The lost children of Israel's foreign workers

Five thousand meals were prepared for a multicultural food, music and art fair held June 4 at the Bascula Club in Tel Aviv. The event was organized by Israeli Children, an organization working to legalize the status of children of foreign workers in Israel. The food stalls attested to the countries of origin of the immigrants, including the Philippines, Sudan (mostly Darfur), South Sudan, Eritrea, India and Colombia. 

The Eritrean stall offered injera, a type of flat sour bread, along with assorted other dishes. The Colombian kitchen served frijoles, a black bean dish, and empanadas made with corn flour. An especially long line stretched from the Philippine stall, which offered tofu-filled steamed rolls. The atmosphere was lively with stalls selling ethnic arts, craft workshops and traditional music and dance performances, including a children’s chorus. 

The thousands of meals were soon devoured by a crowd of Israelis who surprised the organizers by their large turnout. They came to celebrate the ethnic diversity that now characterizes Tel Aviv, rather than doing what residents usually do, which is to ignore the diversity at best or rage about it at worst.

Behind the Colombian stall stood Evelin Diaz, along with her mother and aunt. Diaz arrived in Israel at the age of eight in 2003. “The event surprised me,” she told Al-Monitor. “I was really excited. I met a ton of people who came to support [us], and it’s very different from what we usually experience.”