Rabbis For Human Rights: The Annual Report 2012-2013

African Asylum Seekers in Israel
RHR has been increasingly active
regarding the plight of African asylum
seekers fleeing from the killing
fields of Sudan and Eritrea. Sadly,
we are ignoring our own history by
closing our borders. A new law now
theoretically makes it a crime to
help the some 60,000 refugees and
asylum seekers in Israel, and we have
one of the lowest rates in the world
for granting refugee status. Current
policy pits disadvantaged veteran
residents of South Tel Aviv against
the asylum seekers. Attacks and
other manifestations of hatred and
anger have become more frequent.
In addition to our longstanding
participation in High Court appeals
seeking to allow them to work,
prevent geographical restrictions
on where they are allowed to live,
etc., we did our best to publicize
the plight of the South Sudanese
who were ultimately deported
in 2012 after losing the group
protection still given to Eritreans
and those from North Sudan. Our
Education Department now brings
Israeli young people to South Tel
Aviv, and during the “Aseret Yamei
Teshuvah” between Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur, RHR co-sponsored
a series of vigils outside the homes
of Interior Minister Yishai, Prime
Minister Netanyahu and Defense
Minister Barak. RHR recently asked
our supporters around the world
to write letters to the Ministry of
Interior because refugees were
being told they either face at least
three years of detention or must
“voluntarily” leave. That policy
has been cancelled, but growing
numbers of asylum seekers are
being incarcerated. We have been
working increasingly closely with
the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
(HIAS), and hope to: 1. Ensure that
Israel implements fair policies for
granting refugee status and accepts
our fair share. 2. Look for creative
solutions such as getting third
countries to allow Israel to act as
a way station, and ask Jewish and
other communities in host countries
to make this easier by sponsoring
refugee families. We need your
help to make this happen. In
December, at the invitation of HIAS,
Education Director Rabbi Nava
Hefetz addressed a U.N interfaith
conference on the plight of refugees
around the world. Her remarks
can be found on RHR’s website.
Since the conference, Rabbi Hefetz
has been working with Rabbis
Ascherman and Yehudai to help
establish international interfaith
standards on this issue.
Portrait of one of our young rabbis/rabbinical students:
Rabbi Kobi Weiss
Kobi comes from an ultra-Orthodox background, and was ordained within that world. He later
left religion entirely, but did not find himself in the secular hi-tech world. Judaism was in his
soul, and he began to teach in pre-army academies and to lead worship services for secular
Israelis. Although he would put on a kippah and serve as an army rabbi when called up for
reserve duty, he still had difficulty calling himself a rabbi.
Working with RHR has reconnected Kobi with the purpose of Judaism. He says that it has
helped him define what it truly means to be a rabbi, “The work has sharpened my philosophy of social justice
from a Jewish perspective – what are goals are. Working for human rights is an integral part of the responsibility
of the Jewish people in our generation, each from his/her own place. This realization doesn’t just impact on my
work for RHR, but everything else I teach, how I teach, how I structure my day…It isn’t about politics and it hasn’t
changed how I vote. It is much deeper than that. It is about what it means to be called ‘rabbi.’… My work in Beit
Shean has crystallized my thoughts about poverty and work. I have been teaching for two years in a program for
discharged soldiers. I teach them that the essence of being a leader is not averting one’s eyes and turning away.”
Kobi’s community work in Beit Shean has led him to understand and to teach that you can’t simply talk about issues
such as poverty via theory and statistics. You need to experience them at the grassroots level. He learned that we
must be careful not to patronize those with whom we work. Our goal must be to help people overcome all of the
forces that lead us not to take action to help ourselves or others.
Kobi writes, “This work challenges me. RHR is a reference group. I am not Reform, Conservative or Orthodox. I
come home and my family doesn’t fully understand that I am not in any particular movement. But I never had a
support group. Now I have people around me whom I can speak with.”
Education Department
HR’s Education Department, directed by Rabbi Nava Hefetz, teaches
the connection between Judaism and human rights to young people
in 13 pre-military academies. We engage university students at our
Human Rights Yeshiva at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and have
opened a new yeshiva at Jezreel Valley College. In addition to study,
the yeshiva students also participate in a human rights project with
RHR or another human rights organization. RHR works with Jewish
and Bedouin women students at Sapir College, who learn about
each other and about our faith traditions regarding human rights
and the status of women. We give the women tools to be activists
and they conduct shared social change projects. In partnership with
the San Francisco Jewish Learning Initiative (formerly the Bureau
of Jewish Education) we have produced an English version of RHR’s
Tractate Independence, and developed a middle school curriculum
for American Jews.
“We’re ending the year not only more aware of our
rights, but also more involved in the whole issue of
the rights of everyone in Israel. You’ve shown us the
meaning of tolerance and pluralism, the importance
of looking deeper into things, conveying criticism and
reinterpretation of things on the spot instead of taking
what’s written as the only correct interpretation.”
Nachshon Junior College, Metzudat Yoav
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27 RHR 2013