Hundreds rallied in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday night in what organizers and participants said was a show of solidarity for those suffering from racism directed towards Ethiopian Israelis.
Yoyo Avraham, 29, said he came to the protest to increase awareness of what he said is the worsening problem of racism faced by Ethiopians in Israel.
Avraham, who immigrated to Israel at age 9 from Ethiopia, said during his childhood he was cursed at for being Jewish, and in Israel he gets the same treatment because of the shade of his skin.
“It hurts and makes you feel like you don’t belong,” Avraham said, and related anecdotes of hearing police and other Israelis hurl racial epithets at him.
The protest was the latest in a series of demonstrations held following the airing of a news report on Channel 2 in early January about a neighborhood council in Kiryat Malachi whose residents signed a pledge not to rent or sell houses to Ethiopian Israelis. In the piece, residents can be heard calling Ethiopians “cockroaches,” commenting that they have a foul smell, and that they will bring down the property values in the neighborhood.
Beersheba native Elias Inbram said protests such as the one on Wednesday night are being held because racism in the education system, job market, and in housing make it difficult for Ethiopians to integrate into society.
Inbram also said protesters are planning a mass demonstration for sometime in late February in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, but a final date has not been set.
“They told us that racism was a matter of ignorance and that education would change it, but this hasn’t happened,” Inbram said, adding that he believes the Knesset should pass legislation to make racist slurs and comments punishable in the same way as sexual harassment.
He said the incident in Kiryat Malachi shows “the easiest type” of racism, and argued that “white-collar” or “hidden” racism in the workplace or in academia is far harder to combat because it is more sophisticated and well-established within the system.
Protesters described racism in Israel as a sort of feeling or attitude they encounter, as opposed to a specific breakdown of daily official or unofficial discrimination or segregation.
Mazi Tazuzu, 32, spoke to the crowd about being born in Sudan to parents making the journey by foot from Ethiopia to Israel, and the path that brought her to being an officer in the IDF and eventually a graduate of the law school at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.
Like others, Tazuzu said the old racism brought on by ignorance and a lack of familiarity with Ethiopians has become far worse and more “provocative and blatant than before.”
Tazuzu also expressed her surprise at the number of people who showed up, and called on Israelis of all colors to abandon their apathy in the face of racism.
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