"A need to belong - to connect deeply with other people and secure places, to align with one’s cultural and subcultural identities, and to feel like one is a part of the systems around them - appears to be buried deep inside our biology, all the way down to the human genome"
And note that this is a need that is no less important than food and physical security:
"Indeed, a sense of belonging may be just as important as food, shelter, and physical safety for pro-moting health and survival in the long run.
(My emphasis - M.A.C.).
As Aharon Bass wrote, in his poem, it should:
"Three things a child needs in his sorrow
Listen to him
Let him know that sometimes you don't have solutions either.
And that he has a vacancy
In your space
As long as he needs to."
- In Luria, a position paper, the researchers detail the consequences of such deportation, due to the loss of a sense of belonging, including anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, behavioral disorders, and more. The position paper was written against the backdrop of the attempts to deport the children of migrant workers who were shot illegally in Israel, such as the appellants before me. The researchers clarify (on page 3) that:
"The expulsion from the child's country of birth while interrupting the child's educational and social continuum and moving
To a third world country that is alien to the child, where the child experiences a lack of clarity about the future, a lack of knowledge of the language and culture, and social isolation. The combination of these many extreme risk factors has the potential to have a destructive impact on children's mental health.
They added (ibid., p. 10):
"Children of migrant workers in Israel make a special effort to adopt an Israeli identity while rejecting the culture of their country of origin and adopting a negative perception of their country of origin, out of a strong desire to belong to Israeli society. These children grew up and were educated in the Israeli education system, speak Hebrew fluently (and do not speak the language of their parents' country of origin), are familiar with Israeli culture and feel a high sense of belonging to this society (for example, they celebrate Israeli holidays, aspire to enlist in the Israeli army), and perceive their parents' country of origin as a distant culture that they do not know and to which they do not belong...... In light of all of the above, the removal of the children from Israel constitutes the interruption of the continuity of everything they know, and their uprooting from their place of linguistic, cultural, educational and social belonging."