ICC Note: Christian Eritrean migrants and asylum seekers find places to worship in Tel Aviv, Israel where they have fled to from their homeland. These Christian communities within Tel Aviv depend on their churches as a place to worship without fear and escape from the pressure the Israeli government sometimes places on immigrants. There are 45,000 African migrants in Israel currently, many of whom are from Eritrea. These are people who are fleeing Eritrea to escape persecution of extreme kinds. The Eritrean state considers evangelical Christians who worship outside of the four government religions as enemies of the state, subjecting them to arbitrary and indefinite arrest, torture, pressure to deny their faith, and extrajudicial killings.

By Oded Balilty

05/29/2016, Tel Aviv, Israel (The Times of Israel) – Hundreds of faithful gather each week in the makeshift Savior of the World church. With its walls bedecked with Christian paraphernalia, it’s an unlikely scene in the heart of the Jewish state, hidden in a non-descript building in a hardscrabble area of coastal metropolis Tel Aviv.

The worshipers are some of the tens of thousands of members of the Eritrean migrant community in Israel. Their churches are an integral part of their community, providing a temporary spiritual escape from often hostile Israeli government policies.

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