Tel Aviv, Israel
25 March 2009
Yotam Sheffy |
Their faces speak of trauma, their injuries of the suffering they endured in reaching safety, in Israel. Some arrive here in Tel Aviv with bullet wounds. They were shot, they say, by Egyptian snipers as they ran across desert toward the Israeli border.
In a country that has historically welcomed only Jewish refugees, their plight is invisible to many here -- but not to 25 year-old Yotam Sheffy. He has spent the last few of years of his life fighting to get them food, access to emergency health care, education, and, most importantly, a life without fear.
This refugee says he was shot, by Egyptian snipers as he ran across the desert toward the Israeli border |
"They are refugees," Sheffy said. "Like my grandparents were 50 years ago in Europe. There's no difference. And if the doors weren't open there for my grandmother by simple village Christians, not me nor my father would be alive."
Tel Aviv's Lewinsky Park is where hundreds of Darfurians camped before shelters of them opened in the last two years.
Since then, the efforts that Sheffy has pioneered have blossomed, and other young Israelis are now joining in to help the refugees.
Twenty-three year old David Refaeli gathered volunteers from all over Israel for a fun day in the park for children who are the victims of persecution. "This, of course, appeals to the Jewish heart, and Jews that also, 60-years-ago, were also persecuted for who they are. What's going on there, as I understand it, it's a holocaust, also," Refaeli said.
Sheffy's work offers hope for refugee adults and children |
For Sheffy, who found his calling one day when he came by a shelter to deliver donations, the lessons of his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, ring loud and clear.
"She would always say, whoever goes like this to you, give (to) him. Don't ask why," Sheffy recalls.
Yotam Sheffy has picked a tough battle, helping Israel's often invisible refugees.