The Blood of Ethiopian Jews

Sermon given March 8, 1996, by Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl

In the last two weeks, four tragic bombings have claimed the lives of 61 innocent men, women, and children in Israel. Tonight, we mourn their untimely deaths. We pray that, even with the pain of these horrors, the people of Israel will continue to work towards peace with their Palestinian neighbors. These four recent bombings represent only the latest round of attacks on Israelis by Hamas terrorists. Regretfully, there have been many others.

In fact, last August, these hateful militants blew up another passenger bus in Jerusalem. At that time, the blood bank of Magen David Adom, Israel's counterpart to the Red Cross, put out an urgent appeal for blood for those few who survived the bombings. Uri Tamrat, an Ethiopian Jew, took a day off from work when he heard this news. He waited in a long line at a bloodmobile parked in front of a large Jerusalem department store. He wanted to render swift assistance to his fellow Israelis in need. Little did he know that, when he got up from the stretcher and left the bloodmobile, the technician would take his blood and throw it out.

Recently the news broke that, in fact, the blood banks all over Israel have been secretly discarding the blood donated by all Ethiopian Jews for years. They fear that it might be contaminated with the AIDS virus. They did not simply and straightforwardly refuse the blood. Rather they deceived the Ethiopian donors by accepting it and then secretly got rid of it.

There are now 60,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel. After learning about the insensitive and cruel discarding of their donated blood, 10,000 of them rioted outside the offices of Prime Minister Peres while he was holding a Cabinet meeting. The confrontation was violent. Furious and outraged protestors threw rocks and bottles. They smashed dozens of car windows in parking lots. Casualties mounted. Sixty-two demonstrators and policemen had to be hospitalized. Peres claimed that he had known nothing about the disposition of the blood of these Ethiopian Jews. He apologized to the Ethiopian Jewish community for this policy, which he called "irresponsible, woeful, and stupid."

Rioting is uncharacteristic of Ethiopian Jews. Usually they have been a patient, gentle, and long-suffering people. There is only so much humiliation they can take, however. To them, this blood bank scandal was the last straw. Their resentment and hostility against the Israeli government has been building for years. Now it finally exploded. Their pride was crudely violated as they realized that gallons of Ethiopian Jewish blood have been poured into hundreds of garbage cans throughout Israel.

We American Jews rarely hear about the grievances of these Ethiopian Jews. Many of us still thrill to the dramatic story of the two airlifts, one in 1984 and the other in 1991, which brought almost 30,000 of them to Israel. They were rescued from a place where they had lived in mud huts and where they suffered harassment, abuse, and persecution under an oppressive regime.

In fact, in a single weekend, two-thirds of the entire Ethiopian Jewish population was airlifted to Israel. These Ethiopian Jews had lived in squalor and under duress. Now they finally looked forward to coming to the land of milk and honey, where they could, at last, become Jews of stature and pride. (Remember, the 1/3 left behind were the Fulash Mura, the Ethiopian Messianic Jews. Eddie)

Yet, from the moment of their arrival, Ethiopian Jews have known one indignity after another in Israel. For them, the promise of democratic liberty has never been fulfilled.

It is true that Israel has spent tremendous sums in housing and other absorption-related needs for them. Yet, like many organizations, Israel apparently has done a marvelous job of recruiting but has failed to do follow-up. It has done little to integrate those who have been recruited.

Israel's Orthodox rabbis, at first, questioned the validity of the Jewishness of these Ethiopian Jews. They finally decided that Ethiopian Jews were authentically Jewish. Still these rabbis insisted that the males among them undergo hatafat dam b'rit. This is a symbolic circumcision, which involves the drawing of a drop of blood from the penis, just to make sure. Furthermore, the native Ethiopian Jewish religious leaders, like Reform and Conservative rabbis in Israel, have been denied the rights to perform marriages and burials for their own people.

The specter of rejecting the Jewishness of Ethiopian Jews still haunts them. For example, 3,000 Jews continue to live in Ethiopia. They are forced to occupy unfit housing. Many are blind, old, feeble, and unable to walk. They keep the Shabbat and the dietary laws meticulously. They pray three times a day. They wear kippot and tzitit, or fringes. Their children attend a yeshivah. They have even built a mikvah, a ritual bath.

Three years ago, Israel's Chief Rabbinate declared these Jews remaining in Ethiopia to be fully Jewish. Yet, strangely enough, the government of Israel regards them as non-Jews. It accepts only a tiny fraction of them into Israel under the Law of Return, which guarantees instant naturalization for any Jew who wishes to come to live in Israel. We now have the strange situation in which the Orthodox Jewish establishment in Israel considers them Jewish, but the secular government rejects this rabbinical judgment.

Scores of Ethiopian Jews today also remain housed in dilapidated trailer sites in the remote areas of Israel. These were set up originally as temporary dwellings. The government has designated special mortgages to assist them in moving to permanent housing. Yet, financial assistance is so meager that they can not afford to obtain housing, except in the poorest neighborhoods, far from the places where they can gain viable employment.

Half of the Ethiopian Jews are children under eighteen, most of whom are being educationally shortchanged. They are denied full learning opportunities. Education officials often assign these Ethiopian Jewish children to special classes for the learning disabled. These classes are little more than babysitting services.

Israel's Ethiopian Jews certainly are not abused like the Blacks in the American South before the days of integration. Yet their children, like Southern Black youth of not long ago, are deprived of adequate academic tools. They lack suitable books and are given inferior school supplies. A good percentage of those from the second to the sixth grades can't even read.

Instead of sending these Ethiopian Jewish youth to regular high schools, the government banished them to boarding schools run by Youth Aliyah. In these boarding schools can be found Israel's most delinquent and troubled youth. The curriculum there emphasizes vocational studies. These Ethiopian Jews are not being exposed to the more rigorous academic disciplines which would prepare them for professional careers. Also the school drop-out rate among them is tremendous. Many of these children now live on the streets. The juvenile crime rate is rising.

In addition, Ethiopian Jews have been among Israel's most loyal and able soldiers. Yet, in the past two years, twenty suicides have been reported among Ethiopian Jewish recruits. Possibly they don't feel accepted in the Israeli Army culture.

I truly believe that most Israelis are not bigoted. They recoil at racism. Yet, there have been incidents when some Caucasian Israelis have called a Black Ethiopian Jew, a Kushi. This word comes from the Bible and literally means "Ethiopian." Yet, it has become, in Israel, the equivalent of the American hate-word, "Nigger." (Ethiopians Jews are called this often! Eddie)

Thus, in Israel, the 60,000 Ethiopian Jews, who came to Israel with boundless hope, have become an embittered, downtrodden underclass. They represent the poorest ethnic community in Israel. Unfortunately, many Israelis do not realize how valuable these Ethiopian Jews are. They have a wealth of talents and skills. They are a national asset that should be embraced with honesty and love.

The Halutzim, the original pioneers, even though they were secular Jews, saw the land of Israel as a Merkaz Ruchani, in the words of Ahad Ha'am, a "spiritual center." It was to become a show case of justice, fairness, equality, and harmony. It was to serve as a stunning example of ethical and moral excellence for the entire world. (The secular Jews toiled the land, built houses and roads, then came the Pharisees with their Talmud, and the rest is history. Eddie)

This ideal, even in the face of political realities, can not be compromised. Thus I am asking all of you to write a letter to Prime Minister Shimon Peres, based on the one that is in your Orders of Service. I call your attention to the last sentence. It gives us a perspective that we need at this time of agony of 60,000 of our Jewish brothers and sisters:

"The events that unfolded following the discovery of the discarding of Ethiopian blood donations have, once again, cast the spotlight on Israel. The time is now- while the entire world is watching- to affirm Israel's traditional image: a nation that opens its arms to immigrants from around the world, a nation that has enshrined the values of democracy and freedom into the fabric of the daily life of all of its citizens." So may it be. Amen.