Taking one last look at the Mediterranean sun pouring through the lavender curtains of their Tel Aviv apartment, Medhanea and Titi Solomon scoot the last of eight suitcases and assorted carry-ons – everything they own – out the door and close it. They jiggle the handle to make sure it’s locked.

The Eritrean asylum-seekers and their two Israeli-born daughters – Hermela and Heran – climb into cars headed to the airport, swallowed into the morning’s traffic of a country that for more than a decade they had hoped would be their home. But Israel, although a Western democracy created in response to the Jewish people’s own history as refugees, did not embrace them.

The government classifies non-Jewish asylum-seekers as “infiltrators,” putting their children into segregated schools for families of foreign workers and asylum-seekers. Here they are relegated to a life of limbo and chronic economic instability with little likelihood of being granted refugee status.

Israel “forgot what it feels like to be a refugee,” says Ms. Solomon, who 20 hours after leaving their fifth-floor walk-up in Tel Aviv was on the other side of the world. She is urging her daughters to open the door of their new apartment on a cold and rainy November night in Toronto. 

SARA MILLER LLANA/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Medhanea Solomon carries down luggage as the family arrives in Toronto.

Each wears a gold necklace that bears their names in Hebrew. Bundled in matching pink coats, their curly hair brushed back in identical ponytails, the girls slip through the doorway and into a new future in Canada.  

“Mama, is this a dream?” 10-year-old Hermela, dazed from the journey, asks in Hebrew.

The two-bedroom basement unit in a handsome brick home in one of Toronto’s most desirable neighborhoods had been lovingly prepared by the family’s four sponsors, members of the Jewish community of Toronto. For years they had watched Israel’s harsh policies toward asylum-seekers with a mix of heartbreak and rage. They have filled the newcomers’ fridge with pita and hummus, fresh fruit, and salads. A teddy bear is placed at the head of each girl’s tidy single bed, covered in matching polka-dot duvets. Fresh daisies sit on a coffee table.

“Everything is ready already,” Ms. Solomon keeps repeating.

For many Jews around the world, Israel’s treatment of asylum-seekers has stirred deep emotions, says Jon Allen, a former Canadian ambassador to Israel. He is the Solomons’ sponsor, along with his wife and another couple. The four of them picked up the family from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, helping them carry their eight suitcases down the stairs into their new home. 

“Jews have been a persecuted people their whole existence,” Mr. Allen says. And while Israel was never perfect, he notes, “the Israel I grew up with was going to be the land of Jewish people with Jewish people’s values, which were to recognize what we suffered through and ensure that other people didn’t go through that.”

SARA MILLER LLANA/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Heran (left) and Hermela Solomon hang up a pink winter coat the family brought from Israel.

For them, joining Canada’s private sponsorship program to resettle refugees from Israel is an act of love and faith – and a protest against what they consider Israel’s moral failure. 

Israel began trying to stem the tide of asylum-seekers when thousands started crossing into the country in the mid-2000s. The first wave of refugees was from the Darfur region of Sudan, followed by Eritreans escaping brutal military dictatorship and forced conscription that has been compared to slave labor. The Eritrean asylum-seekers made their way through Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, and eventually paid Bedouins to smuggle them through the Sinai Desert. This last leg of the journey left many vulnerable to torture, extortion, and sexual assaults, according to human rights groups. 

From the start, the presence of African asylum-seekers has posed a quandary for Israel, founded in the shadow of the Holocaust as a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution. The policy of successive governments was driven by the concern that the country could be overwhelmed by large waves of non-Jewish migration from the region. Officials, including former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have said the asylum-seekers pose a danger to the Jewish character of Israel. 

Israeli officials have also maintained that the majority of Africans who have crossed into Israel are economic migrants looking for work and a better life, not refugees fleeing persecution. Israel does not recognize abandoning military service, as so many of the Eritrean asylum-seekers have, as a valid reason to grant asylum. In working-class neighborhoods of South Tel Aviv, where many African migrants live, some residents have protested against their presence, blaming them for an increase of crime.

Ayelet Shaked, the interior minister in the government that replaced Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition last summer, has vowed to work to “return infiltrators to their country and encourage voluntary departure to safe third countries.” She added that she would “work with all my might to implement a responsible migration policy, while providing a suitable response in proven humanitarian situations.”

At its peak, in 2013, some 60,000 African asylum-seekers lived in the country. The next year, Israel completed construction of a 150-mile fence along its southern border with Egypt. 

SARA MILLER LLANA/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

The Solomons (from left: Heran, Titi, Hermela, and Medhanea) relax on a couch in their new apartment in Toronto, where they were supported in their resettlement by four Canadian citizens

In 2017, Mr. Netanyahu devised a plan to deport African asylum-seekers to their homeland or third countries in Africa. It drew fierce criticism inside Israel, from rabbis to filmmakers to Holocaust survivors, and from Jews abroad, especially in North America. The pushback was intense enough that the government canceled the deportations. 

But policy measures persist that make the lives of the newcomers so miserable that they often leave. Today, the number of asylum-seekers in Israel has dropped by half, to 30,000, the majority Eritreans. They have minimal social or labor rights – no unemployment benefits or social security-style payments to fall back on. Their children have subsidized health care that many still can’t afford. The pandemic shutdowns have hit them particularly hard: Most work in the restaurant or hotel industries as either kitchen staff or cleaners. Even then they must renew their work visas every six months.

In Western countries, some 90% of Eritreans seeking asylum have been granted refugee status or protected status in past years. Canada has resettled some 22,650 Eritrean refugees since 2015. But in Israel, only 20 Eritreans have been recognized as refugees since they first began arriving, estimates the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an advocacy group in Israel. Only recently has there been some easing, for asylum-seekers fleeing fighting in Sudan. In December, 2,400 Sudanese in Israel were given temporary residency permits. 

Over the past decade, alongside Jewish activists inside Israel, Jews abroad have been among the most outspoken against Israel’s approach to refugees. And Canadian Jews have been able to do something about it – largely through sponsorships, which allow religious or community groups and individuals to apply to resettle asylum-seekers.

As the situation worsened in Israel, Marin Lehmann-Bender, sponsorship director of the Anglican United Refugee Alliance (AURA) in Toronto, which enables private sponsorship, has seen a spike in interest among Jewish Canadians with ties to Israel.

The number of Eritreans resettled to Canada from Israel went from a handful in 2014, the year Israel constructed a wall at the border with Egypt, to about 1,000 per year until the pandemic. According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Canadians have resettled about 5,230 refugees from Israel since 2011 – the vast majority privately sponsored Eritreans.

HEIDI LEVINE/SPECIAL TO THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Traditional Eritrean food is served as asylum-seeker Simret Tekele (gesturing) sits with friends at a farewell party in Israel, before Ms. Tekele and her husband relocate to Canada.

Danny Schild explains it simply. “We’re Jewish.” His family, like so many other Jewish Canadians, is a family of refugees. His father, a rabbi in Canada who is now more than 100 years old, was arrested on Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when German Nazis attacked thousands of Jews and Jewish sites. 

So the Jewish Canadian community has always mobilized to help those fleeing persecution and conflict, dating back to the inception of Canada’s sponsorship program 44 years ago. It helped Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s and has since rallied to sponsor families escaping strife in Syria and more recently Afghanistan. But, to many, the move to help Africans in Israel feels more personal. 

Mr. Schild attended a protest in Tel Aviv a few years ago, organized by African asylum-seekers, against a so-called deposit law tax (which has since been canceled). Under the program, employers deducted 20% from the salary of asylum-seekers and deposited it in a fund they could only access once they agreed to leave the country. Mr. Schild found himself amid a crowd of Africans who spoke better Hebrew than he did, quoting passages from the Torah. He calls the Africans in Israel the only Hebrew-speaking refugees in the world.

He founded CHAI – Canadians Helping Asylum Seekers in Israel. “I asked myself, how could this possibly be happening, this kind of discrimination, this kind of poor treatment of the other in Tel Aviv, when our tradition says 36 times you shall welcome any stranger?” he says. “We have a chance as Canadian Jews to repair that problem. I think I have no choice but to get involved.”

On a recent morning, he stands with members of CHAI – peers from synagogues and the community at large, including Eritreans. They are outside the garage of Judy Cass, who organizes donations that come in, from mattresses to warm winter coats, for the new arrivals.  

HEIDI LEVINE/SPECIAL TO THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Ms. Tekele has her friend Yardemis Gaim fix her hair as she waits for guests at a farewell party in Israel before her departure to Toronto.

Mr. Schild says the Jewish response in Canada has been a grassroots effort of individuals rather than an “official” Jewish response. While individual rabbis have spoken out against Israeli policies, condemning the government for its stance on immigration sometimes gets conflated with criticism of Israel as a whole. “The question that always gets asked is, ‘Why can’t [the asylum-seekers] stay in Israel?’ When that question gets asked, there’s embarrassed silence,” he says.

Mr. Allen and his wife, Clara Hirsch, an artist, don’t hold back with their opinions. Ms. Hirsch came to Canada at age 8 from Europe after purges against Jews in her native Poland in the 1950s. She has long explored the refugee experience in her work – the centerpiece of which is a series called “Flight” that hangs on her living room wall. A multimedia work, it combines photographs that she took in Syria, old maps of the modern migration route to Europe, and images of her family as they set out on their voyage to Canada as refugees. 

During the “boat people” crisis of the 1970s, the couple sponsored Laotian refugees and later a family from Syria. But what is happening today, in Israel, feels more disappointing to them. “I find it heartbreaking,” says Ms. Hirsch. “This is not Vietnam. This is not Syria. This is Israel doing it.” 

HEIDI LEVINE/SPECIAL TO THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Eritrean Simret Tekele uses her mobile phone from her apartment in Herzilya, Israel, to have a video chat with her son Yuea in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Nov. 24, 2021. She has not seen him since she fled Eritrea when he was just a year old and plans to soon reunite with him in Canada.

Supporting a refugee requires a big commitment. Sponsors collect money – often around $35,000 for a family of four, typically raised by a wide network of friends and colleagues. But they also must take the time to help the arrivals adjust to a new culture. Along with the other two sponsors, William and Linda Hechter, Mr. Allen and Ms. Hirsch have helped the Solomon family with innumerable needs: get social security numbers, register for schools, find doctors and dentists, orient to a new city, craft résumés, and prepare for job interviews.

The relationships started deepening even before the Solomons landed in Canada. During the COVID-19 lockdowns in Israel, Ms. Hirsch spent long hours on Zoom tutoring the family in English. 

Mr. Allen and Ms. Hirsch speak glowingly about the family today. They were taken by Mr. Solomon’s activism in Israel as an organizer against the deportation order, and Ms. Solomon’s savvy. She worked at a McDonald’s, starting out as a cook before asking to be moved to the cash register so she could interact with customers and improve her Hebrew. She eventually transitioned to running a day care center. Mr. Solomon says he can call his sponsors with any question he has, “just like they are family.”

Ms. Lehmann-Bender, who sponsored an individual from Israel herself, says the program not only supports those who most need it but also strengthens communities. “I think refugee sponsorship is where the best things in the world come together with the worst things in the world,” she says, “and we very much exist at that intersection.”

No one navigates the world of hope and heartbreak more than Simret Tekele. 

In order to escape imminent arrest for her outspoken criticism of the government in Eritrea, the former journalist made the decision to flee the country quickly. She left her infant son Yuel behind with family ahead of setting out for the perilous journey to reach Israel. That was 12 years ago. And even though she rose to prominence in the Eritrean community in Tel Aviv, becoming the director of the Eritrean Women’s Community Center, she had no hope of seeing her baby boy unless she could find a country to resettle the entire family. He has now grown from a toddler into a spirited teenager.

LAURA CLUTHÉ/SPECIAL TO THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Members of the Tekele family (on couch) sit for a portrait with their sponsors in Canada – (top from right) Sharon Zikman and her husband and daughter, Michael and Alex Levine; and two local Anglican church members.

On one of her last nights in Tel Aviv, Ms. Tekele sits in her apartment with three Israeli friends, all activists who have come to say goodbye, and her cousin. Her husband, Tesfldet, has gone out with their two elementary school-age sons, Sirafiel and Natan, so they can have some privacy. 

“It’s so wonderful to know [the family] will have a life of stability [in Canada] with freedom and all the basic rights they deserve,” says Tamara Newman, one of the friends. “But it’s also heartbreaking that we weren’t able to get [those rights] here despite so many years of trying. I used to be heartbroken when asylum-seekers leave, but now I know it’s the best for them.”

A pot of strong Eritrean coffee is brewing. They have just eaten a traditional Eritrean meal of stews and injera bread, when Ms. Tekele takes a break from hosting to call Yuel. He is in Ethiopia waiting to be resettled with the rest of his family – the two brothers he has never met and the parents he knows only as voices on the phone and occasional flickering images on a screen. Ms. Tekele’s face brightens as his image appears on her cellphone. She laughs out loud as they banter in Tigrini. Then she introduces him to her friends. They lean into the screen as he speaks in halting English, his mother positively beaming. He tells them he’s just turned 13.

“Wow, a big boy – a man!” Ms. Tekele says. They all giggle. 

Days later, on one of their first nights in Toronto, the family is invited to their sponsors’ home for the seventh night of Hanukkah. Sharon Zikman, along with her husband, Michael Levine, and daughter, Alex Levine, has hung festive cutouts of dreidels and Stars of David from the chandelier and walls. Ms. Zikman provides the boys with chocolate coins and dreidels. Hanukkah songs play in the background.

Two members of the local Anglican church, who supported this sponsorship through AURA, are also there. Ms. Zikman urges the boys to teach the interfaith group about Hanukkah before the Tekeles, who, like the Solomons, are Christian, light a menorah they have brought as a gift.

But amid the joy and relief is the uncertainty about Yuel. He was supposed to arrive less than two weeks later. Amid pandemic and war in Ethiopia, his arrival has now been delayed – a hole that Ms. Tekele has felt for 12 years.

LAURA CLUTHÉ/SPECIAL TO THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Sirafiel Tekele (left) and Natan Tekele light a menorah they brought as a gift for the Zikman family, who helped resettle the Tekeles in Canada.

Leaving him in the care of her mother – with plans they’d be reunited as soon as she got to Israel – was the hardest thing she’s ever done. “My heart is beating now thinking about it. ... I knew the journey would not be easy for him and I didn’t want to risk [his life],” she says. “But as soon as I crossed the border I cried. I shouted. I was so depressed. I instantly regretted it.” 

“It’s not easy. I still feel that I made a mistake,” she says at another point. “It’s my own son that I brought into the world, but I didn’t take responsibility. I have to carry that wherever I go.” 

Authorities tell her it may be another six to eight weeks before he arrives. “One day we will meet,” she says. “I’m in a better way of thinking. Because of many, many long years without any help, now I have big hope.”

The Solomons and the Tekeles are aware that their families are fortunate. So many other Africans are left behind in Israel, continuing to live in limbo, even if they are safer than in their troubled homelands. Often those who get help are the stronger members of a community who know how to forge connections, such as the one that came to be when Ms. Tekele met Ms. Levine when she was living in Tel Aviv. Their bond helped set in motion the Tekeles’ residence in Toronto five years later.

Ms. Lehmann-Bender of AURA says that one year when she calculated requests for her organization, more than 12,000 people applied for sponsorships, and it could only submit around 75 applications.

“You can do something about it for a very tiny number of people,” she says. “But I think that in Canada, because we have the ability to do private sponsorship, we have the responsibility to do private sponsorship.”

Ten days after they’ve arrived, the Solomons sit in their apartment. Their wedding photos hang on the wall. A big Christmas tree stands in the center of the living room because Ms. Solomon promised her daughters that’s one of the first things they’d do upon arriving in Canada. (Most of the Eritreans who came to Israel are Christian.)

Both parents were already offered jobs: She has taken a position teaching Hebrew in the Jewish community, while he has found work in a kitchen that employs refugees in Toronto. They have gotten social security numbers, set up a bank account, and registered for government health insurance. While they had to fight to have their daughters integrated into a school in Israel – a 40-minute commute by bus each way – here they just enrolled at the local school a few blocks away from their new home. Their first weekend they went to a holiday lighting ceremony in downtown Toronto and ended up meeting Mayor John Tory. They took a selfie.

But their story is not over. Mr. Solomon, who was a prominent activist in the asylum-seeker community in Tel Aviv, is already planning to work with Eritreans here. When they left Israel, the Solomons held a going-away party. It was not to say goodbye. “We want to show other Jewish people they can do this, too,” Mr. Solomon says.

The morning he flew to Canada, he showed a reporter the text message he got from a Jewish Israeli friend. It was the words of a revered Talmudic saying: “Whoever saves one life, it’s as if they have saved the entire world.” He plans on using that line as he tries to convince other Jewish Canadians to join in helping sponsor Eritreans living in Israel.

“Canada has given us a lesson in how to help people, how to help a newcomer,” says Mr. Solomon.

He looks forward to the future his daughters will forge in their new land. They are both inquisitive. He hopes one day they might choose to study politics. “Because that way they can help change the world, so what was hard for us will not be hard for others.” He smiles. “Maybe one of them will even become the prime minister of Canada.” 

Ms. Solomon holds her ID card from Israel, where her status is listed as “infiltrator.” In Canada, she and her family control their destiny. “We are full human beings now,” she says.

A few years out of college, Robbie Stewart knew he needed to make a career change. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his job working as a mechanical engineer for General Electric – he did. But he also knew, as someone who felt deeply about being a steward of the earth, that he wanted to be part of fighting climate change.

So he thought for a while about how he could best contribute. And then he decided to go into the nuclear industry. 

“I saw nuclear as a huge opportunity for decarbonization,” he explains. “And this was where my skillset was.”

Mr. Stewart quit his job, entered a Massachusetts Institute of Technology nuclear science Ph.D. program, and eventually co-founded the company Boston Atomics, which is creating “design to build” nuclear power plants that can be constructed on a quicker schedule and at lower cost than traditional facilities. 

“Our entire bet is that the value of low-carbon energy is only going to go up in the future,” he says. “That’s a big part of our value case as a startup.”

A slew of “advanced nuclear” startups have launched recently to bring new, nimble technology to the long-lumbering nuclear industry, often with the goal of reducing global warming. There are companies working to build smaller “micro” reactors the size of shipping containers, some looking to recycle radioactive waste, and some that use materials other than water to cool reactors, among other innovations.  

Many of the entrepreneurs are young, and many consider themselves climate activists. They are part of a broader mindset change involving nuclear power overall, in which more environmentalists – although certainly not all – are shedding negative feelings about nuclear and instead embracing the technology.

“There has been a shift where the broader climate community has realized the benefit that nuclear can bring to meet our climate goals,” says Lindsey Walter, deputy director for climate and energy at Third Way, a center-left think tank in Washington. “The biggest issue that we’re trying to address is the climate crisis. And if you’re going to follow the science, if you’re going to follow the evidence, then it’s really quite clear that nuclear has to be part of the solution.” 

On climate action, a rising focus on speed

In large part, supporters say, this is because renewable energy alone isn’t ready to speedily free the power grid from carbon. And speed is of the essence, scientists say, as human emissions of greenhouse gases are already altering Earth’s climate.

Wind and solar power are dependent on the weather, and at this point battery storage technology is not advanced enough to smooth the electricity grid’s complicated fluctuations in supply and demand.  

A nuclear power plant, on the other hand, can produce energy constantly, without releasing climate warming gasses. And that means that it could provide a key component to a fossil-fuel-free energy system, supporters say. 

“We have to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” says Judi Greenwald, executive director of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance. “It’s not something like a 10% or 20%, or even a 50% reduction. We have to get as close as we can to zero [emissions]. And that really makes you have to rethink the whole energy system.”

Still, concerns about nuclear power remain widespread.

Traditionally, environmentalists have considered it dangerous. Accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and more recently Fukushima have reinforced this concern – along with lingering questions about what to do with radioactive waste, the environmental and ethical implications of uranium mining, and the risk of nuclear material being used for weapons.  

“Nuclear energy is not safe, it’s not economical, and it increases the risk for nuclear weapons proliferation,” says Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist with Greenpeace Germany who has been working on energy systems for 30 years. “We are in a climate emergency, and we’re wasting our time, and a lot of column inches, talking about a technology that’s essentially irrelevant.”

Beyond the ethical and environmental concerns, he argues that the impracticality of nuclear power should be enough to make people wary of the technology. Traditional nuclear power plants are hugely expensive to build, and they take years, if not decades, to actually come online. In the United States, which currently gets about 20% of its electricity – and about half of its carbon-free electricity – from nuclear, some 21 reactors are in the process of being decommissioned, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.   

“It’s not possible for the nuclear industry to play the essential role for decarbonization over the next decades,” Mr. Burnie says. “It’s a myth.”

But that has not stopped officials worldwide from turning toward it as a possible climate solution.

A “green investment” or not?

Recently, a European Union proposal to classify some nuclear power plants as “green investments” drew both praise and debate. Germany, which has pledged to shutter the last of its nuclear plants by the end of this year, has argued that any process that leaves permanent radioactive waste can’t be labeled “sustainable.” But France, an atomic energy leader, lobbied in favor of the designation.

In the U.S., the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year included money to prevent the closing of nuclear power plants, since nuclear power that goes offline is largely replaced with fossil fuels. The bill also has money to support nuclear innovation.   

Michael Cummo/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle/AP/File

TerraPower Founder and Chairman Bill Gates speaks to the crowd in a recorded video message during the press conference Wyoming Capitol, June 2, 2021, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The company plans to build a “next generation” demonstration reactor on the site of a retiring Wyoming coal mine.

It’s that innovation that is key for many climate activists, says Jessica Lovering, co-founder of the Good Energy Collective, a group that tries to make a progressive political case for nuclear power. Whether through small startups such as Mr. Stewart’s Boston Atomics, or Bill Gates’ company TerraPower, which last year announced plans to build a “next generation” demonstration reactor on the site of a retiring Wyoming coal mine, the climate potential of new nuclear technology offsets old environmental concerns, she says. 

“Whatever gets us there”

“A lot of the bigger traditional incumbent environmental groups, founded in the ’60s and ’70s, spun out of anti-war movements, anti-establishment movements,” she says. “They come with a lot of baggage against nuclear. ... What we’re seeing with these newer climate groups is that they are really pushing for an aggressive standard on decarbonization. ... There’s this pragmatic viewpoint of, ‘well, we’re just trying to reduce emissions as fast as possible as much as possible. So whatever gets us there.’”

From a progressive point of view, Dr. Lovering says, it is also important that the ownership models of nuclear power plants are changing. For years, she says, nuclear power was the purview of large utilities, often with connections to the military. Now, there are more models that give communities more input, with scaled-down footprints. And even in its traditional form, nuclear takes up less land than large solar or wind farms, which can come with their own environmental challenges. While she acknowledges that advanced nuclear is still in the future, it is closer than many people realize, she says, with a number of demonstration technologies launching in the next decade.  

And just because the technology doesn’t exist now, she and other supporters say, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be working for a future solution. That’s why many scientists are still excited about the long-postponed dream of nuclear fusion as a potentially abundant and clean source of electric power.

In addition to electricity generation, some advanced nuclear technologies – including Boston Atomics – would be able to produce the extreme heat for industrial processes such as chemical production or steelmaking. That emissions-heavy, and varied, industrial sector is widely considered one of the hardest to address as far as greenhouse gasses.

“There’s embodied carbon in everything that we manufacture,” Dr. Lovering says. “I actually was not a supporter of nuclear until I learned more. ... You begin to realize, oh, shoot, we really do need this technology if we’re going to meet these [net zero] goals. I think a lot of others in the climate community that are supportive of nuclear came about it in the same way.” 

She concludes: “I’m not for nuclear for the sake of nuclear. I’m purely for nuclear for the sake of climate.”

Editor's note: Judi Greenwald's remarks have been clarified to correct an editing error.

Vahram Baghdasaryan/PHOTOLURE/AP/File

People stand in line for a COVID-19 vaccine in Yerevan, Armenia, July 14, 2021. Armenia is one of just a few countries where Russians can get access to Western vaccines: a critical need for anyone hoping to travel outside Russia, since most countries don't recognize Russia's Sputnik V vaccine.

While Russian tourists have always had a multitude of reasons to visit Armenia, a new and unexpected attraction has been drawing them here lately.

Instead of coming to see the natural sights or enjoy the cuisine, globe-trotting Russians are here in increasing numbers to get vaccinated – not for medical reasons, but for bureaucratic ones.

Because of the general lack of recognition of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine outside Russia’s borders and the unavailability of foreign vaccines within them, Russians who need regular access to the rest of the world are making treks to countries like Armenia to get Western-approved vaccines – and more importantly, their associated paperwork.

Far more than an inconvenience, it’s a hurdle that appears less rooted in scientific evidence than in political and diplomatic sparring – and one that could have significant implications at a time of deep and ongoing tensions between Moscow and the West. The Russians who would be cut off from Europe and the United States without such certification represent a critical bridge of communication between the two sides. And a rift between Russia and the West caused by vaccines could magnify an already tense situation.

The vaccinated getting vaccinated

The vast majority of Russians making the trip to Armenia or other vaccine havens like Croatia, Serbia, and Turkey have already gotten vaccinated back home with Russia’s own Sputnik V, which became available last year. But while Sputnik appears to be effective, it’s an international bureaucratic quagmire.

Only Russia and a few other countries recognize Sputnik, whatever its scientific merits. But foreign vaccines are also, for no good scientific reason, unavailable in Russia. That’s a real problem for the very large numbers of Russians who have family, business, studies, or other connections in the West, and want to travel without facing constant and expensive PCR tests, lengthy quarantines, and, sometimes, inability to even board a plane.

That’s where countries like Armenia come in. Armenia not only admits Russians visa-free and recognizes Sputnik vaccinations, but also provides Russians (and Russian residents, like this correspondent) with access to Western vaccines. Tens of thousands of Russians have already made the trek to vaccine havens, say travel agents. Organized tours that include transportation, accommodation, and a clinic appointment are doing a roaring business.

“Tours to get a European vaccine are tremendously popular right now,” says Ivetta Verdiyan of the BSI Group, a leading travel operator. “A lot of people were used to being able to travel around the world, and when this pandemic hit they found very many countries unavailable for them. If you don’t have an EU or WHO approved vaccination, you can’t go. Or you must isolate for a long time, have to do frequent tests, and can’t get the QR code that enables you even to visit a coffee shop sometimes. The situation can change at any time. So, serious people with travel plans want to make sure they have the right papers, because no one knows when the Russian vaccine will be recognized” in the West, she says.

Maria Podolskaya is a Russian journalist who lives in Britain, but travels often to Moscow to see her mother. She says she endured a gauntlet of obstacles, including mandatory isolation and expensive tests, until she hit upon the obvious solution: She got double-vaccinated, and now has valid documents from both sides.

“I got Pfizer in Britain, and Sputnik-lite in Moscow,” she says. “Now there are very few problems. Basically, I present my QR codes when registering for a flight, and that’s it. I’m good in both places.”

Andrei Kolesnikov, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, says it’s a widely shared problem among his colleagues. “We are think-tankers, and we need to travel. We have invitations to attend conferences and other exchanges.” Mr. Kolesnikov is a top expert on Russian politics, and the obstacles he faces in conducting dialogue with his international counterparts can’t be a good thing in these vexed times. “But regulations are different everywhere, and difficult everywhere,” he says.

An “absurd” situation?

The mutual refusal between Russia and the West to recognize each other’s vaccines does not seem to have its roots in scientific judgment on either side. And there seems to be at least some political sniping involved. Russian officials have repeatedly accused the West of blocking Sputnik in an effort to protect Western vaccine-makers’ profit margins.

But Michael Favorov, a former Soviet scientist who immigrated to the U.S. three decades ago, and then worked as an epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 25 years, says that different regulatory systems and perceptions, not bad vaccines, have led to the current problems.

“Sputnik is OK. It’s a good vaccine,” says Mr. Favorov, who is now president of DiaPrep System Inc., a public health consultancy based in Atlanta, Georgia. He says he has studied a lot of Russian data about the uptake of Sputnik over the past year, and is satisfied that the vaccine is at least as effective as most others.

The issue, he says, is that Russian institutes and industry use different standards than Western ones – creating a kind of scientific cultural gap – and discrepancies have appeared in Russian production facilities.

“It’s not about the design of the vaccine, which is fine,” he says. “It’s a matter of regulation and certification, which is different in every country. ... The Russians, of course, say the [refusal to recognize Sputnik in the West] is due to commercial competition. That’s not true. But people take from these problems the conclusion that Sputnik is a bad vaccine. That’s not true either.”

Experts say some progress has been made toward registering outside vaccines in Russia, including a Chinese one and the British-Swedish AstraZeneca. Russia’s Ministry of Health recently said it might start accepting antibody tests from foreign residents and travelers, but not their Western vaccine credentials.

“This is classic Putin-style whataboutism,” says Mr. Kolesnikov. “It’s ‘they don’t recognize our vaccine, and until they do we won’t recognize theirs.’ It’s a big political race.”

Larisa Popovich, a public health expert with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, says the situation is “absurd,” and it causes unnecessary hardships for many Russians.

“Both sides should have gotten over themselves and found a way to recognize each other’s vaccines a long time ago. We have been trying to find out what is the matter for quite a while. Foreign agencies say it’s about discrepancies in regulatory documentation, while the Russian side says it’s inspired by political and competitive motives.”

According to the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which controls the international rights for Sputnik, the vaccine is now registered in 71 countries and over 100 million people have received it worldwide.

“Probably if the general climate between our countries were better, these problems would have been solved by now. Let’s hope the adults will take over and deal with this,” says Ms. Popovich.

Editor's note: The story has been updated to correct the spelling of Ivetta Verdiyan's surname.

Penguin Random House/WW Norton/Harper Collins

Engaging with the world, as these books demonstrate, can be both an enjoyable and a bracing experience. Understanding the struggles as well as the joys and aspirations of people near and far gives readers an opportunity to empathize with others, as well as celebrate our common humanity.

1. Small World by Jonathan Evison

Jonathan Evison’s Dickensian-style retelling of America’s history is a modern classic. His love for his characters glows in portrayals of Irish and Chinese immigrants, Native Americans, and enslaved people all yearning to belong. The book is a vast yet intimate tale about the American dream, and the people for whom the vision is yet unfulfilled.

2. To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

Three books packed into one, “To Paradise” presents an archeological dig of a story – in reverse. Characters gay and straight, driven and aimless, tied to home or flung afar, struggle with questions of legacy and inheritance. Whether dwelling in a Utopian 1890s New York, mid-20th-century Hawaii, or a martial law-throttled, pandemic-pocked future, each must decide whether to follow their fathers or “find a new template.”

3. Thank You, Mr. Nixon by Gish Jen

Gish Jen’s latest collection begins with a Chinese saying: “A long journey begins with a step.” Readers could add, gratefully: “And ends with a story.” There are 11 here – starting with President Nixon’s visit to China in the 1970s and progressing to the pandemic-shaped present. With humor and pathos, the stories feature intertwined mainland, immigrant, and Hong Kong characters confronting cultural and political changes.

4. The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher

Kerri Maher’s enchanting historical novel follows American Sylvia Beach, founder of the storied Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company, as she opens her doors in 1919 and then courageously commits to publishing her friend James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” which had been banned in the United States. (Read the full review here.)

5. Honor by Thrity Umrigar

In Thrity Umrigar’s engrossing (and sometimes graphic) novel of modern-day India, an interfaith couple, an honor killing, a court case, and an American-born Indian journalist seeking justice, all come together in two brave love stories that honor the desire for unconditional acceptance.

6. Violeta by Isabel Allende

A South American centenarian describes her life’s surprises, loves, and sorrows via letters to her grandson. Although uneven, Isabel Allende’s hard-to-put-down novel delivers nuanced characters – including many strong women – and astute reflections about political and social change.

7. Home in the World by Amartya Sen

Economist Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for his visionary work on poverty, inequality, and famine. Now, in this graceful and hopeful memoir, he reveals the roots of his economic theories in his formative years in India and England.

8. South to America by Imani Perry

Alabama native Imani Perry examines the outsized impact of the South on the American consciousness. It’s a perfect read for those who are hungry for knowledge about how the South came to be so dominant in the country’s history.

9. Lorraine Hansberry by Charles J. Shields

Lorraine Hansberry wrote the 1959 play “A Raisin in the Sun” when she was just 28. In this rich, edifying biography, Charles J. Shields situates the playwright’s short life in the context of the Great Migration, leftist politics, and issues of race, class, and sexuality, all leading up to the production of her dramatic masterpiece.

10. Architects of an American Landscape by Hugh Howard 

Hugh Howard examines the lives of two early titans of American design: Frederick Law Olmsted and Henry Hobson Richardson. The purity of nature animated Olmsted’s work, which included New York’s Central Park. Richardson’s commissions included Boston’s Trinity Church. The book offers insights into two classic American artists.

AP

People chant slogans during a pro-democracy protest in Khartoum, Sudan, Jan. 17.

Like many pro-democracy uprisings, the one in Sudan has had its share of setbacks. An entrenched military, despite having aided the ouster of an unpopular dictator in 2019 and made promises of civilian rule, has killed or arrested hundreds of protesters. Soldiers have wielded sexual violence against women and girls. The latest street confrontations since Jan. 2 hint at a long struggle for freedom.

Yet there is one casualty the putschist generals have failed to claim. It is what some protesters call “the joy of the mawkib.” And it may be central to bringing democracy to this largely Islamic country on the upper Nile.

Mawkib refers to the pro-democracy marches that brought down the 30-year military regime of Omar al-Bashir in 2019 and have continued ever since, often weekly. More than protest rallies, they are celebrations of unity, safety, and a sense of shared responsibility to one another.

“The celebrations are expressed in different manners, like slogans and songs,” explained Mai Azzam, a Sudanese civil society activist and an anthropologist, in a recent essay for the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway. “But they all share one common feature – the spirit of joy. It is not only a celebration of a ‘yet to come’ victory. It is also about creating a collective memory and celebrating unfinished historical revolutions.”

Mawkib allows for the possibility of victory, she writes. That spirit will be needed in Sudan. The country of 44 million people has largely been under military rule since gaining independence in 1956. This has created a tradition of protests that embrace the full range of civilian society – professionals, youth, artists, musicians, and especially women. Given the central role that women have played in Sudan’s protest tradition, the country has a unique opportunity to forge a new model of accommodation between Islam, democracy, and the rights of women.

In recent days, foreign diplomats have visited the capital, Khartoum, to stop the violence and to restore a civilian-led transitional government. The United States has suspended financial aid. In a rare public rebuke, 55 Sudanese judges condemned the military of “the most heinous violations against defenseless protesters.” Given its gun power and its willingness to kill and jail dissidents, the military junta embraces a United Nations call for mediation – perhaps as a chance to buy time. Pro-democracy groups are wary. Further talks risk legitimizing a cabal that has grabbed power through violence and controls much of the country’s wealth. How Sudan creates a certain path toward democracy may hold valuable lessons for other societies challenging military rule.

One outcome is already certain. Facing down violence with daily demonstrations of unity and determined joy, protesters have already won a battle for the legitimacy of civilian rule. That spirit may yet win converts in the military ranks and eventually prove that guns are not as powerful as the rightful ideals of the protesters.