Migrants in Tel Aviv asked to shutter shops for Yom Kippur

City council member distributes letter asking Africans to respect holy day, ‘unlike in past years’

By Gavriel Fiske

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12 September 2013, 11:40 pm

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Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel

A Tel Aviv city councilman distributed a letter in south Tel Aviv asking African migrants to “respect the Jewish religion and Israeli customs” for Yom Kippur and refrain from opening their businesses on the holiday.

City councilman Shlomo Maslawi, who also sits on the Tel Aviv southern neighborhoods committee, told the migrants that he hoped “unlike in recent years, you will close your places of business and respect us, in order to maintain respectful neighborhood relations.”

Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar, marked by fasting and prayer by religious Jews, but also observed by Israel’s non-religious Jews as a day when cars are not driven and public celebrations are all but verboten.

In the letter Maslawi describes Yom Kippur as a “sacred day in the Jewish religion and in the state of Israel” that has “a different atmosphere.”

“We act in modesty and humbleness, we don’t play music loud, we don’t drive cars and don’t eat in public in respect for those who choose to fast,” he wrote. “We ask and expect from you to respect the Jewish religion and the Israeli customs and to obey the law.”

Relations between Jews and migrants in south Tel Aviv have been shaky at times, with many residents holding rallies against the large population of Africans who make their homes there.

According to statistics from the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority, there are some 55,000 African migrants in Israel, 90% of them from Eritrea and Sudan, largely concentrated in southern Tel Aviv. Resident there regularly complain of street crime as a result of the migrant influx, including rape and robbery incidents. A violent protest in May 2012 saw a mob vandalize Africans’ stores and smash the windows of a car with African passengers.

Jerusalem has been searching for ways to deal with the African migrant community, although the influx has slowed since Israel constructed a fence on the southern border with Egypt. Most recently the government announced that Uganda has agreed to absorb or serve as a temporary transfer point for African migrants who will be voluntarily resettled at Israeli expense.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.