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Labor pains Three small children romp around among the customers. Their big sister is surfing Internet music sites, and their father is on the phone with a supplier, who is stuck on the road. A routine morning for an independent businessman, who did not find an arrangement for his kids during the summer vacation. This is the scene that greets visitors at a computer store on Neveh Sha'anan Street in South Tel Aviv, but not everything about it is routine: With his own eyes, Ismail Ahmed, the owner of the store, saw his father being burned alive in a hut in his native village in Darfur, in western Sudan. He opened the store just a few months ago, after undergoing prolonged hardships en route to Israel. Ahmed, a computer hardware engineer by training, works around 16 hours a day. During daytime hours, he manages the store, which sells computer accessories and offers Internet surfing for NIS 10 an hour; in the evenings he teaches computer classes to groups of local residents. He still hasn't managed to cover all the expenses involved in opening the new business, and has had to take out a bank loan to help cover the difference. The loan was possible, among other reasons, because of the residency status he received as a war refugee. Ahmed says that despite all the difficulties, he prefers the headaches of being a business owner to working someplace else. "All beginnings are hard," he says. "I feel happier, freer, that I have my own store and am not working for someone else. After everything I've been through, opening a business doesn't seem so threatening." Ahmed is one of several Sudanese refugees in Israel who chose to open their own businesses against all odds, including high expenses, low profits, unfamiliar laws, complex bureaucracy - and, primarily, the refugees' highly problematic civil status. Still the first hints of this phenomenon have become visible over the last few months along the Neveh Sha'anan pedestrian mall, in the form of cafes, pubs, the computer store and hair salons serving the thousands of Africans and other foreign workers who live in South Tel Aviv. "These people, who have a lot of initiative and good survival instincts, are tough," says Elisha Milkovsky, a social worker from a refugee aid organization. "Many of them are academics who want to be independent and successful wherever they are. Many times they don't get a job because of the language problem and because they are black. Opening a business is clearly more challenging than standing in a restaurant washing dishes." There are currently some 9,000 African refugees living in the country, a majority in South Tel Aviv and some in Eilat. About 1,000 came from the Darfur region, where a violent and harsh conflict has been under way for several years, during which 450,000 people have been killed or starved to death, and some two million uprooted from their homes. Militias supported by the Muslim government of Sudan are responsible for the atrocities committed against Darfuris, the destruction of their towns and villages, and the killings and rapes. Last week, the International Court of War Crimes filed charges against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir for commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and murder. Darfuris started arriving in Israel via Egypt in 2005. Many spent their first months in Israeli jails or detention centers, after nighttime crossings of the border from Sinai. Apart from these refugees, there are 2,000 refugees from southern Sudan, another area afflicted by conflict and tragedy. There are also some 4,000 refugees from Eritrea, as well as approximately 1,000 from the Ivory Coast, who are soon to be repatriated thanks to the stabilization of the political situation there. Most of the refugees have received what is called "group protection" in Israel. They are careful to carry around a UN document with identifying information and a photo - a document that, after substantial efforts by human rights organizations, enables them to open a bank account and to work without being expelled. In January 2008, the government of Israel decided to grant residency status to 600 Darfur refugees, the first ones to arrive in the country, but so far only 450 of them have formally received this status. A new leaf Residency status is supposed to make it easier for the refugees to turn over a new leaf in the country; with it they can enjoy the benefits of National Insurance allowances and medical insurance. This status also makes it easier to open a business, since they can work with banks and request a loan, and they can also make contact with the authorities without fear. However, the residency status they have received is valid for one year only, which makes it hard for them to make long-term plans. "The people from Darfur have been through a lot of travail, but the state is giving some of them a chance," explains attorney Anat Ben-Dor, of the Tel Aviv University legal clinic. "Other refugees have all kinds of papers, but they don't have basic rights, and that makes all the difference." Yassin Moussa, one of the leaders of the country's Darfur refugee community, has exploited his new residency status to open a pub on Neveh Sha'anan Street, where last week he celebrated three years since his arrival in Israel. Moussa, 30, came to Egypt after fleeing his native village, which was completely destroyed by the militias. He was forced to flee from Egypt as well after local security services started following him because of his activities on behalf of his fellow Darfur refugees. He arrived in Tel Aviv after spending 14 months in Ma'asiyahu Prison and then working on Kibbutz Eilot near Eilat, and in hotels in that city. The pub has been open only three months and Moussa has still not learned all of the laws and regulations related to operating a local business. One such law prohibits smoking in public places. Moussa had to pay NIS 5,000 to Tel Aviv municipal inspectors who fined him for smoking, after explaining that ignorance of the law does not exempt one from punishment. Moussa: "It's really hard - there are lots of expenses in the beginning that aren't always clear to me. Municipal taxes, for example, are paid based on the square-footage of the business and not on income. But, I believe that my businesses and that of others will yet flourish." In the future, Moussa hopes to leave management of the pub to one of his friends and to work as an architect, the profession he studied in Sudan. "I know many other academics who would prefer to work in their field, or to continue the studies they were forced to stop in Sudan. You have to remember that we came here because of circumstances that are completely out of our control. Everyone has to manage somehow," he says. Nadak Michael, 27, arrived in the country last July, five years after he fled southern Sudan. Before leaving, Nadak was a psychology student, but she managed to complete just one year of studies. Today Michael is the owner of two hair salons on Neveh Sha'anan, the second of which she opened just a month ago. At the same time, she is working two mornings a week as an English teacher at the Bialik School in southern Tel Aviv. For the initial investment in the business, she used money her husband saved while he worked at a Tel Aviv hotel. Michael charges NIS 30 for a haircut, and half of the revenues go to the three Sudanese hairdressers who work for her. She says that after all the expenses such as rent and taxes, she manages to earn about NIS 6,000 a month. "It's not as hard as people think," she explains. "There is demand here for haircuts, because Israelis don't understand African hair. For now, I'm managing with all the bureaucracy and dealings with the authorities." NBA shirt Carbino Jameswell, 19, is another refugee from southern Sudan. Anyone running into him on the streets of Tel Aviv might mistake him for an American college student, wearing a loose NBA shirt and three-quarter-length pants, and smiling broadly at his acquaintances. There are lots of them around, but only a few know that both of Jameswell's parents died when he was young, and that he had to manage alone in a war-stricken area. Jameswell, one of the first refugees to come to Israel, arrived here four years ago. He picked up the fluent English he speaks on the streets. He is known mainly as the owner of the Central Africa pub, which operated until a few weeks ago on Neveh Sha'anan Street. The pub was especially popular among the city's African population, but Jameswell had to close it down because it was operating without a license, which he could not obtain without residency status. He possesses only UN documents, with which he can withdraw cash from only one bank branch in the city, near his apartment on Salameh Street. Jameswell has actually covered a lot of ground since his arrival here: After a year in the Ketziot Prison, he arrived at Moshav Ein Yahav in the Arava, where he picked cherry tomatoes. Then he worked in hotels in Eilat and from there he moved to Tel Aviv. The savings he accumulated he used to open his own business, selling cellular phones and calling cards. He purchased the goods in Tel Aviv, and each week would travel to Eilat to sell the merchandise to African refugees working in local hotels. Most of his clients were people he knew from the various stations he himself had passed through. Now that the pub is closed, Jameswell plans to open a store for unique African clothing and jewelry. This time he plans to get help from his girlfriend, Rivka, an Israeli citizen who immigrated on her own from the United States at the age of 11, and who lives with him in South Tel Aviv. The two suffer from Jameswell's unique political status: He has no passport and therefore cannot travel with Rivka to visit her parents in the U.S. Also he can't marry her in Israel, because he is not Jewish. Despite the difficulties, the two are already starting to plan what goods they will bring from the U.S. for their new store. "When your whole life you've needed help from people, you have to start to think how to do it yourself. Here in Israel I really can't do many things, but every time I discover that it is possible to get along with what there is," says Jameswell. "Carbino, with his business sense, could own an empire if he had residency status," says Simon Doka, who knows the young Sudanese well. Doka is the proprietor of two clothing stores - one on the Neveh Sha'anan pedestrian mall, the other which opened a few months ago in the New Central Bus Station. He could be considered a small-scale success, were it not for the abuse he says he suffers from the Tel Aviv municipality: He owes the city NIS 80,000 for fines issued after he dared to open his shop on a Saturday. Doka, 32, arrived here from southern Sudan in 1995, when he was just 19, and received refugee status from the UN. For a few years he worked odd jobs, among others as a cook in a Mexican restaurant. In 2004, he had enough savings and decided to open the store on the pedestrian mall. Because most of his customers are foreign workers, he wanted to open on Saturdays, their day of rest and shopping. He actually tried to request a permit to do so from the municipality: He sent 20 memos and went from one clerk to another, but to no avail. After six months, the city notified him that the municipal bylaw permits opening a business on Saturday only in an area where most of the registered residents are not Jewish. Feeling he had no other choice, Doka opened on Saturday, was fined, accumulated debts and now must deal with expropriation orders from the municipality. Last week an administrative appeal against the city was submitted on his behalf by his lawyer, Guy Ofir. "It's complete madness," says Ofir. "He is a non-Jew who sells to non-Jews in an area where non-Jews live. Only the inspectors who hand out fines on Saturdays are Jewish." The Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality's response: "The bylaw prohibits the opening of stores on Saturdays. The municipality, as part of its policy of observing the Sabbath as a day of rest, acts against stores that are open on Saturdays in violation of the law. However, in some parts of Jaffa, where the population is mostly Arab, non-Jewish business owners may open on Saturday and close on another day of the week, as the city council has determined. Said business owner, due to his troubles, was offered the option of moving his store to Jaffa, but he refused for reasons of his own. We should like to emphasize that non-Jewish business owners from all over the city are not permitted to open on the Sabbath." Doka says he regrets the choice to come to Israel. His relatives live today in England, Australia and the U.S., and most already have citizenship. They arrived in those countries with the help of the UN, after staying in refugee camps in Kenya. A few years ago, Doka asked for sanctuary in Australia, but the UN told him he was already recognized as a refugee in Israel. He has to renew his residency status annually, and cannot travel abroad. "It's hard to live here in Israel, and it's certainly hard to run a business here," Doka noted this week. "After all, everyone knows that small businesses contribute significantly to the economy. The entrepreneurs should be encouraged and supported. Where they came from is totally unimportant." Article published in Haaretz
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