Ethiopians clash with police; 8 hurt
Sheera Claire Frenkel, THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 6, 2006
What was meant to be a peaceful rally for Ethiopian rights turned violent Monday, when demonstrators clashed with police in front of the Health Ministry in Jerusalem, leaving 19 people injured.
More than 200 people gathered in front of the government compound to protest discrimination against Ethiopians. The boiling point, they said, was a recent decision by the Health Ministry to discard donated Ethiopian blood.
“We won’t allow our blood to be spilled like this. The Torah says that blood is the soul. How can this country treat us, fellow Jews, this way?” said Gadi Yabarken, one of the protest’s organizers. “We will not leave unless the prime minister agrees to meet with us.”
While Prime Minister Ehud Olmert refused to meet with the protesters, Immigration and Absorption Minister Ze’ev Boim met with a small group of their representatives and promised to approach Olmert to ask him to create a ministerial committee dedicated to the Ethiopian community. Boim also promised to work for the release the five activists who were arrested during the protest.
The only politician to address the protest was MK Ran Cohen (Meretz). “I feel your pain. A country that discriminates against Ethiopian Jews is a racist country,” said Cohen, who added that he would raise the issue in the Knesset plenum.
Demonstrators answered Cohen’s speech with shouts that they were “sick of the false promises” of politicians.
Yabarken said the government had not upheld any of its promises to advance Ethiopian rights or deal with problems such as raising the salaries of Ethiopian religious leaders to match other rabbis, expand Falash Mura immigration or increase affirmative-action programs.
“These problems have been building up for some time, but to find out that they will throw our blood away, for no reason other than racist discrimination, that is too much to bear,” Yabarken said.
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Why do you think you are special because you call yourself a “Jew”. If you look at your Bible, you would find out that after King Solomon, the kingdom was divided into two, Israel and Judar. Judar consist of King Davids tribe, some levis and Benjamin While the other 9 tribes and the most population of Levis remained in Israel and inter-married. Not long after, they carried Israel and later Judar away to babylon and when Judar retured, they called themselfs “israel” and those judars who inter-married were called samaritans and hated by the Jews (even Jesus discriminated against one by calling her a dog). Anyway, they later took this new “israel” away and when they retured;…. the so called “Jews” from Yeman looked like a Yaman, those from the West looked White, those from Africa Looked Black (but ofcourse it never occured to then that they might have inter-married with the race of their host countries)
Who cares if you call yourself “Jews” to feel special? All i care about is are you a child of father-Abraham. In the Bible Abraham is called “Father Of Many NATIONS”. We are ALL children of father-Abraham and to hell with anyone who calls himself “Jew” be he white, black, green, or blue. ……….. Even the same racist Jesus said later that God can raise for himself stons as children of Abraham.
I just pity for those Africans that are looked down on in Israel and i say to them, “Get an EDUCATION and come and apply what you learnt here at HOME in AFRICA”
I don’t look down on those “Jews” in israel (infact I support them with all my heart because they are the one that can preserve those historical sites) but You people are not exculsivlly the Israel in the Holy Bible because Isael in the Bible was a man called Jacob and his desendat that we ALL ARE BIOLOGICALLY.
Ife’ka Terry
ifeka (dot) blogspot (dot) com
___ Our country people who claim to be Jews and left to Palestine aren’t Jews at all. They are Ethiopians who converted to the Jewish Faith. It’s very simple for a any person to claim to be Jews, as the White Jews claiming now days. The Ethiopian Jews are nothing but a bunch of uneducated peasants who have no any clue who they are and live in fairy tail. The worst thing is, how they claim they were victims of oppressions by Ethiopian Rulers and people, in fact, they were not mistreated different than any other Ethiopians. These are people who believe in deception and false claim just to get out from the poverty they were in. plus, Ethiopian Jews were not the only group of people who were called names …Agews, Tigres, Gojjames, Lalibelas, etc. were called names too. ..And also the mistreatment they facing in Israel is a true testimony of their none Jews origin. ….So called Ethiopian Jews are nothing but Ethiopians who are Idiots who dream to live a better life in a strange Land called Israel.
There seems to be a misconception expressed by some people about the origins of the Ethiopians and them being Jews, which is a complete misnomer, because originally the Ethiopians were Hebrews from the tribe of Dan(one of the 12 tribes of the Israel). Most people don’t do their homework or they would understand that Ethiopia was once a Hebrew Nation. There once were several Hebrew queens-most notably Queen of Sheba(Menelik 1), her son by king Solomon of Israel, properly called Yisrael and Queen Candace, who stopped Alexander the Barbarian at 1st cataract from entering into the interior of Ethiopia with her battle trained elephants preventing him from conquering her domain in 332BC. Alexander withdrew for fear that the Ethiopian Hebrew queen would ruin his record as conqueror of the known world! Therefore he couldn’t have conquered the known world of which Ethiopia was a part of 1st world. Some of us need to do our homework before we make irrational statements or comments about people’s culture or history, because the Ethiopian Hebrews have more rights to Israel than the present European occupants. I have been to Ethiopia and learned that most of the Ethiopians like most of the Africans on the continent, especially living in the colonized countries know very little about their country’s past including Ethiopia, who was never colonized as we know it but occupied in the 1930’s and early 40’s by Italian dictator Mussolini, of course we Africans in the Western Hemisphere no little more if any about our story or origins. We aren’t taught either only history(His-story), during and after the Transatlantic Slave Trade so I guess we are all in the same boat.
Jamil,
That is very interesting what you learned about Ethiopia and its history. I did not know that they were Hebrews or even a part of the tribe of Dan. Many things are overlooked in the West and have not been taught to keep those here to feel inferior. It makes us feel incomplete and wanting to know our real history, where did we came from. Adam is a good start . His story is his stolen story, always trying to take the place of others . Time we all find out the truth . We all have one blood.
What makes Christianity prolific is that it doesn’t include the race/bloodline conflict aspect. Everyone who follows it, is equal under the scripture (all things equal).
Nothing to do with racism. In South Africa we threw away Thabo Mbeki’s blood (former president) because he didnt follow the protocols expected of blood donors. HIV and disease tests on blood have 99.9% accuracy. Ofcourse this means a few tainted samples slip through. so by throwing away blood from Congoloids, u increase the accuracy rate and hence fewer risks associated with blood transfuion in high risk areas/groups.
Cant blame Israel for this.