Graduation ceremony at “Rogozin” High-School. Photo: Tomer Appelbaum
The original story was published June 21 2023 on Haaretz.co.il
The excited parents and children took their places in the auditorium with the song “Made in the Israel” sung by Arik Einstein playing in the background. A symbolic choice, and somewhat ironic, for the graduation party of a cohort that almost all its students were not born in Israel. After everyone was seated, some dressed in their traditional clothes and some in suits, the signal was given to commence the graduation ceremony of the 12th grade class at Rogozin school in Tel Aviv.
Yustes, a student in the graduating class and one of the ceremony moderators, began by wishing the audience a good evening in three languages. She went on to add that there is “fear of the unknown, where do we go and what do we do”. This is usually a commonplace phrase, but in the case of this class, in which about a third of the students are statusless persons in Israel, these are not meaningless words.
The issue of the students’ status in Israel did not overshadow the joy, yet while unspoken it was nevertheless present throughout the ceremony. “Believe that it is possible to build a better future and to consider all the possibilities on the planet. Don’t give up on your dreams”, the principal Jalal Toche, whom the students call Papa, implored the students. The mayor, Ron Huldai, also addressed the issue in his speech. “I regret that I cannot guarantee to you what is guaranteed to every citizen in the State of Israel. You face an unknown”, he said, “but you have proved that you are able to withstand these difficult conditions. My wish for you is that the State of Israel will grant you status, and that you succeed in everything you do in the future.”
The students’ vague future loomed as an uncertainty throughout the school year. Haaretz accompanied the students and the teachers between the matriculation exams and the annual trip to Eilat, between arguments with the school staff about the school uniform and the journey “in the footsteps of soldiers” in the Golan Heights. All through the year, it was difficult to ignore the fact that at its end the statusless students in the graduating class would for the first time be leaving the bubble that enveloped them while they were in the education system. The health insurance to which they were entitled as students would expire and certain employment sectors would be closed to them due to the procedure which limits their employment in 17 localities and is currently frozen by Israel’s Supreme Court. Above everything looms the uncertainty that also hangs over their parents – regarding their status in Israel, and about the future.
Despite the uncertainty, on the first day of school last September the dominant feeling of the 12th grade cohort was excitement with the start of the new school year. The students came to school wearing red shirts and floral necklaces, and on the table awaited them cakes handed out by Shira, the 12/2 class homeroom teacher. The surrounding walls were still white and bare, and the classrooms sparkling clean: at the beginning of the year, the high school had left its building in south Tel Aviv, near the neighboring Bialik school, and moved to its new building.
Eliav Gil, the 12th-grade coordinator, and the 12/1 class homeroom teacher, sought to somewhat calm the excitement and the pressure. “There is no other school of migrant children in Israel”, he told them, “Each and every one of you has a very, very unique and interesting life story. The reason I love you so much. There are strengths here. You come from a complex reality, truth be told, yet nonetheless, you laugh, you smile. And I’ll stop rambling on. You have your studies. The reason we are gathered here.”
In the last months of the school year, the 12th grade teachers made an effort to prepare the students for the day after high school, among other things through meetings with the various assistance organizations and with the school’s graduates who succeeded in breaking through the glass ceiling despite the difficulties. “We tried to find something for the future of each and everyone, to pave a path for them. This is the most difficult task”, says Shir Feldman, the 12/3 class homeroom teacher – the class in which most of the students were not born in Israel and are therefore eligible for special accommodations on the matriculation exams.
photo: Tomer Appelbaum
photo: Tomer Appelbaum
photo: Tomer Appelbaum
photo: Tomer Appelbaum
photo: Tomer Appelbaum
Feldman says that some of the students, those whose future in Israel is entirely unclear, stopped leaving their houses almost altogether. Two of Shir’s female students are in the advanced stages of leaving for Canada, where most of the Eritrean community in Israel is gradually moving to. “Every migration is difficult, especially for the students for whom this is the second time they are migrating”, Feldman explains the mixed feelings on the issue, “it’s not easy to be thrown into a new place at the age of 18.”
Shaem Angosom, an excelling student who dreams of being a dentist or a teacher, is one of those female students who will soon be moving to Canada. Angosom, who came to Israel when she was six and a half, hardly remembers her homeland Eritrea, but to the graduation ceremony, she came wearing a scarf in the colors of the country’s flag. “Do I want to move to Canada? I ask myself every day, write down the disadvantages and advantages”, she says. “Advantages – I will finally be able to visit my family and travel anywhere I want. On the other hand, I feel good in Israel, with the girlfriends I grew up with, with the people I met. I will really miss my girlfriends, the school, the food, the Bamba, the weather”. In tears, she concludes: “My girlfriends will also somehow also get there, to Canada. Almost every Eritrean in Israel is looking to depart here.”
There are 51 students in 12th grade at Rogozin School. Along the way there were students who left: some were deported, some migrated. One of the 12th-grade female students, Sylvana Tsegai, was murdered in 2018 – when she was only 12 years old. Last December, her month of birth, the school held a remembrance ceremony in her honor. Memorial candles were arranged in the shape of a heart on the auditorium floor, and pictures of Sylvana were screened on the wall with an Ed Sheeran song playing in the background. “We were good friends; we spent every day together. When you left you left us a hole that was hard to fill”, said Sylvana’s good friend, Salam Tama, in the words she delivered at the improvised ceremony.
About 20 of the graduates are children of foreign workers who were granted status during the tenure of Ehud Olmert as Prime Minister – the last generation of the government resolution of the previous decade. They will serve in the IDF, and their future is relatively stable. The others in their class are the children of asylum seekers, most of them statusless.
The number of statusless students in Tel Aviv schools has grown steadily over the years. Over the past five years, the share of statusless persons among the students in the city’s middle and high schools more than tripled, however, the percentages remain low: from 1.08% in 2017 to 3.6% this year. The situation is different among primary school students – this year the share of foreign students among the total number of students was 8.6%, most of them attending separate schools without any Israeli students.
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, Photo: Tomer Appelbaum
“The parting is difficult, each year anew”, says Rachel Zuk, the deputy principal. “There are students who after completing school stay at home, are lost”, says Zuk. “I find that the day-to-day difficulties, the existential difficulties, hamper the students’ ability to get up and direct themselves towards a meaningful professional path. Only the exceptional ones succeed, some do so despite the looming daily danger of deportation. But the uncertainty affects many of them. For us, the staff, it breaks our heart – we see the unrealized potential.”
Despite the worry about the future, Zuk tries to direct most of her attention to the students’ present, their current situation. “I think that the education system is not an undertaking of preparation for the future”, she says, “we try to make the school a safe and growing space, that will be interesting, that the students will experience successes. Our role is to do well what we know how to do, our role is here and now.”
In certain regards, the future of Muhammad Adam Hussein is relatively clear: his family, who came from Darfur in Sudan, was granted a temporary resident visa due to a High Court of Justice decision from 2021. His mother works in a hotel, his father is a cook, and the young Hussein is a football player in “Hapoel Tel Aviv” youth team. As an employed player, Hussein has a means of livelihood as well as employment for the coming years, during which he hopes to be “invested in football”, in his words.
The team is also the meeting ground of Hussein with young Israelis his age. Many of the students in his school cohort are invested in sports, however, some are registered as foreign players, hindering their integration into the adult teams that are limited in the number of foreign players they can register. Owing to the High Court of Justice’s decision, Hussein is considered an Israeli. “The guys on the team ask a lot about how we got here, there are many stigmas, such as ‘What, is it true that the Sudanese are thieves?’, to a large extent this comes from the news, from things they hear”, says Hussein, “I explain to them that we have many things beyond this.”
Muhammad Adam Hussein and Eliav Gil. Photo: Tomer Appelbaum
He recently suffered derogatory remarks, and taunts, from spectators in the stands in a game in which he played. Hussein, who was an excelling student in high school, hopes to attend university or college in the future. Contrary to stigmas about football players, Hussein is the excelling student in his class, and the teachers say that he is a “positive leader” and a “gifted student”. However, he does not see his distant future in Israel. “I don’t think I will succeed here”, he says earnestly, “here you will always be judged because of the color of the skin. It is like this everywhere, but there are places where it is less felt. Here I don’t have options.”
Every year, at the end of June, two significant events intersect at Rogozin School: the end-of-year ceremony, and the marking of World Refugee Day. This year both events took place one day after the other. The ceremony marking World Refugee Day was carried out last week with the participation of the school’s graduates and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Israel. “I don’t feel that I am stuck, that I am helpless”, explained Barik, a 25-year-old asylum seeker, to the students, “you just have to dream all the time and to know that tomorrow – or in a few years – it will be possible to realize dreams. Don’t stay stuck in the past, take the past and improve on it.”
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Israel, Mathijs Le Rutte, who is completing his first year in this position, also spoke at the festive ceremony. “Teacher is the most valuable but most undervalued role in society”, said Le Rutte in his speech, “let us also recognize what that relationship means in the life of children whose parents or parent, if there is only one, are engaged in a daily struggle to survive and make the best for the family in a context that is challenging and even repressive. Then the teachers offer additional safe space, a haven of peace.”
Shaem Angosom wearing a scarf with the Eritrean flag. Photo: Tomer Appelbaum
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