Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics

[Source]

So I recently entered the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics. I found out relatively late about the contest and decided to enter it rather spontaneously. First to preface, Elie Wiesel is one of my heroes in life. I read Night when I was relatively young and the book both traumatized and inspired me. In hindsight, I should not have read the book at the time that I did; after reading Night, I continued on a wave of reading Holocaust literature and the cruelties I read about and the books I devoured led me to be quite sensitive to anything Holocaust related. However, Wiesel's books are like poetry to me and his weaving together of words are hauntingly beautiful. I remember spending an hour just looking at one paragraph, finding new layers of meaning behind each sentence as I would replay the sentence in my head. Commas and periods took on lives of their own as they jutted out from their framework to come alive as bold statements in themselves. 

I remember attending a lecture by Wiesel when I was in high school. I went with my mother and I was surprised by how humorous he was. He was a tragic comedian. I shook his hand after and had so many things I wanted to say to him. Instead, all I could muster was a "Thank you". I do not know if there has ever been an author, public figure or celebrity that has ever had as much of an impact on me and my life than Elie Wiesel.

The essay called for participants to write 3,000-4,000 words (about 12 pages, double spaced) on an ethical dilemma that they have faced, or anything relating to that. Surprisingly, the essay contest itself was pretty liberal in that you could really write whatever you wanted- I looked at past examples and saw a wide range of topics. I chose to write about the refugee situation in Israel, a topic which is really important to me. This essay was the first time I had really translated my experiences from this summer into essay form and it was really cathartic for me. The essay is incredibly long, especially in the blog world so if you do want to read it, you can check it out after the jump. I'm actually really nervous about people reading it, as no one has read it in its entirety and I just feel kind of vulnerable with it. But since I know that A. My mother is the only one who probably reads this and B. My mother has not read my blog since a year ago, I am pretty safe publishing my words here. So, yes if you happened to stumble upon my blog, have a few hours to spend and want to read this, then please let me know what you think.

The Challenge of Thinking Higher

I never thought that I would be fighting back tears as I left the prison that balmy August day. I had just said goodbye to the inmates, closed out some of their cases and played one last game of ping pong. The goodbyes were bittersweet: I was happy to be returning home but could not deny the hostility I experienced as I explained to the inmates that I would be departing for home in just a couple of hours. As I walked out, the sun was raging unforgivably overheard and I found that I could not summarize the maelstrom of feelings inside me. Surprisingly, I felt overwhelmingly unburdened as well, as if one huge weight had just been lifted off of my shoulders. I had just spent the past summer interviewing detainees at an Israeli prison and through this experience, I found that I had stumbled upon something that had challenged the beliefs that I had held so true. It was in this struggle to reconcile these beliefs with the reality of what I had experienced that I discovered that the greatest dilemmas come to us when we not only feel what we have experienced, but we also challenge ourselves to think higher.

I had never expected to spend my summer vacation in an Israeli prison. When I had dreamt of my summer break, I had imagined lying on a beach, absorbing the sun while the incessant click-clack of dozens of simultaneous matkot games lulled me into a sun-drenched slumber.  I labored through months of tedious secretarial work I knew would soon pay for countless rounds of Goldstar and late-night falafel dinners. All of these fantasies shattered, however, the first day I walked into the Giv’on Prison in Ram’le, Israel. Never would I have suspected that I would spend my summer interviewing African refugees who had escaped genocide, tyrannical government regimes and unfathomable poverty to travel across borders to find sanctuary in a little Jewish state nestled in the crux of the Middle East.   

Before I traveled to Israel, I had decided that I needed to find a project in which I could volunteer for the summer. Through a professor at my university I learned about the Hotline for Migrant Workers, an organization dedicated to promoting the rights of undocumented migrant workers and refugees in Israel. I had always been mesmerized by the stories she had narrated to our classes, of working with victims of sex trafficking and lecturing across the world on the global phenomenon. In the months leading up to my trip, I imagined myself also as a modern abolitionist, cast in to the dusty streets of Tel Aviv, rescuing and rehabilitating hopeless Russian girls while simultaneously sentencing their captors to a life imprisonment. I, too, wanted to fight the good fight. My idealistic and incredibly histrionic delusion could not be anything farther from the truth and only revealed how deeply my ignorance had affected my reality. I was picturing myself as a cavalier heroine, much more Lifetime Movie Network than real-life heroine Irina Sender.

My blatant naivety surfaced the first day I showed up to volunteer orientation at the Hotline. Expecting to work with victims of sex trafficking, I was surprised to learn that I would be working instead with refugees. At first I was confused: refugees in Israel? Did they mean Palestinians? As the orientation continued, however, I began to learn about the thousands of refugees who came from Africa seeking asylum in the state of Israel. Fleeing from conflicts within their country, they arrived en masse to Israel via Egypt. They came for a multitude of reasons, but primarily to find freedom and work. Suffering from persecution in their homeland and experiencing violent discrimination in Egypt, including arbitrary arrests and deportation, these traumatized African refugees began to put all their faith in the tiny Jewish homeland. [1]

These African asylum seekers would risk their lives to cross the Egyptian-Israeli border in their effort to find sanctuary in Israel. Traveling in the dead of night, they would pay exorbitant fees to Bedouins who would drop them off within miles of the border. Small groups of men, women and children would then literally run across the border with just the clothes on their back. If they were lucky, they would make the journey and be detained by Israeli soldiers who, through a policy of non- refoulement, could not legally send them back. Many times, however, they were not lucky and would be shot at blindly by the Egyptian soldiers guarding the border, who advocated a strong policy of “shoot to kill”.

Once across the border, whoever had survived the indiscriminate shooting would then be interrogated by soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces stationed along the border. Often without any form of identification and unable to speak Hebrew or English, these asylum seekers quickly discovered that they had run from one form of imprisonment to another. Having escaped the shackles of discrimination in Egypt, they were now facing potentially spending the next few years of their life in prison. Israeli soldiers have ten days to send the individuals to Saharonim, a detention center in the Negev desert described as a “ghetto for forced detention.”[2] Originally built to house a maximum of one hundred individuals, today it accommodates two thousand.[3] From Saharonim, the asylum seekers would be either released or transferred to various prisons throughout the country. One of these prisons is the Giv’on prison in Ram’le, a city just north of Tel Aviv. Surprisingly it was my time spent in this prison that caused me to challenge everything that I had previously so ardently believed in.  

            A week after the other volunteers and I finished orientation at the Hotline, we were all cleared to visit the prison. Seven volunteers, two staff members and I piled into a monit sherut and drove twenty minutes until we arrived in the small city of Ram’le. A city known for its high Arab population and even higher rate of poverty, Ram’le also housed the Giv’on prison. Located across a sprawling parking lot and closet-sized shop selling everything from men’s underwear to popsicles, I was surprised by how unimposing the prison actually looked. Still, I had a nervous pit in my stomach as the staff divided blank survey sheets among the volunteers with the basic instructions to interview the inmates and write down their responses. From the parking lot we walked into the prison entrance. Surrendering our passports, cell phones, MP3s and cameras, we were left with nothing but our pens and stacks of blank survey sheets. It was at this moment, after I was stripped of all my possessions that I felt utterly vulnerable and truly intimidated.  

Walking into the prison ward that first time, I was paralyzed with fear for the first five minutes. A bead of sweat snaked down my back as I stepped into the prison yard. The yard was basically a small courtyard with a sprinkling of picnic tables, a sink, soda machine and a ping-pong table. For a few hours each day, the men would all gather here and talk, out-maneuver one another on makeshift chess boards or share news that had spilled into the prison. Looking around for a friendly face, I smiled nervously and sat down by a young man who seemed to be around the same age as me. I stuck out my hand, smiled and said “Hi, I’m Jessica”. Immediately he pulled out a paper that had been folded and carefully guarded in his pocket, “Read, please” and he pushed it into my hands. I looked over the worn paper, all in Hebrew. I swore at myself for not paying more attention in my Hebrew ulpan course. “I’m sorry, but I can’t read this.”  I called over another Israeli volunteer and procured his help. I learned that it was his judge’s decision and that each detainee had one. They were given them after the judge had presented his or her decision, and if they were lucky, they were also provided a translation of what it read. Many had no idea what this piece of paper said, and often held onto it for weeks without knowing its contents. I ended my first day at the prison feeling surprisingly more petrified than I had when I had first entered the prison. 

As the weeks progressed, I began to see a pattern of problems that were preventing these detainees from leaving the prison and resuming their lives- whether back in their home country or in Israel. These problems could be traced back to their first day of arrival to Israel. Once these asylum seekers arrived in the country, they had the option to submit a written request for a RSD, or “Refugee Status Determination”. The procedure is first conducted by the UNHCR office in Israel and then submitted to the National Status Granting Board who makes the final decision. According to the UNHCR, in 2007 there were over 3,000 requests for refugee status and of these only three were granted, just 0.1 percent. If the refugee is granted recognition, they will be awarded with an A5 residence visa, a renewable visa that also includes a work permit and healthcare. Most of the asylum seekers from Eritrea (about 60 percent) and Sudan (30 percent) will receive a “conditional release” visa. [4]  This visa has been awarded to around 8,000 Eritreans and Sudanese. Its duration is for three months and it can be renewed, but there is no work permit attached. These refugees were thrust into a foreign country without any ability to work, and if they were hired illegally, under serious risk for further imprisonment. Thus these visas issued by the government merely create a cycle of further exploitation of the refugees.

A monumental problem for many refugees, however, was the challenge of proving their identity. Due to the fact that many of the asylum seekers had come into Israel with no papers or documentation, many had to prove that they were indeed from the country of origin in which they claimed. We saw countless cases of Eritreans who were misidentified as Ethiopians during their RSD procedure.[5] This was used mainly as a tactic by the government to have the leverage to deny refugee status to Eritreans, as 88 percent of Eritreans worldwide, according to the Hotline, have been awarded refugee status. The process to proving an identity of a refugee is complicated and arduous, yet necessary. It involves locating experts to testify on behalf of the asylum seeker and connecting with the home country of the asylum seekers: an especially daunting task as many countries did not even politically recognize Israel. 

Another problem that became blatantly obvious while I was conducting my work was the dissent of the Israeli public to the arrival and settlement of African refugees in the Jewish homeland. For many Israelis these asylum seekers were not refugees worthy of acknowledgement and assistance, but rather “infiltrators”. Interior Minister and member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Eli Yishai, asserted that these “infiltrators” represented an existential danger to the future of the state. This attitude has trickled down into all facets of society, from realtors who refuse to rent to “infiltrators” to families denying children of migrant workers the right to build a kindergarten.[6]  I grew confused as to why Israelis were so vehemently opposed to granting refugees asylum in their country- especially after the Jewish people had endured similar horrors in the Holocaust.  In my conversations with countless Israelis, however, I slowly weaved together an explanation for their reluctance: it was precisely because of the Holocaust that they were so fiercely defensive of their homeland. Many Israelis were so desperate to cling onto the Jewish nature of the state and thus saw anyone who was not Jewish as a threat to the very existence of their sacred homeland. It led me to question my very own beliefs and values as well. Would I be able to potentially sacrifice the Jewish character of my beloved state in order to offer refuge to thousands of Africans fleeing persecution?

It was a question that challenged everything I believed. Israel plays a central and critical role in my life. Most days it is the last thing I think about before I fall to sleep and the first thing I think about as I wake in the morning. I have not, however, always been such an ardent Zionist. All my life I had been the lone Jewish girl, mocked and even attacked for my faith. Only when I was nineteen did I develop a connection to Israel that ultimately changed my life. In my first year of university I saw my entire world literally collapse all around me. I battled depression and I found a lifeline by taking a leave of absence from school and spending five months volunteering on a kibbutz in Israel. In these five months I not only became the person I am today, but I also forged a critical relationship with Israel that influences me still to this day.

Thus when I was confronted with this critical dilemma regarding the necessity to preserve the Jewish character of the state, I was conflicted. When I was at my absolute lowest, I had discovered salvation in a small country in which it was accepted and wonderful to be Jewish. I felt I finally had a place in which I belonged. I could not ignore, however, the countless asylum seekers who had fled from tragedies and evils within their own country to come to Israel, a land whose sole purpose for its creation was a safe haven. They, too were looking for a home in which they belonged. These two considerations seemed to be intertwined and yet one key facet held them from truly ever coalescing: these African refugees were not Jewish.

In order for me to find peace with this dilemma challenged before me, I had to reconcile two critically important, yet opposing crises. One on hand was the refugee humanitarian crisis: they were escaping the horrifying reality of genocidal regimes and tyrannical governments. On the other hand was the risk of losing the Jewish nature of Israel by allowing thousands of refugees asylum. It was here that the true dilemma boiled down to one issue: the challenge of giving up a part of yourself in order to save another. In the case of Israel, it came in the form of giving up its very identity as a Jewish state in order to become a haven for the thousands of African refugees fleeing persecution.

Since 2005, refugees from all over Africa have been escaping famine, genocide and civil war to find sanctuary in Israel. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees there are over 17,000 refugees in Israel and represent less than .20 percent of the entire 7.5 million population of Israel. Since 1951 Israel has recognized, in accordance with the UN Convention on Refugees, 170 refugees. The Convention was founded in 1951 with Israel as a signatory and was originally intended to protecting European refugees after World War II. The 1967 Protocol removed the geographical stipulation, allowing people all over the world protection under this international convention of which 147 states have signed on to. Emphasizing the need for refugees to be protected, as they had not been during the Holocaust, the UN Convention guaranteed that a refugee would be thereon defined as:

A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

Upon signing on to the Convention, Israel agreed to extend to refugees “a set of basic human rights which should be at least equivalent to freedoms enjoyed by foreign nationals living legally in a given country and in many cases those of citizens of that state”[7], something which Israel has failed to completely act effectuate.  

The history of Israel has been one rife with concern over the preservation of its Jewish identity. The maintaining of the Jewish identity of the state is one of its most important tasks, one truly unparalleled in the world today. This paralyzing fear of losing the Jewish nature of the state and the intense need to defend it has been echoed by many Israelis, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who commented that “The Jewish state was set up to defend Jewish lives, and we always reserve the right to defend ourselves”. The roots for Israeli xenophobia and ethnocentrism, however, do have an involved history. National security has grown to become a number one priority to Israelis and has been both fragile and precarious since the beginning of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. This constant mindfulness on state protection has permeated into every aspect of society, reflecting the state of security that has incubated the lives of Israelis from their day of birth until death. Every aspect of society is either directly or indirectly affected from the 24/7 awareness of security.  For example, in the town of Sderot, where over four thousand Qassam rockets from Gaza have struck the city in the last nine years, the children suffer abnormally high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder. Even the language reflects a military and security-focused society; to compliment a girl in society, one may remark “She’s the bomb”.

The global refugee crisis that has reached the shores of Israel coupled with the ethnocentrism of the state has resulted in a terrible dilemma that has permeated into not only the government and society of Israel, but also my own conscience. If Israel does agree to allow the refugees protection as dictated by the 1951 UN Convention, she is at a great risk for losing her Jewish identity. Additionally, if she were to open up the citizenship rights to these African refugees, Israel would also be under considerably greater pressure to extend the rights of citizen to the expelled Palestinian refugees, who are still fighting fiercely for their own right of return. If this were to occur, the state would definitively no longer contain a Jewish majority. As Palestinian diplomat Afif Safieh once remarked, “The tormenting dilemma of the Middle East is this: either we have one people too many, or one state too few.”

Israel was created as a sanctuary for the Jewish people all over the world who had been persecuted for their beliefs: it was a state created by refugees and for refugees.  How could Israelis not sympathize with the plight of these thousands of African refugees who were fleeing from their own forms of tyrannical governments and persecution? Was the simple fact that they were not Jewish enough to deny them sanctuary? These questions were just a small fragment of the have been storming in my head these past couple of months.

Until this day, I still distress over my unwavering support of Israel. Previously I had admired her for her unapologetic leadership and brazen determination to preserve her independence. Now, however, I could not help but witness Israel, my own triumphant heroine, figuratively shatter into thousands of pieces in my mind. It was like suffering an intense heartbreak and the only remedy was to conciliate my own personal beliefs with the policies advocated by the Israeli government. This is the struggle I find myself facing each and every day. I will never agree with Israel on her policies regarding the immigration of African refugees, but I do understand them and therefore I find that I also accept them. I cannot help but agree that the Jewish identity of the state cannot, by any means, be compromised. With this choice, I discovered that all decisions have repercussions and I have seen them and looked them straight in the eye. I played ping-pong with these refugees, argued with them over lyrics to Kanye West songs and comforted them as they broke down into tears as they retold their stories.  I sometimes feel shamed when I admit that I do accept this, but with every ethical dilemma, there is no clear-cut right or wrong, and that is something that I have reluctantly grown to accept. While I do accept the reasoning behind Israel’s policies toward asylum seekers, I still have hope that one day there will be a way in which the two can be reconciled.

And so it is with this hope that I conclude this essay. This essay marks the first time in which I have transcribed my experiences from this summer into words and it has been a genuine catharsis for me. Previously I had wanted to scream at everyone that I encountered: there is something incredibly urgent and important happening in my homeland and yet no one could be bothered to care. All I could muster out of people was a sympathetic nod or a polite acquiescence of shock. I boiled over in frustration with how angry I was. It was at this point that I remembered a quote by someone that I personally admire and the namesake of this prize in ethics, Elie Wiesel, in which he simply stated, “Think higher and feel deeper.” It is with this inspiration that I take on Wiesel’s challenge in thinking higher, something I have interpreted as the acknowledgment of what I have learned and from that, searching for deeper meaning. It has only been through the experiences that I have had, however, that allow me to feel so deeply and be so affected, and I think that is what Elie Wiesel is asking of us. He is not expecting us to come up with a comprehensive plan to reform the Israeli immigration system or a methodology to tackle global migration. He is just asking that we look inside ourselves and appreciate the moral complexities nuances behind every decision that we make. That is what the essence of this essay, and essentially of thinking higher and feeling deeper, is; the search within oneself to find meaning behind every choice, but also to feel and understand the magnitude of every choice that we make.

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[1] Seth J. Frantzman. "The Long Road of Death, Massacre in Sinai." The Jerusalem Post, 18 Aug. 2010. 26 Nov. 2010. .

[2] Yael Branovsky. "Infiltrators' Detention Facility 'a Ghetto'" Y Net News.Com, 28 Nov. 2010. 2 Dec. 2010. .

[3] Dana Weiler-Polak. "Knesset Report: Gov't to Blame for Abuse of Asylum Seekers." Haaretz, 20 June 2010. 28 Nov. 2010. .

[4] Ron Friedman. "Yishai Introduces Plan to Stem Migration from Africa." The Jerusalem Post, 23 Nov. 2010. 28 Nov. 2010. .

[5] Yael Branovsky. "Report: 35 Foreign Kids Kept in Prison." Y Net News.Com, 13 Sept. 2010. 01 Dec. 2010. .

[6] Yoav Zitun. "Residents Fight Kindergarten for Children of Migrant Workers." Y Net News.Com, 30 June 2010. 28 Nov. 2010. .

[7] The 1951 Refugee Convention: Questions & Answers. Publication. UNHCR, 2007. Print.