10 plagues came down on the Egyptian people as the Hebrew people strove for their freedom. Our tradition calls upon us not to celebrate the Egyptian’s suffering. Rather, on this joyous night,we symbolically reduce our happiness by removing a drop of wine from our goblets as we remember each of those plagues.

This year we must remember the 11th plague that has been brought down on a people who also came up through Egypt and the Sinai to arrive at our borders. These Asylum Seekers have suffered from the plague of Power Gone Crazy.  The Jewish people spent 2000 years without power, and only 70 years ago were blessed with the opportunity to try again to build a State based on Jewish values and sensitivities.  What has happened in the last decade regarding these refugees who have asked for our help can only be described as the plague of Power Gone Crazy.

First, we passionately and legally denied who they are. Changing the law of Infiltration into Israel to include anyone who entered the country without a visa, including refugees who fled from brutal and murderous dictatorships, as infiltrators, we stole away their name andtheir true identity.  They were no longer asylum seekers, they were infiltrators, in the same category as terrorists who came to kill us and our children. Convincing the Israeli public that this was the case, it was simple to make sure that virtually all requests to be recognized as refugees would be rejected, first by denying the right to submit requests and then by categorically decreeing that anyone who fled from the slavery of the Eritrean Army was a deserter and therefore couldn’t possibly be an asylum seeker.Subsequently, in a desperate attempt to convince them to leave the Jewish State, we jailed them for various periods of time and denied them access to medical insurance.  Still they almost all refused to return to Africa. So the powers-that-be designed the last, desperate plan. We will expel them.Since we can’t possibly send them to Sudan and Eritrea, we will make a secret deal with Uganda and Rwanda.  We will pay them for each refugee expelled to their countries. They would then unofficially steal the money and documents of these asylum seekers and force them to move on to another country and from there to a boat in order to try to flee into Europe.

There is no happy ending to this story. Tonight we will remove an eleventh drop from our wine goblets to remind ourselves that while we celebrate our freedom there are 38,000 asylum seekers from the Sudan and Eritrea and their 7,000 stateless children living amongst us who every day are being driven further from their freedom. Our job is to remember them. Our mission is to continue to fight the battle to bring back sanity to those in power.Our hope is that next Passover we will be able to celebrate after freeing ourselves fromthis terrible 11th plague.

Matthew Sperber, Kibbutz Yahel, member of Israel Religious Action Center Steering Committee


haggadah Section: -- Ten Plagues