Israel’s Army Radio reported yesterday that Ethiopian Jewish couples in Petach Tikva have been forced to wait to marry for more than nine months while the Petach Tikva official state rabbinate, which is haredi-controlled, delayed approving their marriage documents – documents that had already been approved and certified by their official state Ethiopian Jewish rabbi.
Above: file photo
Haredi-Controlled Petach Tikva Rabbinate Caught Discriminating Against Ethiopian Jews, But Israel’s Haredi-Controlled Religious Services Ministry Says The Discrimination Does Not Exist
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Israel’s Army Radio reported yesterday that Ethiopian Jewish couples in Petach Tikva have been forced to wait to marry for more than nine months while the Petach Tikva official state rabbinate, which is haredi-controlled, delayed approving their marriage documents – documents that had already been approved and certified by their official state Ethiopian Jewish rabbi.
In response to that report, Israel’s new Religious Services Minister, David Azoulay of the Sefardi haredi Shas Party, told Army Radio yesterday he would void the authority of local state chief rabbis of cities, towns and rural districts to perform marriages if they discriminate against Ethiopian Jews, the JTA reported.
“I ordered the voiding of the authority to handle marriage issues by that rabbinate if the allegations are correct,” Azoulay told Army Radio.
But officials of the Religious Services told Army Radio that they investigated the specific complaints Army Radio had reported on and found them to be unfounded.
Ethiopian Jews in Israel face widespread discrimination and an alarming amount of police brutality.
A recent unprovoked attack by police officers against an Ethiopian Jewish IDF soldier was captured on security camera video. Police made no effort to locate that video footage and instead arrested the Ethiopian Jewish IDF soldier on trumped up assault charges.
But the Ethiopian Jewish soldier’s family did make that effort, found the security camera footage and released it to the media and on the Internet, where it went viral, sparking widespread outrage against police throughout Israel and large anti-police-brutality-anti-racism protests in Israel’s major cities – including several that turned violent.
As a result, Israel’s prime minister, president and other leading politicians have promised to work to end the mistreatment of Ethiopian Jews and one of the police officers involved in the unprovoked beating of that Ethiopian Jewish IDF soldier as been dismissed from the force.
But police have done little else to deal with their very real problems of racism and abusive behavior toward minorities, and demands by Ethiopian Jewish protest and community leaders to have the police officers involved in the unprovoked beating of the Ethiopian IDF soldier criminally prosecuted have fallen on deaf ears.
While Shas Party founder Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former Sefardi chief rabbi of Israel who is widely considered to be the most important Sefardi posek (decisor) of halakha (Orthodox religious law) in centuries, held that Ethiopian Jews are Jewish without any doubts and fought against discrimination against them, many other Sefardi haredi rabbis, even they agreed with Yosef’s position on the religious status of Ethiopian Jews, have been much less interested helping Ethiopian Jews and some have even openly discriminated against them – especially after Yosef passed away in 2013.