Despite appeal, Black Hebrews ordered to leave Israel within two weeks

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Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority has rejected an appeal by 51 members of the Hebrew Israelites community against a deportation order they received last April, ordering them to leave Israel within 14 days.

The letters the authority sent are dated August 9, but they only reached their destination last Monday, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. The community is now expected to appeal the decision to a court of administrative affairs in Be’er Sheva.

The deportation orders were received following a request the community filed with the authority back in 2015, asking for people to be granted legal status after they had settled in Israel without permission. The community was asked to provide the authority with a list of people who had no legal status in Israel, and it complied. The authority subsequently asked those members of the community to leave the country.

The community members affected then filed an appeal. While the Population Authority claims that each case was examined individually, every one of these appeals was denied. The community members now are launching a legal process against their deportation. Omri Barbash, who is representing the community members together with Avigdor Feldman, said they would appeal the decision in court.

One of the rejection letters that was shared with Haaretz lists the reasons for denying a request by A., a 22-year-old member of the Hebrew Israelite community who has lived in Israel for the last decade. According to the Interior Ministry, A. came to Israel on a tourist visa in 2011, when he was only 12. The letter doesn’t indicate whether A. came alone or with his family. “Since his permit expired, A. has been in Israel illegally, taking the law into his own hands,” says the letter. It goes on to say that even though the center of his life is in Israel, this does not justify awarding him legal status in the country.

In contrast to A., some of the people who have been ordered to leave Israel were born here. In April, Haaretz reported the story of Yahhlitahl Hercules, 22, who was born in Israel to parents who arrived in 1998 but were never given legal status. Yahhlitahl’s mother Dawn received a deportation order in April. The order also applies to her eight children who live in Israel. “When I got this letter it made me despair,” Hercules said in April. “I was born and raised here, I went to school here, I don’t know any other place. My home is here, so why do I have to leave?”

The Population and Immigration Authority said in April that the deportation was ordered with the consent of then-Interior Minster Arye Dery. Dimona Mayor Benny Biton appealed to Dery, asking him to refrain from deporting the community, which he described as being an inseparable part of the city. “It’s inconceivable that they would have to leave their homes, the birthplace of some of them, after so many years,” he wrote. “As someone who’s accompanied this community for years, I won’t let this happen.”

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Meretz lawmaker Mossi Raz called the authority’s decision contemptible, claiming that the members of the Hebrew Israelite community are equal members of Israeli society. “Their community is here and they belong here. This deportation can and must be stopped,” he said.