World

Black Ethiopian Jews Ask Do Their Lives Matter

Published

10 years ago

June 15, 2015

Reporter II

Efrat Yerday, columnist “The Hottest Pale in Hell” magazine and activist. (Photo courtesy Kai ELZ/The Chicago Defender)

By Kai EL’ Zabar
Special to the NNPA from The Chicago Defender

When I mentioned to my publisher that I had been invited to Israel as a journalist she was non too happy. She said, “Kai they are attacking people who look like you over there.” Her concerns were legitimate. It was as recent as April that footage emerged showing an Ethiopian Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conscript brutally beaten by policemen directing traffic away from a suspected bomb package.

The Ethiopian had no other recourse but to take to the streets just as Black Americans have in protest questioning whether or not Black lives matter. What emerged were the visuals of Ferguson, Baltimore and New York that that filled American and international airwaves just weeks before, however in the center of Jerusalem, and the protesters weren’t African-Americans but Ethiopian Israelis. Some held their hands raised high to indicate they were unarmed, to the heavily armed police. Still they were blooded.

The protesters – some of which have clashed with police – say black lives don’t matter in Israel, and are seeking equal treatment under the law.

So what’s life like for Ethiopian Jews living in Israel?

The instigation was police brutality but the long term inequality and racism experienced by the Black Jews has been forever.

So that footage was merely the straw that broke the camels back. The Ethiopians known as the Black Jews share birthright and are accepted as legitimate citizens. They practice the religion, speak fluent Hebrew and serve in the Israeli Defense Forces as required by the government. And yet the disparities are all so familiar to those of Blacks in America.

There are 135,000 in Israel making up 2% of the overall population and of all Israeli Jewish citizens, Israeli Ethiopians suffer the worst mistreatment by police. Ethiopian Israelis comprise over 30 percent of the population in Israeli jails, 65% live under the poverty level, only 5% receive college degrees compare to 28% of the other populations. The good news is that deaths in custody are relatively rare yet the people are tired of incidents like one that sparked the protest are more common than not.

Just like American Black males most of the Ethiopian men have suffered abuse by the hand of the police. Few have not been manhandled by police. In a revealing reference to Israel’s complex hierarchy of social privilege, some Ethiopians to whom we spoke shared that they were often mistaken by police as an the underclass asylum seekers from Eritrea and South Sudan. This discrimination regardless the explanation is unacceptable.

“But friction with police is only one manifestation of a broader phenomenon,” says Efrat Yerday who lives in Beer Sheba, and is a MA student at the department of Politics & Governance at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. She is currently researching development programs of the foreign ministry of Israel in Ethiopia and is a columnist at the magazine, “The Hottest place in Hell”-ha-makom.co.il. She writes about everyday racism.

“My concern is the systematic racism that marks us for failure, to exist in poverty and reduces our opportunities to advance from the state of poverty imposed upon us by the discrimination we experience everyday,” she expressed passionately. She continued, “It’s the everyday discrimination that is accepted that must be addressed. This is the institutionalized racism that maintains our station here in Israel.”

Efrat is actively pursuing what she advocates as an activist and the former spokeswoman for the Israeli Association for Ethiopian Jews, an advocacy organization that addresses the racism she describes head on.

She says, “Racism is not, including our experience in the history of the Jews, it’s not telling our story. Are we not Jews? If we are required to serve equally as is the next Jew then we must share equally in the benefits.”

She pointed out that racism is why less than half of Ethiopian students successfully graduate from high school, and less than a quarter of Ethiopian students have good enough grades to attempt a university degree.

Efrat explained that despite few exceptions, Ethiopian culture and the Ethiopian strands of Judaism in Israel are largely ignored or willfully eroded by the Israeli mainstream. Israeli rabbinical institutions have fought viciously against recognizing Ethiopian kahens, or spiritual leaders of the community, as fellow rabbis. Now, the first generation of the kahens is dying out, and most of the new Ethiopian rabbis and religious scholars are products of a standardized state religious education system, which allows for less cultural autonomy.

The Ethiopian community has also suffered a number of abuses unique to them. No other Israeli minority experienced their women being prescribed Depo Provera, without telling them it was a contraceptive drug. In 2013, state clinics did exactly that resulting in a decrease in the birthrate in the Ethiopian community by half in just a decade.

Fifteen years earlier, newspapers revealed that blood donations from Ethiopians to the Israeli blood bank were unceremoniously flushed away immediately on reception, on the untested assumption they were likely to carry HIV. This provoked the largest protests in the community’s history, and the recent protest resonated their cry, “Is our blood good only for you wars?”

The response of the Israeli authorities to mounting discontent, at least regarding police brutality, has been addressed. The officer captured in the video was suspended that same day, and much of the leadership of the Ethiopian community is engaged in a long-term consultation process between the top brass of the police and a wide range of community leaders. The political leaders have voiced their condemnation along with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who met with the beaten soldier, apologized saying, ”We cannot accept racism,” and established a Ministry to eradicate racism. Is that enough?

The Israeli Ministry of Education immediately put forward age-appropriate lesson plans on racism and violence. Further the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published documents quoting Israeli officials referring to data that indicates “over-enforcement” in the Ethiopian community and admitting most Ethiopian youths see police as the enemy.

And the question is what’s the surprise? The report almost mirrors America Black experience except the Black Jews did not arrive as slaves. After years of not being accepted, once they were, they arrived as citizens.

So what’s next?

Suddenly money will be found for cultural awareness programs, for recruitment of Ethiopian officers and for research, which will be call for more programs, more recruitment and more research. The beating of the soldier will be remembered in association with the Prime Minister’s apology

Meanwhile, the Ethiopians will remain between a rock and a hard place in the Promised Land and continuing to wander in the desert.

###

Reporter II

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Related Topics:Ethiopian Jews Israeli Ethiopians

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Newsom, Pelosi Welcome Election of First American Pope; Call for Unity and Compassion

“In his first address, he reminded us that God loves each and every person,” said Newsom. “We trust that he will shepherd us through the best of the Church’s teachings: to respect human dignity, care for the poor, and wish for the common good of us all.” Newsom also expressed hope that the pontiff’s leadership would serve as a unifying force in a time of global instability.

Published

3 days ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Pope Leo XIV. Screenshot.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

Gov. Gavin Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom on May 8 issued a statement congratulating Pope Leo XIV on his historic election as the first American to lead the Catholic Church.

The announcement has drawn widespread reaction from U.S. leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called the moment spiritually significant and aligned with the values of service and social justice.

In their statement, the Newsoms expressed hope that the newly elected pope would guide the Church with a focus on compassion, dignity, and care for the most vulnerable. Newsom said he and the First Partner joined others around the world in celebrating the milestone and were encouraged by the pope’s first message.

Newsom also expressed hope that the pontiff’s leadership would serve as a unifying force in a time of global instability.

“May he remind us that our better angels are not far away — they’re always within us, waiting to be heard,” he said.

Pelosi, a devout Catholic, also welcomed the pope’s election and noted his symbolic connection to earlier church leaders who championed workers’ rights and social equality.

“It is heartening that His Holiness continued the blessing that Pope Francis gave on Easter Sunday: ‘God loves everyone. Evil will not prevail,’” said Pelosi.

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Retired Bay Area Journalist Finds Success in Paris with Black History Tours

In the late 90s, Stevenson finally realized her dream of living in Paris, now with her daughter. She started exploring the history of Africans in the city and would go on to teach others the same. Her business, which she named Black Paris Tours (BPT), received a significant boost when a family friend gave her a stack of cash and encouraged her to expand on the knowledge that she had only started to share with people she knew.

Published

3 months ago

February 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Ricki Stevenson, Blacks in Paris. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

There were two things Oakland-born, East Palo Alto-raised Ricki Stevenson always dreamed of:

Going to New York as a newscaster to tell the true story of Blacks in America.
Living and working in Paris one day.

Her dreams of life in Paris began when she was three years old and her mother, a former professional dancer, took her to see Josephine Baker perform. She was 11 when her parents took her to the Stanford University campus to meet James Baldwin, who was speaking about his book, “The Fire Next Time.” Ricki says that’s when she knew she’d one day live in Paris, “the city of light!”

But before that would ever happen, she had a tumultuous career as a newscaster across the country that was inspired by her family’s history.

Stevenson recalls marching with Cesar Chavez as he fought for labor rights for farm workers in California.

“Are we Mexican too?” she asked her parents. “No, but we will fight for everyone’s human rights,” they responded to her.

Ironically, Ricki’s paternal family roots went back to Greenwood, Oklahoma, infamous for the 1921 bombing of Black Wall Street. A time when Black people had oil wells, banks, and a thriving business community.

This background would propel her into a 25-year journalism career that gave her the opportunity to interview greats like President Jimmy Carter, PLO leader Yassir Arafat, James Baldwin, Rev. Jesse Jackson, UN Ambassador Andrew Young, Miriam Makeba, and the leaders of South African liberation movements.

A job offer from KCBS radio brought her back to the Bay Area in the 1980s. Then came the switch to TV when she was hired as a Silicon Valley business reporter with KSTS TV, working at the first Black-owned television station in northern CA (created and owned by John Douglas). Along the way, Stevenson worked as an entertainment reporter with BET; coproduced, with her disc jockey brother Isaac, a Bay Area show called “Magic Number Video;” lived in Saudi Arabia; worked as an international travel reporter with News Travel Network; and worked at KRON TV a news anchor and talk show host.

In 1997, Stevenson realized her dream of living in Paris with her young daughter, Dedie. She started exploring the history of Africans in the city and would go on to teach others the same. Her business, which she named Black Paris Tours (BPT), received a significant boost when a family friend, Admiral Robert Toney put a chunk of money in her hand. He said, “Ricki, my wife and I have been coming to Paris for 20 years, but in just two days with you and Dedie, we’ve learned and seen more than we ever did before.”

Years after BPT took off, Ricki met Nawo Carol Crawford and Miguel Overton Guerra, who she recruited as senior scholar guides for Black Paris Tours.

Guerra says he is proud of his work with Black Paris Tours in that it provides a wealth of information about the rich legacy of African and African American history and influence in Paris and Europe.

“I tend to have a feeling for history always being a means of a reference point backwards … you start to understand the history, that it isn’t just the United States, that it began with African people,” Guerra says.

He said that it’s been a pleasure to watch people learn something they didn’t know before and to take them through the city to key points in Black history, like hangout spots for writers like Baldwin and Richard Wright, restaurants in the busiest parts of Paris, the home of Josephine Baker and so much more.

Although the tours are open to all, Guerra hopes that those of African descent from all over the world can embrace that they don’t have to just stay where they are because movies and media have portrayed cities like Paris to be only white, it’s multicultural and accepting to all.

“We’ve been here, and we’ve been there, going way back when. And we shouldn’t be considered or consider ourselves to be strangers in any place that we go to,” he said.

Stevenson notes they’ve had 150,000 people take their tour over the years, with notables like former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Smokey Robinson, Steve Harvey, Miriam Makeba, and more.

Friends and former media colleagues of Stevenson compliment the BPT crew on their knowledge of the city and their ability to always keep it interesting.

“He [Guerra] just had a deep, deep wealth of knowledge and he was constantly supplanting information with historical facts and the like. I love that it was demonstrating and showing how Black people have thrived in Paris or contributed to the culture in Paris,” Candice Francis said.

She toured in the summer of 2022 and stated that in the two weeks that they visited Paris, BPT was the highlight of her trip. She shared that she was proud of Stevenson and the life she’d managed to manifest and build for herself.

“Even if you’re visiting Paris for the tenth time, if you haven’t taken the tour, then by all means, take it,” Francis emphasized.

Magaly Muñoz, Gay Plair and Paul Cobb also contributed to this story. You can book your own adventure with Black Paris Tours at www.blackparistour.com.

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COMMENTARY: Will a Dictator’s Loss Change Trump’s Tune?

What’s happened in Syria has the potential of reshaping the politics of the entire Middle East. The U.S. can’t afford to sit back and do nothing. Now is the time to exert peaceful, diplomatic influence on how Syria maintains stability and goes forward with a new democracy.

Published

5 months ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Emil Guillermo

In our polarized country, half of America can’t wait, while many of us still wonder, “where’s Kamala?”

I hope President-elect Trump — who famously said during the campaign that he’d be a dictator on day one — eats his words.

Dictators aren’t doing so well these days.

Last weekend, the dictator Bashar al-Assad was run out of Syria and sought exile with his puppet master/dictator Vladimir Putin of Russia. In just about two weeks, a coalition of rebels applied enough pressure to end a family regime in Syria that lasted 50 years.

al-Assad’s wealthy family dictatorship plundered Syria and ruled in terror.

It sounds all too familiar to Filipino Americans, many of whom came to the U.S. fleeing the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

al-Assad’s end was different from the Filipinos who forged a peaceful People Power movement that chased the Marcos family to Hawaii where they sought refuge from their U.S. puppet handlers.

But as in Manila, there was cheering on the streets of Syria. Men, women, and children. Christian, Muslims, different sects and ethnicities, all united against al-Assad.

al-Assad has been described as a genocidal narco-trafficking tyrant, whose friends were America’s biggest enemies, Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia, said Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, on CNN.

Moustafa said it was amazing that there would be no more Russian airstrikes, no more al-Assad gulags torturing civilians. “To see good triumph over evil is an amazing thing,” he added.

But last weekend has some trickle down.

Consider that we are talking about al-Assad, the one Tulsi Gabbard consorted with and hyped to her colleagues when she was in Congress. Now Assad has been shamed into exile with his puppet master Russia, and Gabbard wants to be the U.S. director of national security? Given her wrongheaded judgment on al-Assad, can she be trusted with any national secrets?

It’s still not over in Syria, as now there will be a scramble to see what kind of governing democracy emerges.

Predictably, Donald Trump has said, “The United States should have nothing to do with it. This is not our fight. Let it play out. Do not get involved.”

Nouveau isolationism?

Overall, the ouster of the dictator should give Trump pause.

If by nominating MAGA loyalists like Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel, Trump’s testing the evolution to strongman rule in the U.S., he should consider what happened before last weekend.

In South Korea, a weak president tried to declare martial law and was voted down by Parliament. That’s a faux strongman.

Let’s hope Trump learns a lesson from the week’s news.

The next president sets the tone for a politics that’s already toxic.

He needs to remember the joy in Syria this week when an autocrat was dumped in the name of freedom and democracy.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is an award-winning Bay Area journalist. His commentaries are on YouTube.com/@emilamok1. Or join him at www.patreon.com/emilamok