On our walking tour of South Tel Aviv, one of the poorest neighborhoods in all of Israel, IC Next passed by a playground for small children. It was run down and rusting, but other than that it seemed innocent. One of our Beit Sheani friends turned to me and said, “You see that playground? Little children used to play there but now it is a home.” At a closer look, I could see the laundry hanging from the structure and that blankets and rags stuffed the tubes and slides.
While studying at the Mechina for the afternoon, we learned about the appalling poverty of South Tel Aviv. The area is known for its high crime rate and in a discussion later in the day, our Israeli peers shared their personal stories and fears of walking through South Tel Aviv alone. Many of the Americans were quick to make a connection between the poverty and the crime, but for many of the Israelis this was less obvious.
Next to the playground stands an outdoor library for both adults and children. The adults’ bookshelves are stocked with books in many different languages for the many immigrants from across Africa and elsewhere, but the children’s bookshelves contain only Hebrew books. This highlights another issue: the next generation of immigrants’ children who are born in Israel. These children must be faced with an identity crisis of a severe degree. Aaron, an Eritrean refugee, spoke about his own struggle to maintain his home culture in Israel. Because the children are born directly into Israeli society to non-Jewish immigrant parents, they will have to balance meshing into a Jewish Israeli culture and upholding the culture of their parents’ home country.
The Beit Sheanis acknowledged a very real concern that I had not fully taken into consideration. Though the refugees and foreign workers make up a significant portion of the population in these Jewish state, they are not Jewish. The social and political scene in Israel is affected by this because in order to have a Jewish state, there must remain a Jewish majority. Our Israeli friends suggested deportation of non-refugees as a viable solution to the issue, but us Americans came to a consensus that that was neither realistic nor wise. Aside from the aforementioned next generation of Israeli-born citizens, we recognized the international criticism that would arise from deportation. Israel is already portrayed in an awful light in the international media, and this would destroy whatever remains of Israel’s positive reputation.
Through this program, I observed that this social issue in Israel, like many others, will only be solved through collaboration. It requires a uniquely Israeli perspective and an international, outsiders’ perspective to find a viable plan of action that will be most beneficial to Israelis and the immigrant population.