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Since 2006, 60,000 non-Jewish Africans, primarily from Sudan and Eritrea, have fled the wars and dictatorships of their home countries and made their way through Egypt and the Sinai desert into Israel, the Jewish homeland. These Africans, mostly refugees and asylum seekers, have risked their lives in the hope of finding a safe haven until they can return home.

Paradoxically, they are considered “infiltrators” in a country that was founded by and for refugees – Jewish refugees – but is unprepared and seemingly unwilling to handle this wave of Africans. While Israel has a very clear policy for absorbing Jews and is a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, it has struggled to deal with its newest migrant community. Recognizing that it cannot send the Africans back to their home countries, the government of Israel keeps them in limbo, not allowing them to work legally. With the numbers of homeless, jobless Africans on the rise, tensions are growing in the poor neighborhoods where they’ve settled.

The African migrants have become a major political issue for Israel, with anti-migrant laws and politicians threaten to expel and imprison innocent men, women and children. While the State gropes for an adequate solution to this looming humanitarian crisis, Israel’s civil society has stepped into the breach and is invoking Jewish and human values to help the Africans most in need. Exodus, a documentary film, chronicles this issue and sheds light on the largely hidden world of Israel’s African refugees.