When Israel is Not Your Home

Israel is familiar with planeloads of people from Africa. But this week, we are not bringing them to Israel, a la Operations Moses and Solomon, but sending them home. During operation “Returning Home,” South Sudanese, here illegally, are leaving on a jet plane, bound for their home country. (Immigrants from some other African countries are considered refugees and allowed to stay.)

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s goal is to return the illegal immigrants home and discourage future illegal immigration. At the same time, he is careful—and warns others to be as well—totreat the immigrants humanely and refrain from using incendiary language. South Sudanese who left voluntarily received a free plane ticket and some cash; employers were told they were legally bound to pay their African workers before they left.

Netanyahu’s warning—to treat fellow human beings with respect and dignity—was, unfortunately, warranted. During the past weeks, African immigrants have been the targets of bigotry, hatred and racist attacks; MK Miri Regev called them a “cancer” (I cringe to even write the words) in our society. The atmosphere of hate coursing through parts of Israel was reminiscent of pre-civil rights America, or Germany during the 1930s. And sadly, despite our Torah commanding us time and time again to treat the foreigner among us with respect, studies found a direct correlation between religious observance and level of racism.

In my ideal view, Israel would be caretaker of the world. Not just for Jews, but for anyone in need of a better place to live. We would find a way to absorb the immigrants into our society. We would roll out the welcome mat to all searching for a new life. After all, to paraphrase the Torah, we know what it feels like to be the unwanted in society; we need to make sure no one among us ever feels like that.

And yet. We are a country with limited resources and space, with security needs and a citizen population of our own to care for. It simply doesn’t work to allow anyone in who wants in. In the end, I believe the government is making the right decision. We can’t let you stay here, but we will ease the way as much as we can.

No matter what your policies and decisions and beliefs are, human dignity and respect has to come first. Always. If we lose the ability to treat others with humanity, then we lose the very essence of who we are.