Israel’s Invisible Filipino Work Force

Israel’s Invisible Filipino Work Force<br />An internal ministry document, leaked to Haaretz in 2010, chided a Filipino worker who applied for citizenship after falling in love with an Israeli man, for "waiting for a knight so she could get a visa." The lawyer who represented the caregiver<br />and her Israeli partner in suing the ministry called its officials "demographobes." Pregnant migrant workers used to face a choice: leave Israel within three months of giving birth, or stay and work in the country but send your baby away.<br />Filipino came that It’s good for me to forget a little.<br />Neal Imperial, the Philippine ambassador to Israel, told me<br />that though there are Filipino doctors, nurses and engineers in other countries, their absence from Israeli society "tends to create a one-dimensional view of our people and our country, such that for many Israelis, the Philippines is a nation of caregivers." Israel’s Interior Ministry, which controls immigration policy, considers foreign workers to be visitors: neither citizens nor residents.<br />A group of Holocaust survivors petitioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "protect the honor of Israel<br />and put this shameful chapter behind us for good." The following year, the Israeli government decided to give amnesty to 800 children of migrant workers who were born in Israel, had been living in the country for at least five years, were enrolled in school and whose parents entered the country legally.<br />You tell your employer that your boyfriend or girlfriend is coming, and the employer says, ‘Go meet him!’ or ‘Tell him to come here!’ " It is now commonplace to see obituaries in the Hebrew press<br />that include, alongside relatives’ names, a tribute to a "dedicated caregiver." One afternoon in April, I sat with Ella Ben Yaacov and Gemma Gragasin in the kitchenette of Ella’s small apartment, inside an assisted-living facility in a tree-lined neighborhood in Tel Aviv.