Writer, scholar, and activist Efrat Yerday shares her perspective on the history and current position of Ethiopian Jews in Israel/Palestine, how Ethiopian activism has changed in recent years, and how Ethiopians and Palestinians face the interlocking systems of Zionism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism. The following text, presented in interview format, was developed out of Yerday’s preparation for a panel discussion hosted by the American Jewish Historical Society on contemporary parallel struggles of Ethiopian Jews in Israel/Palestine and Black Lives Matter in the US.
GrayLit: Can you help us trace the connections between Zionism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism? What does it mean for mass movements to address all three at once?
Efrat Yerday: Israeli discourse is anxious on racism. The very language of Israeli Hebrew changes in order to perpetuate the same system of oppression on Jews and non-Jews and to silence critical voices within Jewish society. Because Jewish society legitimizes the Israeli state, silencing critical voices creates the illusion of a monolithic Jewish society that fulfills this role. Therefore, instead of talking about racism or white supremacy, the terms will soften as though it’s a minor argument between brothers and sisters, who are Jews of course. For example, genie or jinni and Hashed Ha’adati, which literally translates to “ethnic demon,” of course perpetuate rampant racism but also minimize conversation about discrimination toward “North African” and “Middle Eastern” Jews. The term eda describes something between an ethnic group and a tribe and echoes the idea of the Jewish tribes. “Zionism doesn’t only dispossess Palestinians of land, resources, and self-determination, but it also dispossesses non-white Jews of rights and their own cultural heritage”Kipuach, which means deprivation, diverts discussion away from institutionalized discrimination and state policy and toward people’s feelings. In each case, these terms obscure the specific mechanisms of discrimination and whom such discrimination affects. Judaism, anti-semitism, and Zionism legitimate the State of Israel and Israeli racism. When we look at history and today’s social reality and the strong denial that racism exists within Jewish society, it will be impossible to ignore the infrastructures of hierarchical citizenship that rely on white supremacy. Mizrahim and Ethipians need to view this situation through a crucial lens in order to make connections between types of oppression.
The Israeli identification between Judaism and whiteness is a result of the Zionist movement. Zionism doesn’t only dispossess Palestinians of land, resources, and self-determination, but it also dispossess non-white Jews of rights and their own cultural heritage. Zionism led to the identification of being Jewish with being white, in part because Zionist visionaries fantasized about Israel being a small Europe in the heart of the barbarian Middle East. The state aspired to whiteness, and this is particularly evident when looking at how Israel has treated Ethiopian Jews.
“In the late 60’s and early 70’s, Ethiopian youth arrived in Israel and started to advocate for the Aliyah… Even after they received Rav Ovadia Yosef’s recognition, the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration published a report known as the Litbak report, which claims Ethiopians are not Jews and have genetic diseases”Israel institutionalized racist practices such as forced conversion for those whose Jewishness they failed to recognize, splitting Ethiopian families by separating children from their parents and sending them to religious boarding schools, and weakening Ethiopian spiritual authorities by not recognizing their social and religious roles and dismantling the community’s religious structure. The State of Israel also implemented quotas that limited immigration from Ethiopia. These methods reflect Israel’s overarching strategy to consider non-white people, in addition to non-Jewish people, a demographic threat. Zionism would accept only a small number of Ethiopian Jews to leave its whiteness as intact as possible and allow the State of Israel to maintain the fantasy of being a Europe in the heart of the brown Middle East.
GL: What is the historical relationship between the Zionist establishment and Ethiopian Jews, particularly in terms of how Ethiopians came to Israel?
EY: While the State was invested in the immigration of Russian speakers, it did very little for the immigration of Ethiopian Jews. Like many Jews, Ethiopian Jews were dreaming about Jerusalem, not in terms of a nationalistic ideology but in terms of a spiritual and religious ideology. Zionism, as a political ideology and movement, and the State of Israel has replaced the spiritual and religious attitudes of Mizrahim and Ethiopians with a nationalistic attitude. Thirty-five years before the First Zionist Congress of 1897, Abba Mahari tried to arrive to Jerusalem from Ethiopia. He took his community, and they marched until the Big River (Tekeza). He tried to cross the river as it is written in the Bible and did not succeed. The Ethiopian Jewish tradition considers Abba Mahari a messianic prophet and spiritual leader.
Ethiopians struggled to arrive in Israel against the will of the State. In the late 60’s and early 70’s, Ethiopian youth arrived in Israel and started to advocate for the Aliyah of their families and communities. In 1973, some of them received a deportation order from the Ministry of the Interior because they were considered infiltrators. With the help of a Yemenite ally, they went into hiding and sought recognition of their Jewishness from Rav Ovadia Yosef, the chief Sephardi Rabbi of Tel Aviv back in those days, so that they would not get deported. Even after they received Rav Ovadia Yosef’s recognition, the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration published a report known as the Litbak report, which claims Ethiopians are not Jews and have genetic diseases. Racist attitudes sought to bar them from the purportedly modern state.
After 1975, however, Ethiopian Aliyah was encouraged. In 1973, the African Unionn had broken off relations with Israel because of the wars of 1967 and 1973. Then in 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 3379 declaring Zionism a form of racism. American Zionists saw this resolution as a disaster. Ashkenazi Americans were also feeling their relations with African American communities in the US deteriorate. Thus, they began advocating for the Aliyah of Ethiopian Jews in an Attempt to absolve themselves of racism.
After the UN resolution and American Zionist advocacy, the government of Tizhak Rabin decided to accept Ethiopian demands for Aliyah. The Likud party, which became the ruling party under Menahem Begin, began to implement this decision slowly in 1977. Ethiopian activists who had been in hiding received recognition and had to go back and forth to bring about the actual Aliyah from Ethiopia. American Zionists also began to bring individuals and small groups to Israel, but Israeli governmental institutions refused to help. Only in 1984 did the State of Israel actually bring a substantial amount of Jews to Israel through Operation Moses. It took eleven years from Rav Ovadia Yosef’s recognition of the Ethiopians’ Jewishness and thirty-six years from the establishment of the State of Israel for the State to accept Ethiopian Jews to some degree, demonstrating the State’s lack of interest in Black people, even if they were Jews.
“The State uses Ethiopian Jews to promote an image of diversity and multiculturalism while institutional and structural racism continues.”
GL: How does the State of Israel treat Ethiopians today?
EY: The Ethiopian community continues to be marginalized by the State of Israel. Israel erases the narrative above by only telling the story of Operation Moses and treats Ethiopian Jews as stepchildren. The State uses Ethiopian Jews to promote an image of diversity and multiculturalism while institutional and structural racism continues. Ethiopians have been forced to convert by rabbinical missionaries and resettled in the economic and social periphery of Israel. We have been and continue to be locked up in immigrant housing centers, where we are forced to live mostly in trailers and RVs for two years, creating ghettos and incarcerating us. Ethiopians make up only two percent of the Israeli population, but just until one year ago, forty percent of young people in juvenile prison were Ethiopian. There is also rampant police brutality. The security forces, including border and state police, are not obligated to protect Ethiopian Jews but instead exist to protect the state from us. During a recent Ethiopian demonstration, I was running away from police who were riding horses. I fell to the ground and felt terrified when I saw a group of them running toward me. I was terrified and afraid that they were going to beat me. That was one of the moments when I realized the paradoxical situation of police brutality and why I and others feel that the police and militarism are things to be afraid of and sources of insecurity.
GL: What does the Ethiopian struggle in Israel look like? Have there been any changes to Ethiopian activism in the last few years?
