Immigrant voting rights group launches in Tel Aviv

Over 375 people attended the launch event for Kol Oleh (Voice of the Immigrant), a Tel Aviv-focused immigrant rights political movement, at the Barbara Frye pub on Frishman Street in Tel Aviv late Wednesday night.

Kol Oleh’s leading activists told a room packed with native-born Israelis and olim from 12 countries about how they envision integrating immigrants into the Tel Aviv political scene.

“The city needs to be shown that olim bring a lot to the table,” Kol Oleh founder Guy Seemann declared. “Kol Oleh wants to make Tel Aviv an example for the rest of the country when it comes to successful klita (immigrant absorption). In addition to providing badly needed services that will strengthen the chances of olim staying in Israel and living successful lives here, Kol Oleh is determined to put the innovations olim bring from their home countries at the front of the municipal agenda.”

Seemann, who founded Kol Oleh last March shortly after returning from a 10-month stint in Haiti as the director of Israeli humanitarian projects there, organized the event with the help of 16 volunteers who walked around wearing official Kol Oleh T-shirts, passing around the organization’s business cards, and signing people up to its email list.

Although Seemann’s keynote speech was delivered in English, he was quick to point out that Kol Oleh is not an Anglo-focused group.

“Of the sixteen volunteers, four are Italian, two are French, one is Turkish, three are Israelis, and six are Canadians and Americans,” Seemann said. “This movement is about bringing new perspectives about making change to the city to the attention of municipal leadership.”

While cheers and applause were frequent during Seemann’s 10-minute manifesto, even Kol Oleh’s die-hard supporters are aware that the movement faces a long, uphill battle to establishing its relevance among the Tel Aviv political elite.

“This is the first time that olim in the city have come together to form a political platform,” said Nina Sherman, a New York City native and a leading Kol Oleh activist, who introduced Seemann to the crowd. “We don’t know yet how influential Kol Oleh will be in this year’s municipal elections. But even if its role is small, this is the just the beginning. Kol Oleh is meant to be a movement and a lobbying group that will play a role in municipal issues for many years to come.”

“I came here tonight firstly to have fun,” said Alessia Vivanti, a native of Rome who has been living in the city for the past four and a half years, laughing. “But I knew it was for olim. It’s important for olim to have a voice and to maximize their rights. None of the politicians in this city speak about olim. I have new hope now that they will start to.”

Although the focus of the evening was on immigrants, many of the native Israelis in attendance also expressed enthusiasm for the group’s agenda, saying they saw their needs intertwined with those of the immigrants.

“[Kol Oleh] is a great idea,” said Hagit Hamami, a Ramat Gan resident who joined her Tel Aviv friends for the celebration. “I agree that everyone comes with unique ideas and perspectives based on where they come from. It’s great to see a movement that tries to help those less familiar with the system make this city and this country a better place.”

Now that Kol Oleh’s launch event is over, Seemann and his cadre of volunteers are hoping they have generated enough momentum to see the movement thrive. In the coming months, Kol Oleh’s volunteers will be getting city residents to pledge to vote in the municipal elections, informing the Kol Oleh base on how the system works and who the candidates for city council are, splitting supporters up into different focus groups to come up with solutions for the city’s problems, and pushing for a Kol Oleh representative to be offered a spot on a party list ahead of the general election.

“I believe in the cause and I believe in Guy,” said Ottawa-born Rafi Brass, a resident of Tel Aviv resident. “If anyone’s going to see this through to the end, it’s going to be him.”