Want to see refugee suffering in 30 seconds or less? Watch the news. Want to feel their pain and understand how one host nation justifies its action? Read Hello Refugees!(Gefen Publishing, 2017).By sticking assiduously to his successful formula best selling author Tuvia Tenenbom writes another masterpiece of non-fiction in an engrossing diary format.
Doing for the refugees is the new German public image until Tenenbom enters “the freakiest place on the planet (page 55)!” Refugee housing units are “boxes, made of lousy materials…housing up to ten people, and sheets serve as doors. If you want privacy, my dear, go back to where you came from.” The Germans are great for security. “Strangers and journalists are never to enter,” but Tenenbom wiggles around these formidable restrictions. Camps house people together who are educated and once middle-class alongside knife fighting, alcoholic tribesmen from violent and rural countries. Women and children are particularly vulnerable. Filthy public toilets subject refugees to health problems and skin diseases. The food is unfamiliar and often violates their religious precepts. It universally tastes horrible. The boredom, lack of work, skills training, education, or teaching them to speak German, doom refugees “to mental and spiritual death.YesGermany might have saved their bodies, but it is killing their souls (page 105).” Nevertheless, there are “guests” who appreciate Germany. “Thawanni, a person with a million watts of warmth, is happy to introduce me to the residents of the place, and she seems to enjoy her new job as a hostess...Here, for example, is a couple from Iraq. ‘Just today,’ the man tells me,’ a missile fell next to my brother…in Mosul, where Daesh controls everything.’ His wife chips in: ‘I love Germany. Only Germany helps us. Angela Merkel is the best. Germans are the best. They take us in; they house us, they feed us, they give us money. May Allah bless Germany. No other country is as good as Germany. Not even one Arab country took us in!” Hello Refugees!exemplifies Mark Twain’s assessment, “The mere knowledge of a fact is pale; but when you come to realize a fact, it takes on color. It is all the difference of hearing of a man being stabbed to the heart, and seeing it done.” REVIEWER BIO: Dr. Harold Goldmeier is a public speaker, Managing Partner of an investment firm, a consultant to firms in commerce and industry, and a writer. He teaches Values & Ethics to international university students in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Goldmeier is a recipient of the Governor’s Award (Illinois) for family investment programs in the workplace from the Com. on the Status of Women. He was a Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard, a father and grandfather of very independent-minded children.
buy Hello Refugees! from Amazon.com
------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel ------------------------------------------------------