Thousands of Ethiopian Israelis protest racism in Jerusalem march
By Max Schindler*
Thousands of Ethiopian Israelis and their supporters marched through central Jerusalem on Wednesday to call attention to a recent groundswell of racism and discrimination.
Thousands of Israeli Ethiopians and supporters demonstrate Wednesday in Jerusalem (photo: Oren Ziv / Activestills)
Holding picket signs and shouting “a new generation demands change,” the demonstrators joined a wave of protests triggered by a Channel 2 report last week that a group of homeowners in Kiryat Malachi—a Southern town with a large Ethiopian population— signed a pledge to neither rent nor sell to Israelis of Ethiopian origin.
The news sparked outrage in the Ethiopian community and demands by activists for a response from the government.
Mulet Araru, a 26-year-old university student, led the protest after walking for three days from Kiryat Malakhi, some 60 kilometers from Jerusalem. In a hoarse voice, Araru addressed the crowd, declaring, “I have no other land,” infusing his speech with traditional Zionist rhetoric and slogans.
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With differing and sometimes competing protest signs, the crowd spanned the ideological spectrum. Some demonstrators hoisted Israeli flags while others clutched photos of Nelson Mandela and sharply criticized Israel’s treatment of their community.
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Some 120,000 Jews of Ethiopian origin reside in the country, many of them having arrived in three airlift operations in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many continue to face socioeconomic difficulties, racism and other barriers to social integration – including segregation in schools, and challenges stemming from theRabbinate’s refusal to recognize the community’s religious leaders.
*Max Schindler is a student at Cornell University who is spending the year volunteering on a kibbutz and writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This is real tragedy. It makes you wonder why Israel even accepted the Ethiopian immigrants back in the 80s. After all, the original hebrews being of ethiopian origin gives them an arguable inheritance to the promised land, right? Eh, I digress.
Hey Chuckie The reason why they accepted them in the First place was to build up population these Europeans who now run Israel never cared about us Ethiopians. They just need more Jewish people so they can claim the land as being theirs. ….AN ETHIOPIAN WILL BRING JUSTICE TO EARTH ONE DAY
This is one big mess and no one really knows how to fix it. I like Helen Thomas view points on the situation in Isreal.