as a gardener. His visa noted specifically that it was \u201cnot a working permit\u201d, a declaration that remained printed on the visa even after a January 2011 Israeli High Court ruling nullified its enforcement of a work ban (PDF<\/a>). Though they are permitted to work in the private sector, at times this confusion disrupts an asylum seeker\u2019s ability to find official work.<\/p>\n

After a year, he had saved enough money to send for Winta and Sheshy, who was two years old and yet to meet his father. In 2012, mother and son fled Eritrea, joining a caravan of 48 people on three pick-up trucks heading for Israel. The journey took a month and a half as the route Tesfay had taken was now blocked by the Egyptian authorities.<\/p>\n

When they finally arrived in Israel, they spent three weeks in a detention facility before being released. \u201cIt was so exciting to reunite with [Tesfay],\u201d said Winta.<\/p>\n

The husband and wife found factory work in the city of Sderot, leaving two-year-old Sheshy with an Israeli babysitter. After a year, and shortly before the birth of their second child, Yonas, they moved to Tel Aviv, seeking community and more affordable childcare options.<\/p>\n

In Tel Aviv, Tesfay began working in a restaurant kitchen and Winta managed to stay at home with the children for seven months \u2013 much longer than most mothers in Israel\u2019s Eritrean community are able to.<\/p>\n

Asylum seekers are not eligible to receive maternity leave benefits. Under their temporary permit, they are not entitled to practically any form of social welfare benefits from the Israeli government, including paid sick leave and unemployment benefits.<\/p>\n

Despite rarely earning more than the minimum wage of 5,300 shekels ($1,629) per month \u2013 and for those working off the books, often less \u2013 asylum seekers are not offered the tax relief afforded to low-income Israelis.<\/p>\n

One of the few benefits the children of asylum seekers are entitled to is health insurance, which costs their parents 120 shekels (about $35) a month. About 70 percent of the children of asylum seekers are insured, according to Tel Aviv\u2019s municipality.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s up to us babysitters\u2019<\/h2>\n

Until last year, Vivian Kublan, who is in her forties, was one of a network of unlicensed babysitters in south Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

In 2002, she and her family fled civil war in what would later become South Sudan.<\/p>\n

Winta and Tesfay decided to send their children to Vivian on weekdays to be cared for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were good people,\u201d said Tesfay. \u201cEven if you couldn\u2019t pay money, they would still help you. They were doing it from their heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quiet moments were rare in Vivian\u2019s apartment. From early in the morning, there would be 15 babies and toddlers in the dimly lit playroom lined with cribs and children\u2019s chairs. Later in the afternoon, Vivian\u2019s oldest son, Sonny, would bring older children from the local municipal schools, who would stay until late in the evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the women have two or three kids without a husband,\u201d Vivian explained as she held a crying baby. \u201cShe needs to work the long hours for her kids. So it is up to us babysitters to take care of the children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gina is from Madagascar and runs a babysitting service from her small one-storey home in the Shapira neighbourhood of Tel Aviv. With a back yard that is partially sheltered by a tarp and a donated chalkboard and games for the children to play with, it is considered one of the nicest in the community.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t leave a baby at 5:30am and come back at 8pm,\u201d she explained, holding a sleeping baby in her arms. \u201cIt\u2019s the most horrible thing I\u2019ve ever seen. But they have no choice. They have to put food on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unable to access most well-paying jobs, asylum seekers often have to work long hours just to survive.<\/p>\n

In 2017, the Knesset passed the Deposit Law, the Israeli government\u2019s latest effort to encourage \u201cvoluntary deportation\u201d. In addition to paying normal taxes, the Deposit Law forced asylum seekers to deposit 20 percent of their earnings into a private bank account they can only access when they leave the country. It also required employers to deposit an additional 16 percent into the account, which resulted in about 15 to 20 percent of asylum seekers\u00a0losing<\/a>\u00a0their jobs.<\/p>\n

This led to what some aid workers called a \u201cstarving period\u201d, with spikes in chronic food insecurity among asylum seekers. Parents who didn\u2019t lose their jobs would have to work all day and into the night to get by, sometimes without days off.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the parents are working so much, the kids get no attention,\u201d said Gina. \u201cThey\u2019ll cry and cry and no parent will be there for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the pandemic temporarily cut the number of babysitters in half, as many parents lost their jobs, there were approximately 85 unlicensed childcare providers in Tel Aviv looking after approximately 1,500 children, according to estimates from Mesila, the municipality\u2019s aid, treatment and information centre for migrant workers and refugees.<\/p>\n

The number of children and the conditions in which they are cared for vary, but some childcare providers can have as many as 60 babies to just one or two, often untrained, caregivers.<\/p>\n

Winta and Tesfay liked and trusted Vivian, but Yonas and Sheshy did not enjoy it there. It was a sensory overload: \u201cToo many children, too crowded, too loud, too dirty,\u201d and nothing to do, quipped eight-year-old Yonas.<\/p>\n

At the babysitter\u2019s, \u201cthey don\u2019t have enough stimulation, enough communication with other children or teachers,\u201d explained Orly Levinson-Sela, the Public Awareness Coordinator at ASSAF.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time they get to the municipal kindergartens at the age of three, they have very severe developmental deficiencies and delays. I know children who do not speak any language at age three, four, five or six. They simply don\u2019t speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

In extreme cases, the dangers can be immediate and severe. Approximately 20 babies have died in unlicensed childcare facilities in Tel Aviv in the last 10 years, with instances of fires, drownings, asphyxiation, and babies not receiving needed medication, leading media outlets to decry these so-called \u201cbaby warehouses\u201d.<\/p>\n

As the babysitter crisis spiralled, and with no support from the Israeli government, Mesila and local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) stepped in. \u201cI say it\u2019s a governmental challenge that was forced to have a municipal answer,\u201d explained Miri Barbero-Elkayam, the executive director of Mesila.<\/p>\n

Mesila works intensely with 20 to 25 babysitters to offer training and volunteers in the afternoons, as well as conducting regular checks on others.<\/p>\n

The municipality also now operates daycare centres to serve this community. Nearly 600 children of asylum seekers attend them and there are plans to expand, but this still leaves a significant number in unlicensed childcare facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you close them down, so what, what will happen?\u201d asked Barbero-Elkayam of these babysitters. \u201cParents stay at home to care for their children and starve? You see babysitters go even more underground so we don\u2019t have any idea what\u2019s happening? The parents have to find a solution to go to work. I will be the first to say no, as long as we don\u2019t have alternatives, we can\u2019t close them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three different environments<\/h2>\n

At the Bialik Rogozin school in south Tel Aviv, nearly all the pupils are the children of asylum seekers or migrant workers. The flags of the dozens of countries their parents come from line the walls of the school\u2019s outdoor courtyard: Nigeria, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Sudan, Eritrea and others.<\/p>\n

As the residents of south Tel Aviv have changed, so has the school\u2019s student body. In the past, many of the pupils were Turkish, Libyan or from the former Soviet republics. Ten years ago, the school had a large Latinx population. Now, Eritreans like Sheshy are predominant in the younger grades.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider the majority of the children \u2026 to be at-risk children,\u201d explained Mesila\u2019s Barbero-Elkayam. \u201cIt could be they don\u2019t have a hot meal every day \u2026 or they are wandering the streets alone all day because their parents are working all day to provide for them. Or it could be they\u2019re staying with babysitters where they face neglect and dangerous conditions. Or it could be they face physical or sexual abuse. It\u2019s a spectrum and, unfortunately, most of the children are there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many Eritrean students start their day at a babysitter\u2019s, as their parents begin work before school opens at 7:30am. They will be driven in a van from the babysitter\u2019s home to school, where they will learn in Hebrew until 1pm. After that, many will return to the babysitter\u2019s, where they may only hear broken English spoken until late in the evening, when they are collected by their Tigrinya-speaking parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese children go through three different environments a day, each so different and in many ways contradicting the other,\u201d explained Sharon Tal, the executive director of Elifelet, an NGO that runs programmes for refugee children.<\/p>\n

Elifelet volunteers would sometimes go to Vivian\u2019s apartment in the afternoon to do enrichment activities with the children. That was where they met Sheshy.<\/p>\n

He was hyperactive and had occasional violent outbursts, but the volunteers were drawn to his charisma and sensitivity. He has always been one to include others in activities and once asked his parents if they could adopt a friend of his, a Jewish Israeli child who was facing violence at home. \u201cSheshy said: \u2018It doesn\u2019t matter. A person is a person,\u2019\u201d Winta recalled. \u201cIt comes from our culture and we are really proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elifelet reached out to Winta and Tesfay to ask if they would be interested in bringing Sheshy to a new modonit, or after-school club, they were starting. They agreed and asked if they could bring his little brother, Yonas, along, too. They told the manager he was three as the club required, though it quickly became apparent that Yonas, still in diapers, was not. But the staff at Elifelet fell in love with Yonas, an \u201cadorable little potato\u201d with a propensity to trip over himself and enthusiastically express whatever the moment called for \u2013 excitement, disappointment, joy, laughter. The manager said they could work it out.<\/p>\n

Elifelet offered far cleaner and better-organised facilities. There was a manageable ratio of trained adults to children, and the kids could go to the park or the zoo and play sports.<\/p>\n

\u2018Go home\u2019<\/h2>\n

Across the Ayalon Highway from Hatikvah is the South Tel Aviv neighbourhood of Shapira. Here, newly renovated apartments, which for years were in a state of disrepair, are attracting younger, secular Israelis. With them comes friendlier neighbours but rising rents, forcing some asylum seekers to move across the highway to Hatikvah, as the Kidane family did four years ago.<\/p>\n

However, there remains in Shapira a small but vocal group who are aggressively opposed to the presence of asylum seekers. The leading figure in this faction is 69-year-old Sheffi Paz, a one-time Israeli left-wing activist turned anti-migrant provocateur.<\/p>\n

All the pupils at Bialik Rogozin know Sheffi Paz, who leads the Front for the Liberation of Southern Tel Aviv, a local group known for targeting asylum seekers in the area. Children will sometimes scare their friends by telling them that she is nearby.<\/p>\n

In the past, Paz would go up to Black children in parks and on the street and videotape them, trying to provoke a reaction. Elifelet staff recall how others would walk up to Black children in neighbourhood parks and hand them condoms \u2013 a message for their parents.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, the words\u00a0\u201c<\/em>yalla baita\u201d<\/em>\u00a0were spray-painted on the side of Elifelet\u2019s after-school club: Go home. Naama Dahari, a former manager of the after-school club, recalls how one second-grader initially failed to register what the message meant. \u201cHe was like: \u2018Why are you telling me to go home? Obviously, the modonit is not my home. I will go home.\u2019 Then he understood it because they wrote it on his house, as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Yonas is still too young to really grasp what is going on, but Sheshy has begun to understand his family\u2019s precarious situation. When he plays with friends on the street in Hatikvah, his first-generation Russian immigrant neighbours yell at them: \u201cGo back to your country. You don\u2019t belong here! Go back to Africa!\u201d<\/p>\n

Raised in Tel Aviv and only able to speak basic Tigrinya, Sheshy thinks his parents\u2019 Eritrean music is boring. He raps with his friends in Hebrew and tells his mum he would rather eat Israeli schnitzel than her Eritrean sega (spicy meat stew). But when asked if he feels Eritrean or Israeli, Sheshy says both \u2013 though more Eritrean. \u201cI feel like I am more connected to my parents when I speak Tigrinya with them,\u201d he explained in Hebrew, before giving his glowing mother a hug.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the community developed their own after-school solution: abugida, or \u201cchurch schools\u201d.<\/p>\n

Like most children in the community, Yonas and Sheshy switched into one before the pandemic; Tesfay says it is a vital cultural resource for the children.<\/p>\n

Some Israeli teachers are critical of the church schools\u2019 use of corporal punishment, but Tesfay and Winta like how their children\u2019s abugida is run. \u201cIn the Israeli schools, the kids get to do whatever they want \u2013 they\u2019re disorganised, the kids will talk back and be disrespectful, and they don\u2019t respect the older generation at all,\u201d said Tesfay. \u201cIn the abugida, it\u2019s more organised \u2013 you can get up, but you have to wait until the end of class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parents know the teachers hit the children, but they don\u2019t mind, Tesfay explained. \u201cIn Eritrea, it\u2019s culturally acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018They just won\u2019t accept us here\u2019<\/h2>\n

It is hard for Tesfay and Winta to know what kind of future they should prepare their children for when they do not know where that future will be. They applied for asylum in Israel a few years ago, but their application is among the 15,000 that have not been processed \u2013 in contravention of Israel\u2019s duties under international law. Israel has recognised only 32 Eritreans as refugees.<\/p>\n

After 10 years of vitriol from Israel\u2019s ruling political right, few asylum seekers remain optimistic. \u201cI don\u2019t think it will get better. They just won\u2019t accept us here,\u201d said Winta, refilling our coffee.<\/p>\n

Through past deportations and some managing to find asylum elsewhere, the Israeli government has watched the asylum seeker community fall from a peak of about 60,000 people nearly a decade ago to approximately 30,000 today. Figures from the Israeli government suggest an exodus of about 2,000 asylum seekers a year before the pandemic disrupted the asylum process. \u201cAt this rate, in a few years, Israel will no longer have asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan, even without a deportation plan,\u201d\u00a0suggested<\/a>\u00a0Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the head of Israel\u2019s immigration authority, in late 2019.<\/p>\n

What many Israel-born children of asylum seeker parents now dream of is Canada, where families have had the most success gaining asylum. But the process is slow, as Israel\u2019s failure to act has created a bottleneck for sponsorship programmes. Winta and Tesfay completed the paperwork to receive a Canadian visa, but they are on a waiting list and don\u2019t expect anything to happen soon.<\/p>\n

That, however, doesn\u2019t stop Yonas from asking about it often. \u201cA lot of their friends have left, so Yonas asks: \u2018Oh, in two weeks, are we moving to Canada?\u2019\u201d said Tesfay.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, if we had the choice, we would prefer to move to another country, Canada, in particular,\u201d he added. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really matter where it is \u2013 just somewhere better than here would be good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eden\u2019s story<\/h2>\n

When I first met Eden Tesfamariam she was 34, and beginning to feel desperate. Her oldest child, Naeb, was 16, and they were racing to find a solution before he graduated from high school.<\/p>\n

Everything she had done had been for her children: escaping from Eritrea to the refugee camps in Sudan, going from there to the prisons in the Negev, then starting anew alongside the homeless living in Tel Aviv\u2019s Levinsky Park. She spent every hour she could working for them \u2013 so that they could have an education and a chance to succeed.<\/p>\n

But soon, Naeb\u2019s facsimile of an Israeli upbringing would vanish, his options greatly limited as he would be rendered the same as his mother: an \u201cinfiltrator\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Eden came to Israel in 2009. Before that, her husband had had a dispute with his military superior in Eritrea and, after spending a week in prison, had fled to Sudan.<\/p>\n

The army responded by arresting Eden and her two children; they were imprisoned for two months. Fearing for their lives upon their release, Eden fled with her children to Sudan, where she reunited with her husband in a refugee camp.<\/p>\n

When the family decided to go to Israel, he initially stayed behind in case they were kidnapped on their journey and had to pay a ransom. Eden and her two children, aged six and two at the time, began their two-month journey. When they finally reached Israel, they were sent to a detention facility. After three months, Eden, Naeb, and Susanne were released and given a bus ticket to Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

They emerged from the labyrinthine Tel Aviv Central Bus Station at 9:30pm unable to read the Hebrew signs and with no idea where they were. Eden took her children and crossed the street to Levinsky Park. It was cold and raining.<\/p>\n

I spent the whole night in the park with my kids,\u201d she said quietly. \u201cI didn\u2019t sleep. I cried.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2009, dozens of recently arrived asylum seekers were sleeping in Levinsky Park on benches, beside the slides, and on the grass. They had been given bus tickets to Tel Aviv, and nothing else.<\/p>\n

Gradually, communities began to grow in Shapira, Neve Sha\u2019anan, and Hatikvah \u2013 the three working-class neighbourhoods that surround the bus station.<\/p>\n

\u2018I cannot take a day off\u2019<\/h2>\n

By the time Naeb started school in Israel, aged six-and-a-half, he had already spent two months in an Eritrean prison, four-and-a-half months in a Sudanese refugee camp, two months travelling from Sudan to Israel \u2013 fleeing gunfire at one point \u2013 three months in an Israeli detention facility and four months in a shelter in Haifa.<\/p>\n

He was initially placed in the second grade, but struggled. Timid and unsure of himself, he barely spoke.<\/p>\n

Eden did everything she could to make it work in Israel, working around the clock and leaving Susanne, who was then two years old, with an unlicensed babysitter. \u201cIt was not like a babysitter. It was like a store,\u201d she said of the facility that cared for about 40 children at a time.<\/p>\n

Ten months after they arrived in Israel, Eden\u2019s husband joined them. But he was an alcoholic who spent their money drinking. Not long after their third child, Efrat, now aged seven, was born, Eden kicked him out.<\/p>\n

Under the crippling pressures of low wages for long hours of work, no benefits, and the Deposit Law, a lot of families split up, with some fathers abandoning theirs. According to teachers, babysitters and volunteers, about 30 to 40 percent of the children of asylum seekers are being raised by single mothers.<\/p>\n

Eden persevered. She became a leader in her community, speaking at demonstrations against deportations of asylum seekers and against the Deposit Law. For nearly three years, she ran the Eritrean Women\u2019s Community Center, a support service and space for Eritrean asylum seekers. And, making use of her English and Hebrew language skills, she worked as a translator and cultural mediator for ASSAF.<\/p>\n

To support three children in Tel Aviv on meagre wages, she worked from early in the morning until 9 or 10pm, occasionally taking Efrat with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot take a day off because otherwise, the salary is not enough,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

With help from an Israeli friend, Eden fought the municipality to get her children into better schools outside of south Tel Aviv. She eventually managed to get Naeb into a smaller school with fewer students. \u201cWhen he started that school\u2026 wow! He became great,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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In 2018, another Israeli friend helped her find an apartment in Ramat Gan, a suburb in the Tel Aviv area, covering the 10,000-shekel ($3,100) cost upfront, as well as the first month\u2019s rent, which Eden repaid over time.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Without the Israeli friends she met along the way \u2013 who were able to use the rights and access to institutions they enjoyed to help her \u2013 it would have been almost impossible for Eden to support her children and for them to remain here as they have.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m Israeli!\u2019<\/h2>\n

In their cosy Ramat Gan apartment, Susanne, Naeb and Efrat share a small room, a curtain separating it from the living area, with its couch, bean bag and computer.<\/p>\n

The four-year age gap between Naeb, a good Tigrinya speaker, and Susanne makes a big difference. Susanne can speak some Tigrinya, but not as well as he can. \u201cShe feels more Israeli,\u201d said Eden.<\/p>\n

Susanne occasionally gives her mum sass. In their apartment, she scrolled through Israeli TikTok videos on her phone, eyes glued and feet on the living room table. She feigned apathy, but her ears perked up when she heard her name.<\/p>\n

She is now old enough to understand her family\u2019s fragile position in Israel, unlike her younger sister Efrat. It has affected the sense of rootedness Susanne feels in the only place she remembers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not Eritrean, I\u2019m not African \u2013 I\u2019m Israeli!\u201d Efrat once exclaimed. \u201cI\u2019m born here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou aren\u2019t Israeli. You are Black,\u201d Susanne bluntly retorted.<\/p>\n

\n
\u201cNo, I\u2019m a Black Israeli! There are Israelis who are also Black!\u201d replied Efrat.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Yet one day, Efrat asked her mother why she was the only Black child in her kindergarten. \u201cI\u2019m from Sudan, mama?\u201d asked Efrat.<\/p>\n

The other children must have said something to her. Although Eritreans comprise the majority of the asylum seekers in Israel today, because the Sudanese were the first to come, \u201cSudani\u201d is sometimes still used to refer to anyone who is Black.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, baby, we are from Eritrea,\u201d replied Eden.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we are not Black?\u201d asked Efrat.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are Black,\u201d answered Eden. \u201cYour family is Eritrean and you were born in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I won\u2019t be here in the future\u2019<\/h2>\n

At Bialik Rogozin, most of the teenagers are the children of migrant workers and those under 12, the children of asylum seekers. But the fears of Bialik\u2019s disadvantaged communities are tied together. When Filipino students were dealing with deportation threats in 2019, African students worried deportations might recommence for them, or that they would reopen Holot, the open-air detention facility Israel for years used to\u00a0coerce<\/a>\u00a0\u201cvoluntary\u201d deportations of asylum seekers before the Israeli Supreme Court ordered it shut down in 2018.<\/p>\n

Some of the older children at Bialik Rogozin have legal status after the government gave it to some Filipino and West African families in 2010. The difference in status and fate has dramatically affected how the communities raise their teenagers.<\/p>\n

\u201cFilipino parents are raising their children to be fully Israeli. They are not teaching them their native tongue and from day one, they want them to be fully Israeli,\u201d said Rotem Genossar, a civics teacher at Bialik Rogozin. \u201cIt is kind of the opposite with the Eritreans. The Eritreans don\u2019t know what will be tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Genossar noted that, considering their precarious situation, some Eritrean parents tell their children that learning Hebrew is \u201cuseless\u201d.<\/p>\n

As some classmates prepare to enter the Israeli military, teenage asylum seekers see it as a ticket into Israeli society. After many of their parents fled Eritrea due to indefinite, brutal military conscription, they yearn to be drafted, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like you have a path, and you keep going until there is a wall that just stops you,\u201d explained Johnny Goitom, an Eritrean community activist. \u201cThere are a lot of young people here who can\u2019t go anywhere and have nothing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asylum seekers must pay the international rates for public colleges in Israel, making such options unaffordable for most. Genossar has worked with some students to help arrange reduced tuition or scholarships in Israel or abroad, but it is unlikely that there will be enough private scholarship programmes for the next generation of children when they reach college age.<\/p>\n

Tzlil Lotem previously ran ASSAF\u2019s teenage after-school club, which offers a safe place for teenagers from the community to do homework and engage in recreational activities. Teenagers would tell Lotem they see no future here, questioning why they even bother to get an education. \u201cI\u2019ve heard kids say before: \u2018What am I doing this for? Why am I in school? It makes no sense,\u2019 And they want to be in school, they want to be in that system, they want to get an education,\u201d said Lotem. \u201cBut combined with what their parents are going through and what they\u2019re also going through \u2013 and their future status here \u2013 it puts things into a very limited perspective. There aren\u2019t many options, and the way those options are perceived are mostly vocational.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKids need to dream,\u201d said Bialik Rogozin principal Jalal Touchi, who began running the school in 2019. \u201cOur mission here is to make them dream. It\u2019s not good to say that dreams have limits. It\u2019s like being in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

By contrast, Genossar, a resident of the community and a teacher at Bialik Rogozin for more than 10 years, can be blunt with his students. \u201cFor high schoolers, I don\u2019t like dreams,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re six or seven, \u2018I want to be Ronaldo, I want to be a doctor\u2019 \u2013 great. Imagine anything. But when you are entering 10th, 11th grade, you need to prepare for your very near future. So, if you are stuck saying: \u2018I want to be a doctor,\u2019 \u2013 no, you will not be a doctor. It\u2019s not a possibility for you personally, and it\u2019s not a possibility for you as a refugee in Israel. I know a lot of teachers disagree with me, but my approach is you need to be tough, and you need to be realistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
After a childhood of exile, refugee camps and abrupt cultural and linguistic transitions, and with national exams that emphasise Hebrew and English, most teenage asylum seekers are not at the academic level to reach university.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Genossar tries to prepare his students practically for their futures in Tel Aviv, but many prefer to think that won\u2019t happen. \u201cI won\u2019t be here in the future,\u201d they tell Genossar.<\/p>\n

He manages the Alley Runners club, an elite running club in south Tel Aviv comprised of teenage athletes primarily from challenging backgrounds. Asylum-seeking children are generally blocked from Israeli sporting leagues without an ID. But about one-quarter of the runners on Genossar\u2019s 100-person roster are asylum seekers, competing in international competitions in places like Doha and Baku \u2013 a logistical nightmare for his young runners who lack legal papers. One of Genossar\u2019s former runners, an asylum seeker originally from Eritrea, attended Florida International University on a full athletic scholarship.<\/p>\n

He pushes those who will not make it to college \u2013 the vast majority \u2013 to develop a skilled profession. One teenager Genossar mentors has been training for two years to become a certified technician. \u201cWith that certificate, he can work in Israel, and he can work wherever he wants and be a professional,\u201d said Genossar.<\/p>\n

\u2018How one can not belong\u2019<\/h2>\n

But after a childhood of exile and violence, many teenage asylum seekers are not in a position to build a future for themselves, even with a helping hand.<\/p>\n

An Israeli aid worker who asked not to be named so as not to reveal the identity of the children they work with, described the trauma one teenager endured. When he was very young, his mother had run away from the Eritrean army, fleeing to Sudan. She left him with his grandmother, returning when he was eight and she had saved enough money to smuggle him to Sudan. But, by this time, she was a stranger to her son.<\/p>\n

In Sudan, the boy lived with his mother and her new Eritrean partner, with whom she had another child, a daughter. He spent three years there, going to school and learning Arabic. Then, one day, when his mother took him and his sister to renew their visas, they were kidnapped by human traffickers. The three were taken to a camp in the Sinai Peninsula, where they were held for three weeks. The Bedouins at the camp didn\u2019t hurt the boy because he could speak some Arabic, but he witnessed them torturing others \u2013 and heard them raping his mother.<\/p>\n

When their ransom money arrived, the three were taken to the Israeli border, despite having never intended to go there. The boy ran across the border with a man who was shot and killed by Egyptian soldiers.<\/p>\n

\n
After spending time in an Israeli detention facility, they were given a bus ticket to Tel Aviv and ended up in a women\u2019s shelter. From there, his mother found the only apartment she could afford \u2013 in a brothel. Traumatised, she found it difficult to hold a job and sometimes couldn\u2019t bring herself to leave her bed.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cShe says: \u2018My head, my mind is not good,\u2019\u201d the aid worker explained. \u201cIt\u2019s everything she\u2019s had to deal with \u2013 in Eritrea, in Sudan, in Sinai, but here as well. It\u2019s safer [here], there\u2019s a higher standard, but it\u2019s harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her children have not been properly taken care of, and the boy has struggled. \u201cWe give him all the support he needs, but we cannot go to school instead of him,\u201d said the aid worker, with whom the boy has lived for extended periods of time. He was eventually expelled for poor behaviour and attendance.<\/p>\n

It is often harder for teenage asylum seekers than for their younger siblings. They have lived through the refugee experience and all have collected the sort of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that can have a crippling effect on health, educational attainment and social outcomes.<\/p>\n

\n
\u201cYou need some drive, some self-confidence, some belief that life will get better,\u201d the aid worker explained. But without this, some \u201cstay in bed, they drink, they smoke\u201d.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The boy doesn\u2019t know what to make of his life and who he really is, said the aid worker. \u201cHe wants to be Israeli, but he doesn\u2019t have Israeli friends because at Bialik he wasn\u2019t integrated. He doesn\u2019t belong. He really doesn\u2019t belong. And it\u2019s a terrible state of mind, how one can not belong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018There is no future here\u2019<\/h2>\n

When Naeb turned 16, he became eligible to obtain a 2A5 visa at the immigration authority for the first time. \u201cThis is how you have been getting your visa the last 10 years?\u201d Naeb asked his mother, incredulously.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would not have stayed until now. I would have left,\u201d he said. \u201cI am African. I can\u2019t live in this kind of situation \u2013 staying every two months in long, hot lines, no water, no bathroom. I can\u2019t do this. I don\u2019t know how you did this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI did it for you, my kids,\u201d said Eden. \u201cThat is why I was suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her son was shaken. \u201cIf I turn 18, I can\u2019t stay here. I have to leave,\u201d he told her.<\/p>\n

Canada felt like their only hope, but time was running out. \u201cChildren tell me: \u2018You know, next week I\u2019m going to Canada!\u2019 Sometimes it\u2019s true, sometimes it\u2019s not true,\u201d said Orly-Levinson, of ASSAF. \u201cBut the bigger ones really dream of getting resettled because they think they have no future here and have no idea what their status will be. Nobody knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eden was racing against time. \u201cI can\u2019t take my kids to Africa,\u201d she said, hesitating with each word. \u201cI know what danger is there and what happens in Sinai.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
Eden had been trying to get her family to Canada since 2015, but it was difficult without relatives there. She had an appointment with the UNHCR in November 2017, and by January 2019, she still hadn\u2019t heard anything regarding her UN refugee status.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Eden had done everything she could to put her children in the best possible position. But ultimately, their fate was in the hands of bureaucracy and luck, not hers. She had no idea if she could get the sponsorship from Canada before Naeb turned 18. So she started drawing up alternative plans.<\/p>\n

Pausing in her morning preparations at the women\u2019s centre, Eden let out a deep sigh and stood silent for several seconds. \u201cI will go to Uganda,\u201d she said nervously. \u201cIt is hard to decide. But if I don\u2019t decide, there is no future here.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that time in 2019, they had already been on the UN waiting list in Israel for a year and a half. It would apparently take them only three months in Uganda. If they didn\u2019t start the sponsorship before Naeb turned 18, he would need his own sponsor. \u201cIt is so difficult, I don\u2019t know,\u201d said Eden, staring at the ground. \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018So Israeli, 100 percent\u2019<\/h2>\n

Sonny Kublan, 19 at the time, had just picked some children up from school and brought them to the home of his mother, Vivian \u2013 Yonas and Sheshy\u2019s former babysitter. Easy-going and quick to laugh by nature, he sat in his sister\u2019s bedroom and talked casually about his difficult past. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a surprise when they sent my dad back to Africa,\u201d he explained. The present, however, was more difficult for him to explain.<\/p>\n

\n
Sonny was living with friends at the time. In the mornings, he would play basketball. In the afternoon, he would help his mother. The possibility of college had been discussed, but he had no means of paying for it, he said.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

He didn\u2019t know what to do.<\/p>\n

Sonny had graduated from Bialik Rogozin, where his former teachers praised his positive attitude and warmth. \u201cSome people don\u2019t know Hebrew or Arabic or English, but we come from a lot of different places and feel this connection at Bialik,\u201d said Sonny. \u201cIt was special, for real. It was cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
Sonny worked hard to pass the Israeli national exam. Unable to join the Israeli military after graduating, he decided to do Israeli civil service through the Israeli Scouts. But he needed a visa first.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

After standing in line for hours, he was initially told he would have to wait 10 months before getting the visa. He managed to obtain it sooner, but not without some delay.<\/p>\n

When he did get his visa, he spent the year living in Ashdod with new Israeli friends and working with children in local schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do it. It helped make me feel so Israeli, 100 percent,\u201d said Sonny.<\/p>\n

\n
Sonny arrived in Israel in 2007, when he was eight. He and his parents had fled from Malakal in Sudan \u2013 now South Sudan \u2013 when he was two years old, amid civil war. He was in Egypt for five years, attending a school with other Sudanese children.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

During the rule of Hosni Mubarak, Sudanese nationals faced discrimination and violent racism in Egypt, culminating in the\u00a0massacre<\/a>\u00a0of at least 25 unarmed Sudanese asylum seekers by Egyptian police in December 2005. Sudanese asylum seekers began to flee Egypt. Sonny\u2019s father took him on a \u201ctrip\u201d to Israel, initially leaving Vivian behind. After paying Bedouin smugglers, they walked across the desert until they reached the border. Egyptian soldiers fired at Sonny and his father until they made it across.<\/p>\n

They ended up at Levinsky Park, sleeping there at first alongside dozens of other recent arrivals. \u201cIt was terrible, man,\u201d said Sonny. \u201cIt was tough to see the people there. Levinsky was once a pretty place. But now, it\u2019s a very ugly place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vivian made the trip a few months later, but she was imprisoned in an Israeli detention centre for a year before she could reunite with her son and husband in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

\n
Sonny grew up in a different south Tel Aviv to his sister, Selena, born in 2009, and his brother Quincy, born in 2010. Sudanese started arriving in late 2005 with older children or young adults who had already survived years of civil war and refugee camps. Eritreans, by comparison, started coming a couple of years later and were mostly young conscripts fleeing the military. \u201cThere were no Eritreans back then,\u201d said Genossar, the teacher at Bialik Rogozin. \u201cNo Eritreans. Only Sudanese boys.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Tall and athletic, Sonny went with a friend to play basketball in Ramat HaSharon just north of Tel Aviv, \u201cwhere the rich people are\u201d, when he was 11.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing to meet new people not from Bialik,\u201d Sonny recalled. \u201cWhen you\u2019re at Bialik, you can feel closed away from everyone else. In the beginning, I was shocked \u2013 rich white people would see us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sonny played basketball with the Israeli boys for the rest of his childhood, sharing harrowing stories with them. The boys sympathised with his plight. But Israel is larger than a basketball court, and Sonny recalled the harassment he would receive on the way to school.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo back to your country!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not from here!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re Black!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you grow up,\u201d said Sonny, tapping on his sister\u2019s notebook before staring off into the distance, \u201cYou understand these are stupid people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
In 2011, South Sudan declared independence, and the Israeli government quickly capitalised on the news to claim this provided the requisite conditions for the South Sudanese to safely return to their home country. Until Israel\u2019s recent normalisation agreement, Sudan was considered an \u201cenemy state\u201d of Israel, with no diplomatic relations to allow any repatriations.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In theory, because Sudanese law made it a criminal offence for citizens to enter Israel, Sudanese nationals became refugees by that action alone. But that changed for the South Sudanese when their country seceded.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Sonny\u2019s father was denied another visa, a fate most South Sudanese eventually met. In 2012, an Israeli court finally cleared the way for the Ministry of Interior to remove the \u201ccollective protection\u201d status offered to the now-South Sudanese. From that point on, deportations could begin.<\/p>\n

A 12-year-old Sonny and his family were among the lucky few to avoid deportation. But most of his friends weren\u2019t. He said goodbye to them as they flew off to newly independent South Sudan, never to see them again.<\/p>\n

\n
Civil war broke out in South Sudan shortly after. Several of Sonny\u2019s friends were killed weeks after their deportation. \u201cThose were some of the hardest weeks of my life,\u201d said Sonny, tapping on his sister\u2019s notebook twice.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sonny\u2019s father spent the next four years in Israel without a visa, until 2016 when he was deported to Uganda. The family has had erratic contact with him ever since. Unable to obtain the residency and work opportunities he had been promised, Sonny\u2019s father continued on to Kenya and then Ethiopia. Sonny eventually learned his father was in Australia, although he was unsure how he got there.<\/p>\n

And so Vivian became a single mother like so many others in the community. Sonny graduated without his father. Months after leaving his Israeli friends in the civil service, he could not continue on the path they were on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helped make me feel so Israeli, 100 percent,\u201d said Sonny of his civil service, \u201cbut after, it was like no, I\u2019m not Israeli. You\u2019ve got nothing to keep going. Kids who are 18 want a good job, car, or go to the next country to visit and come back \u2013 I can\u2019t do that. I can\u2019t do nothing. I can work and that\u2019s it. It\u2019s so difficult for me to think of the future. I have no hope to do anything here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
His sister Selena entered the room to drop off her backpack. \u201cMa nishma!\u201d Sonny greeted her, switching to his typically warm disposition. He cradled her in his long arms, asking how her day at school was before she scurried off. His eyes remained fixed on the half-open door, chuckling before he sighed.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cMy brother and sister, I feel like they are Israelis for real, man,\u201d he said. The two attend a specialised school for the arts in Holon, a city just south of Tel Aviv, where they are the only Black pupils. \u201cBut when you grow up, you understand that you\u2019re not one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elation and worry<\/h2>\n

\u201cI prayed and, thank God, I got the sponsorship!\u201d exclaimed Eden.<\/p>\n

In March 2019, she finally received refugee status from the UN. With that, she was able to obtain asylum sponsorship later that year through a private organisation, Jewish Immigration Aid Services in Toronto, and with the help of an Israeli Canadian doctor who had seen her speak at a demonstration against the Deposit Law.<\/p>\n

\n
\u201cThe happiness lasted two days, because then the worry was how to move, how to communicate with the people, I have no community, no job,\u201d said Eden, her soft voice difficult to hear in Levinsky Park over the noise of passing cars. \u201cIn Israel, I know everything by now. But there, I don\u2019t know what life is like.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Because her sponsorship is through a private organisation rather than a family reunification programme, Eden needed 34,000 Canadian dollars ($27,000) to bring her family. She had managed to save 24,000 Canadian dollars ($19,000), and the sponsoring organisation provided the rest.<\/p>\n

Before the pandemic hit, Eden was working seven days a week \u2013 as a translator, cleaning houses and as a waitress at a caf\u00e9 and bar \u2013 to save money before leaving for Canada. \u201cI don\u2019t know how many hours I work,\u201d she said at the time. \u201cIt\u2019s too much \u2013 I don\u2019t want to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Naeb found out they were going to Canada, he was elated. \u201cNow, I can continue my education, I can learn to drive like others my age,\u201d he told his mother. \u201cI have the chance to be treated like a human.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
It has been much more difficult for Susanne, however. \u201cShe feels like someone is just throwing her away,\u201d Eden explained.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIsrael is the only place I know,\u201d Susanne argued with her mother. \u201cWhy are they doing this to us? Why don\u2019t they give us the status?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A second immigration can be difficult culturally and linguistically for teenagers \u2013 \u201cthe first generation with an Israeli mind,\u201d as Genossar put it. Susanne\u2019s English is rudimentary, and she is afraid of the growing pains ahead. \u201cI want to save my Hebrew,\u201d she tells her mother. \u201cI don\u2019t want to lose it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Naeb, now 18, reminds Susanne of what is waiting for her once she gets older. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what you go through at the Ministry of Interior,\u201d he warns her. A 2A5 visa in hand, Naeb recently graduated from high school. He now works in a supermarket to help his family.<\/p>\n

\n
Back in their Ramat Gan apartment, Eden could now let herself be starry-eyed about her children\u2019s future. \u201cSusanne, you want to become a doctor?\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to be a doctor,\u201d Susanne retorted, eyes glued to her phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe a lawyer?\u201d Eden suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh no, lawyers are the worst!\u201d Susanne groaned, slamming her phone on the couch. \u201cIf a person kills someone, I don\u2019t want to be a lawyer for this guy!\u201d<\/p>\n

Making a very bad situation worse<\/h2>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown Eden\u2019s preparations for Canada into disarray. During the height of Israel\u2019s two-month national lockdown beginning in March 2020, approximately 70 percent of asylum seekers lost their jobs \u2013 with no governmental safety net to speak of. The only job Eden had left was translating part-time at ASSAF, and it was not enough to pay the rent, let alone save money for Toronto.<\/p>\n

During the shutdown, the financial situation within the community quickly became dire. The Israeli government resisted calls to release the Deposit Law money, as it would negate the law\u2019s purpose: encouraging the asylum seekers\u2019 departure. As in previous times of crisis, the Tel Aviv municipality and NGOs were the ones who stepped in, collecting donations to provide emergency relief to hundreds of families through food and other material aid. Eden received critical help from the municipality and Israeli friends to get by.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people are living in divided apartments, one bedroom, without an economic safety net. So corona[virus] took a very bad situation and turned it into a horrible situation,\u201d said Barbero-Elkayam of Mesila. \u201cI assume that without Mesila and the other organisations, there would be a real humanitarian crisis.\u201d Mesila provided food aid to up to 60 families a day during the pandemic, though many more were in dire straits.<\/p>\n

A temporary saving grace for the community came when the Israeli Supreme Court in April 2020 struck down the Deposit Law, ruling that it violated the property rights of asylum seekers. The court ordered the money to be returned to asylum seekers within 30 days. There were approximately 11,000 requests to get the money back, of which 8,400 were accepted about a month after the court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

\n
This additional money, plus aid from activists and the municipality, helped Eden get through the worst of the early lockdown.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Now waiting\u00a0two years since receiving sponsorship, Eden doesn\u2019t know when exactly they will manage to go to Canada. Already, the\u00a0wait has prevented Naeb from starting college. Yet far from all has been lost this past year: Eden recently married an Eritrean man, Daniel, and they had a baby together\u00a0last\u00a0October. They gave him an Israeli name \u2013 Noam. When Eden compares their immediate uncertainty with those without sponsorship, she counts her blessings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know kids who turn 18, and they begin to work the hardest, most physical jobs to help their family,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd some kids are doing nothing, going with the homeless people. These kids know the language, they know the culture, but they can\u2019t advance themselves. In Canada, my kids can at least go to school and start paying it afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though unsure when it will be exactly, Eden hopes their family\u2019s departure will be in the coming months. \u201cFor anyone in our community, it\u2019s been a minimum of nine years living here not having any fun, no vacation, not able to see your family with nowhere to go,\u201d said Eden. \u201cLife begins to feel meaningless. Finally, we have a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I know I am not one of them\u2019<\/h2>\n

At a caf\u00e9 in Shapira, Sonny slouched at a table that looked too small for his gangly frame, the only Black man among the crowd of young, gentrifying Israelis. It was 1pm, but Sonny was tired, extremely tired. Living back home with his family again, he works in the kitchen of a popular bar until 3am five nights a week. He is barely in touch with his father.<\/p>\n

\n
\u201cSo do you still have no hope?\u201d I asked him.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

He replied casually, \u201cNope, but we need to survive. Tel Aviv is very expensive. We have to pay for the apartment, for food. It is very hard, so it doesn\u2019t matter. I need to do what I need to do for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as Sonny arrives home from work, Vivian leaves at 4am to clean houses. She quit babysitting in the summer of 2019. \u201cAfter a decade of babies screaming every day, you realise it is enough,\u201d she laughed in their new, quieter apartment. \u201cYou start going crazy!\u201d<\/p>\n

While Vivian is out working, Sonny cooks breakfast for Selena and Quincy and prepares them for school. He then sleeps a little, eats and prepares for another night of work.<\/p>\n

But now he has a new dream: acting.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Haaretz journalist Lee Yaron created Kishta,\u00a0a play<\/a>\u00a0based on Knesset Internal Affairs Committee notes from a 2018 meeting to discuss the \u201cdeportation of infiltrators\u201d. In the play, prominent right-wing politicians calling for the removal of African \u201cinfiltrators\u201d are played by actors from the African asylum seeker community. Yaron offered Sonny the role of Oren Hazan, a bombastic Likud politician who previously\u00a0\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0African refugees in Tel Aviv \u201cdon\u2019t even have a culture,\u201d warning that \u201cif you don\u2019t kick them out right now, then they will kick you out in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having never seriously acted before, Sonny had 22 days to prepare for the first show in Jerusalem. \u201cIt took all the anger I had before and put it into something productive,\u201d he reflected. \u201cWhen they told us refugees: \u2018You aren\u2019t Jewish, f*** off,\u2019 well, now I got to say that to them,\u201d he added, chuckling.<\/p>\n

\n
The experience was cathartic for Sonny, helping him get over the deportation of his father. The play details the empty gestures of compassion for refugees that Israeli politicians began these committee meetings with \u2013 only to promptly turn around and attack the \u201cinfiltrators\u201d in south Tel Aviv. \u201cAt the beginning, it was hard to read the words these politicians said about me and my family,\u201d said Sonny. \u201cBut it helped me understand how people forget we are humans. The politicians are all liars, and they\u2019re putting on a show.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sonny is working on a screenplay about his own life called Son of a Black Eagle, which is a coming to terms with his hazy identity. \u201cI\u2019m Israeli in some ways, yeah \u2013 I\u2019ve lived here for 14 years,\u201d said Sonny, surer of himself than a year before. \u201cBut I know where I come from. I know I am not one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kishta was a success among audiences in Jerusalem \u2013 and Sonny is dreaming big again. \u201cI want to be rich \u2013 I dream of winning an Oscar,\u201d he smiled.<\/p>\n

Though taking care of family responsibilities, acting keeps his will to dream alive. \u201cMy sister says she wants to be a singer. It\u2019s her dream,\u201d said Sonny. \u201cSo I tell her okay, keep your dream up. It doesn\u2019t matter if four years ago they were wondering where we would stay. Because if they have a dream to follow, they can keep on going.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is hard to dream when the state you grew up in has denied you a future. Most of Sonny\u2019s South Sudanese friends are gone \u2013 to North America, Europe, Africa, or dead. Still, he dreams.<\/p>\n

The daily grind was hard enough before COVID-19 hit. During the two-month lockdown last year, neither Sonny nor Vivian were able to work. The Deposit Law money helped somewhat, but only after more than a month without income. Sonny volunteered to deliver food aid to affected families, including his own. By late May, the lockdown had eased and they went back to work, though with fewer hours. Subsequent reclosures made making ends meet nearly impossible. \u201cIt\u2019s been tough,\u201d said Sonny. \u201cVery tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pandemic put monthly performances of Kishta on pause, but Sonny still hopes to go to acting school in Tel Aviv. No different from any adult \u201cinfiltrator\u201d now, Sonny handles the harsh reality of working late nights in the kitchen of a Tel Aviv bar during a months-long pandemic not in spite of his newfound dream, but with its help. It is something to strive for amid indefinite limbo.<\/p>\n

Sonny\u2019s family is trying to gain asylum in Canada through the UN, but all they can do now is wait and hope. If Israel did give him status, Sonny envisions spending another four or five years in the country, hoping the situation in South Sudan would be safe by then to return. But he doesn\u2019t like to entertain those thoughts much.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you ask anyone of this generation: \u2018I have two propositions for you \u2013 Israeli citizenship, or citizenship abroad\u2019, they will choose Israeli citizenship,\u201d said Genossar. \u201cBut they don\u2019t think they will get it. After 10, 12 years, of course they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Akin to those labelled \u201cinfiltrators\u201d \u2013 Palestinians \u2013 before them, Israeli legislators often frame African asylum seekers as a demographic threat to the Jewish state. The approximately 30,000 African asylum seekers comprise about 0.3 percent of Israel\u2019s population of more than nine million; most asylum-seeking children in Israel can be found in four schools in south Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

In April 2018, after failing to deport all of them to Africa, then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to an agreement with the UNHCR -16,000 asylum seekers in Israel would be safely resettled to other countries while the rest would receive legal status in Israel. It was an unusual arrangement for the UN to make with a wealthy country like Israel, and within 24 hours, Netanyahu reneged on the agreement, bowing to right-wing pressure to not accept any asylum seekers. At times during the pandemic, the government has backtracked on providing funding to non-profits aiding the disadvantaged on the off-chance some of the funds may help asylum seekers.<\/p>\n

With the world now gripped by a pandemic, there is no immediate resolution in sight. As borders around the world remain closed or restricted during the coronavirus pandemic, any exodus from Israel is greatly slowed. Over time, more families will manage to find asylum elsewhere, and a few may return to Africa, but the outward flow will be slow \u2013 and childhood is finite.<\/p>\n

\n
\u201cThe minute they graduate high school they will be just like the other asylum seekers with almost no rights where you can renew your visa, you can work, and that\u2019s it,\u201d said Barbero-Elkayam of Mesila. \u201cWe need to acknowledge that we are raising a different kind of generation: one that speaks Hebrew, that will want to go to university and even give back, which is amazing. But they won\u2019t be able to.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe way these kids are growing up, with no future and no status, some solution needs to be found.\u201d<\/p>\n

*Names changed to protect family members who are still in Eritrea.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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