Published: 18 January 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Inspired by Anne Frank, rabbis in Israel plan to hide African asylum seekers facing deportation (Haaretz)
A group of Israeli rabbis, including the sister of comedian Sarah Silverman, launched Tuesday an Anne Frank-inspired activist 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 Sudan that the Israeli government intends to deport either to their homelands or another sub-Saharan state beginning in April and over the coming two years.
"Who here would be willing to house people?" Rabbi Susan Silverman asked at a gathering of rabbis and educators in Jerusalem as she revealed the new campaign by Israeli human rights organisation Rabbis for Human Rights. All of the 130 or so people in the room immediately raised their hands.
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Holocaust survivor denounces refugee deportation (Ynet)
With hundreds protesting outside houses of government officials against recent decision to expel African asylum seekers, one protester stands out—a Holocaust survivor, trying to come to terms with 'criminal' state policies concerning people she says represent the history of the Jewish people.
Asylum-seekers, back to those shithole countries for you (Times of Israel)
NAOMI CHAZAN
Refugees hold 'slave auction' outside Knesset to protest deportation (972)
Israel plans to begin deporting tens of thousands of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers within weeks. Activists hope the action will raise awareness of what awaits them
Photo: Eritrean migrants wear chains to mimic slaves at a demonstration against the Israeli government's policy outside the Knesset, in Jerusalem on Wednesday (Oded Balilty/AP)