The issue is also testing what it means to be a Jewish state: to preserve its Jewish majority, or to be governed by Jewish values, including the ideal of “tikkun olam,” or repairing the world.

“Every country must guard its borders,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in announcing the policy last month. “It is important that people understand that we are doing something here that is completely legal and completely essential.”

He cited the “plight” of residents of south Tel Aviv, where many of the migrants are concentrated. In the past, he has also said that the influx of Africans threatened Israel’s Jewish majority.

Many of the solidarity events are taking place under the umbrella of a grass-roots movement, “Stop the Deportation,” which was started by students. In addition to the meeting in the basement studio of a Jerusalem yoga teacher, there was a gathering this week in a bar in Kiryat Shemona, a town on Israel’s northern border, and another in the southern city of Beersheba in the Negev desert.

Another initiative, “Miklat Israel,” Hebrew for Israel Sanctuary, and known informally as the Anne Frank Home Sanctuary movement, signed up about 500 Israeli families from scores of towns and communities willing to adopt asylum seekers and, if necessary, hide them in their homes.

First conceived by Susan Silverman, a rabbi and the sister of the American comedian Sarah Silverman, the idea was partly inspired by the story of another Eritrean who was so moved by Anne Frank’s diary that he translated it into Tigrinya while in a camp in Ethiopia, then carried it with him on his journey to Israel, convinced that its people would receive him.