“When I think how people are treating the Sudanese and of how [the Sudanese] treated us when we passed through as refugees, I am ashamed. When we arrived there, they brought us water and helped us find work so that we could make enough money to live. [They were] difficult times.”
Ethiopian Jewish Leaders Object To Anti-African-Refugee Racism
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Ethiopian Jews, including some who were refugees in Sudan in the early 1980s, “expressed horror and regret” yesterday as attacks against African refugees escalated, the Jerusalem Post reported in one of the first explorations of how Israel’s black African Jews feel about Israel's treatment of their former neighbors.
“When I think how people are treating the Sudanese and of how [the Sudanese] treated us when we passed through as refugees, I am ashamed. When we arrived there, they brought us water and helped us find work so that we could make enough money to live. [They were] difficult times,” Ziva Mekonen-Degu, executive director of the Israel Association of Ethiopian Jews, told the Post.
“It should not just be the Ethiopian Jews who remember what happened to us in Sudan nearly 30 years ago – this whole country was created because we were all once refugees. We should all be thinking about what happened to those Jews who did not find shelter in other countries.”
Mekonen-Degu’s objection to the treatment of the African refugees was echoed by several other Ethiopian Jewish leaders, including Member of Knesset Shlomo Molla, who said the horrific treatment of the refugees would not be happening if they were “Scandinavians, with blue eyes and blond hair.”
When violent riots against African migrant workers erupted in Tel Aviv last week, a mob attacked Hanania Wanda, an Ethiopian Jew. The right wing protesters, some affiliated with Kahanist offshoot groups, mistook him for a non-Jewish African refugee.
"Wanda is my friend," Elias Inbram, a social activist in the Ethiopian community and a former member of the Israeli diplomatic corps who served as spokesman for the embassy in South Africa told the JTA. "I knew I had to react somehow.…since to white people, all blacks look the same – I, an Israeli Jew who is black, or anyone in my family, or anyone in my community, could be attacked, too."
Inbram printed "CAUTION: I am not an infiltrator from Africa" on a bright yellow T-shirt and drew the yellow "Jude" patch from the Nazi era on the upper left chest.
When he posted a picture of himself wearing the shirt on Facebook it got thousands of “likes.”
"I want to force people here to think of the racism and hatred in Israeli society.…Another friend of mine who was beaten up is a Ph.D. candidate. We're Israeli citizens. But none of that matters. Ever since we came, the state has treated us as if we should say thank you for anything we receive, as if we have no rights as Jews and Israelis. But now we are afraid because in the eyes of whites, we are first of all blacks," he told the JTA.
Inbram, who holds a master's degree in law. Soon he will take the bar exam.
“As Jews, it is clear that we want Israel to remain a Jewish country, but I am not willing to allow the fight against these people to be based on the color of their skin,” Gadi Yavarkan, the director of the Center for Social Equality for Ethiopian Jews and head of the Union of Young Ethiopian Leaders, told the Post. “If we do not start speaking out about how these comments and acts are based on skin color, then tomorrow – once they are gone – people will start trying to get rid of Ethiopian Jews too.
“The Jews were refugees for many years before the State of Israel was created and on that basis, we cannot let ourselves behave like parasites; it is anti-Jewish to call people ‘cancer,’” Yavarkan said, referring to a statement made by a Likud Knesset member at an anti-African-refugee demonstration last month that turned into a riot.
Michal Avera Samuel, director of FIDEL – Association for Education and Social Integration of Ethiopian Jews, said that the anti-African-refugee racism sweeping Israel is based on skin color. And that is problematic for Ethiopian Jews, who are also black.
“Most people here cannot differentiate between Ethiopian Jews or foreigners from Eritrea, Sudan and some even from Ethiopia,” she told the Post. “I know many young Ethiopians Jews who are now too scared to go to places where there are African migrants because they don’t want to be mistaken for them.”
"I'm Jewish and Israeli. Jewish history is much more relevant to me than African history. I relate more to Jews from Eastern Europe than to African Muslims or Christians. I was a baby when I came here," Aliza, a 23-year-old Ethiopian Jewish sociology student at Hebrew University told the JTA. She said felt no special bond with the non-Jewish Africans until sleeping Eritreans were almost murdered in an arson attack in Jerusalem earlier this week. "Now I'm scared to live in my own country because I'm black."
Right wing politicians and Orthodox and haredi rabbis have led a long campaign to deport African refugees on what could be described as a Jews first platform.
They and others also point to an increase in crime, including rapes, in areas where the African refugees congregate.
The refugees are barred from working legally in Israel, and the government does nothing to help them obtain housing or food. Refugees often work as day laborers or as cleaners in hotels and office buildings. Employers frequently exploit them, and many are paid far less than Israel's who do similar jobs.
Refugees often sleep in parks, on beaches and in courtyards of buildings.
Some refugees who have received official refugee status from the government – something that is very difficult to do because Israel has system in place for refugees to use to apply – can sometimes receive very minimal government assistance.
Israel's right wing Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu has promised promised to speed up construction of a holding camp that has the characteristics of a prison. It has the capacity to hold 10,000 African refugees. A new law allows the government to imprison "infiltrators" for three years, a measure meant to deter refugees from coming to Israel.