Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu commented to the media at the beginning of a meeting of the Ministerial Committee on the Integration of Israeli Citizens of Ethiopian descent in Israeli society. The meeting comes a short time after stormy protests around Israel by members of the Israeli Ethiopian community. Leaders of this tzibur are calling for equality, insisting they have not been accepted as equal members of Israeli society.
Mr. Netanyahu said “Last month we met here with public representatives of Israelis who had come from Ethiopia and we heard very harsh things. We heard about the deep pain and the sense of humiliation that they feel, as well as the various problems of the community, including the young people.
“I directed that a special committee be formed that would be a permanent committee that would meet upon the formation of the Government, as we are doing, and on a regular basis to oversee action in various spheres and to monitor the implementation.
“These issues include education, housing, employment, culture and religious issues. In these areas I have instructed that proper and expedited work – so I hope – be done in the various ministries in cooperation with representatives of the Ethiopian public, and that draft decisions on these issues be submitted forthwith. I want rapid work; I do not want things to drag out. I want us to hold discussions, to decide and to proceed.
“Regarding the issue at hand, there are claims of discrimination by the law enforcement authorities. First of all, it needs to be made clear – everyone is obligated to completely obey the law and enforcement cannot distinguish between citizens. While the law is the law; enforcement is – of course – enforcement, there is the question of whether or not there are steps we can take to correct excessive enforcement, if indeed this exists. I think that we need to receive a clear picture of the situation and see what the Israel Police can do. To the extent that corrections are necessary, we will indeed make them.
“I think that beyond all of this, there is something heartfelt here that I mentioned at the commemoration of those members of Ethiopian community who fell on the way here, some 4,000. I said that the most tragic thing is the idea of racism, which contravenes the ethos of the Jewish People. We cannot accept this in the Jewish state and we will fight it.
“Beyond all of the various steps that we will discuss today, the idea that we would discriminate against people because of the color of their skin and that people should fear to walk the streets in Israel because of the color of their skin, this is infuriating and we will fix it. We will also instill here a cultural change, not just in administrative or even legal decisions. We want to instill a cultural change in the hearts of all Israelis.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
2 Responses
I think that the claims of the Ethiopians are quite exaggerated. They are not afraid to walk in the streets because of the color of their skin. All the Ethiopians I know are very nice people and seem to be very well integrated into Israeli society.
The religious problem begins when you see groups of the women with crosses tatooed on their foreheads. It makes you think “you no lookie Jewish”. A nursery school teacher in the religious school system told me that when they finish dovening in the morning many Ethiopian children were making the sign of a cross in the air, until the teachers realized what it was and told them to stop. But the government keeps bringing in these Christians, many of them church-going, and there are also missionaries amongst them, converting the Ethiopian Jews.
As far as the Jewishness of any Ethiopian is concerned, Rav Moshe Feinstein, z”l, poskined that they are Jews but have to convert. This halachik question of their status started 300 years ago when it was questioned whether they were actually Jews or a non-Jewish tribe with Jewish customs. But it seems to me that they are as accepted as anyone as Jews.
That’s the whole fight about the gairus just saying “I’m Jewish” is not gairus kahalachah! Now we all see how jewish these gairrim really are.
The question 300 yrs ago was about a Shevet Dan in India not Africa.