'What does it matter that we're black?' ask Ethiopian students

'What does it matter that we're black?' ask Ethiopian students

By Or Kashti

Balta Zalka stood outside the Da'at Mevinim private religious school in Petah Tikva, waiting for a government official to confirm that his two daughters would indeed study there this year, as the municipality had promised. He was disappointed.

"The secretary took down our details and promised to call. I don't know what happened. They told us to come to register, but they're not accepting us," Zalka said. Meanwhile, an Israeli-born mother and her young son walked out of the school. From their conversation, it was apparent the child was allowed to enroll.

Private religious schools in Petah Tikva said this year they would not accept the students assigned by the municipality, and would enroll only those they felt were a good fit.

The scenes were strikingly similar outside the city's three private religious schools: parents and children waiting outside, accompanied by municipal officials, simply waiting their turn.

At each school - Da'at Mevinim, Darkei Noam and Merhav - the principal failed to show up, each for a different reason. Only one or two secretaries came, even though the municipality announced last week that school officials would be there to greet the students.

School representatives responded, "Nobody coordinated the visit with us," adding that the buildings were still closed for summer vacation.

The Zalka family moved to Petah Tikva several weeks ago from Safed. The two daughters, 6-year-old Habatam and 7-year-old Ambata, are among 100 or so Ethiopian-Israeli students who don't know where they will be attending school next week.

"We thought the problems of 'blacks' in Petah Tikva had been solved, or we wouldn't have bought an apartment here," Zalka said. "I tell the kids not to think about there being 'whites and blacks,' but to be good students, and then they'll be viewed as 'normal,'" Zalka said.

One official described the families' crisscrossing between the private religious schools as "a humiliation parade."

"The heads of the [educational] institutions are under tremendous pressure. They are citing different excuses and trying to buy time, and in the meantime pressuring the Education Ministry," said one official. "Only an unambiguous position by the ministry can solve the crisis. This is war," he said.

Darkei Noam is a large, impressive building. In the entrance hangs a huge poster bearing the line from Proverbs that is the religious school network's motto: "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."

"What does it matter that we're black?" asked Beza Waldahi, who is trying to enroll his son at the school. Waldahi's family immigrated to Israel three years ago, and last month moved to Mevasseret Zion.

"The kids always ask what will happen, and why they don't have a school. I don't know what to tell them. In a few years they'll go to the army," he said. "We're like everyone else in Israel - this is our school, our city, our country."

Ethiopian woman being denied any formal status

A non-Jewish Ethiopian woman, who was brought to Israel by force as a child and raped by her captor for more than a year, is being denied any formal residency status even though she has lived here for more than 16 years, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Aregash Gudina Terfassa, whose lawyers have petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court to accept her claim, first applied for permanent residency status in 2006, when the Interior Ministry announced it would recognize children of foreign workers either born here or who had spent the vast majority of their lives here.

Even though Terfassa fit most of the criteria - she had arrived before the age of 14, grew up here and speaks fluent Hebrew - her application was denied because she had never attended an Israeli school.

She has been living here without any formal status ever since.

"It's like being in jail," the 28-year-old told the Post Wednesday. "I was working as a cleaner two days a week but after being arrested twice [by immigration police] and spending a month in jail, I'm too afraid to go out to work or even leave my house."

"I would have loved to have had the opportunity to go to school," continued Terfassa, who, ironically, spent much of her teenage years cleaning an Israeli school, but never actually learning in one. "But I had no parents to help me with that and I did not have the chance."
Attorney Michael Decker from the Jerusalem-based Yehuda Raveh & Co. Law Offices, which is representing Terfassa, said the Interior Ministry's decision not to grant her permanent residency was unfair.

He pointed out to the Post that under the country's laws of compulsory education it is the responsibility of parents and/or the authorities to ensure that every child attends school. In the case of Terfassa, however, because she had no parents or official legal guardian, that criteria should not apply.

"She was cleaning schools while other kids got to study there, but never had the chance to study herself," said Decker, adding that a court hearing was supposed to take place on Sunday but that the Interior Ministry has asked for an additional extension to further analyze the situation.

The presiding judge has not yet ruled whether next week's hearing will be delayed.

"It's a unique case," commented a ministry spokeswoman. "The courts will now have to decide what should be done in this matter."

Asked about the Interior Ministry's approach to her case, Terfassa replied sadly: "All my life has been filled with hardships; it's all I know. I have no parents, no family, except for my [non-Jewish] husband now. I have been here for 16 years and still have achieved nothing."

Terfassa, who hails from rural Ethiopia, said that her parents died when she was a young child and that she was sent to live in a church. In 1993, the church's priest was posted to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem and Terfassa accompanied him, entering the country initially on a tourist visa.

"He was like a father to me," said Terfassa of the man who first brought her here and later beat and raped her. "I was only a child then, I did not speak Hebrew and the officials in the church told me not to report it to the police."

Terfassa recalled, however, that the priest was later deported by the Israeli authorities.

At the age of 14, Terfassa, who was left barren by her ordeal, managed to escape the church and found refuge with another Ethiopian Christian family in Jerusalem and worked for them caring for the family's young children. She was later hired by a manpower agency and sent to work as a cleaner, which she has done ever since.

"I know that she would love to have a formal status so that she could at least improve her work situation," said Becker. "She has expressed to me that she would love to work in a store, folding clothes. She is just devastated that next week's hearing might be postponed."

Ethiopian students still left out of classrooms

An agreement was reached Wednesday evening to enroll another 36 children of Ethiopian origin in Petah Tikva's schools, after a second school day in which children and their parents waited for hours in the corridors of the city's education department to find out where their children would be studying.

Of this group of 36, 10 will go to state religious schools, 11 to three private religious Zionist schools, and 15 to ultra-Orthodox schools.

But some of the parents remained skeptical. "I'll believe everything's all right after my son has been in school for a week," said one mother, Mema Ordena.
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The confusion over the children's enrollment led to a few inappropriate incidents. The ultra-Orthodox private school Shuvu, for instance, demanded conversion certificates from at least five children of Ethiopian origin.

"I've been living here for 26 years," said one mother, Esther Dasata. "All my children were born in Israel. We're Jews in every sense of the word. Why all of a sudden are they asking me for a conversion certificate?

"Are they afraid our color will rub off on them?" she added. "I don't understand why my son can't go to school, why our poor children have to suffer this way. It makes me sick."

But after the Education Ministry intervened and informed Shuvu that its demand was unacceptable, Dasata was promised that her son, Yonatan, like the other children, would be enrolled there.

At 9 A.M. Wednesday, Pirmos Sama and her son Aschalo, 6, came to the municipality office. They had already been disappointed on Tuesday, when Aschalo sat for hours at the state religious school Morasha and was then sent back to city hall, so this time, he came without his bookbag.

"Why should we bring the bag if we don't have school?" Pirmos said. "They kept telling us, 'wait, you'll have an answer shortly,' but meanwhile, they don't want us at school."

Another mother, Tarpa Zimula, said she tried to get her daughter Sisainesh into school again Wednesday, but they were once again sent away. "The child's been crying for two days," she said. "I don't go to work."

In the city's education department, there was great confusion over the registration of the Ethiopian children. Several city officials said that in all their meetings with Education Ministry officials, which led to Monday evening's premature announcement that a solution had been found, they had been referring only to the new children - those that had arrived in town over the past few weeks. Children who had been living in Petah Tikva for years and gone to kindergarten in the city were not included in calculating the "quotas" that were distributed among the various schools on Monday. Thus 36 new children were suddenly "discovered."

Meanwhile, when the state religious schools were asked to enroll these additional children on the first two days of school, they insisted that under their agreement with Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, they had to take only 34 kids.

Wednesday, the parents committee of the state religious schools traded accusations with the Petah Tikva municipality. "Mayor Itzhak Ohayon is knowingly lying to the public [about the number of students to be enrolled], just like he lied to the education minister and the Knesset Education Committee," a parents committee member said, adding that the schools had agreed to take in six students over and above what their agreements called for.

"The state religious schools have chosen to defend themselves by means of false accusations," the city responded.

At 6 P.M. Wednesday, only a few parents were still waiting at the city's education department. A clerk came out and began handing out the new assignments to schools. But there were no smiles.

Only Thursday will it become clear whether the crisis has indeed been solved - until the next group of immigrants arrives, in another two or three months, with about 60 more new immigrant children.

Why Jews see racism in Israel

Petach Tikvah, Israel - On the eve of the Israeli school year's start on Tuesday, recent Ethiopian immigrant Ayenew Belay didn't know whether his 7-year-old son Avi would be starting first grade.

Government officials had asked several private religious schools, which are publicly subsidized, to accept about 100 children of Ethiopian Jews – some of whom would be well behind their peers in language, religious studies, and other areas. The schools informed their parents, including Mr. Belay, that the children could not be integrated into regular classes until they caught up, but offered separate "preparatory" classes.

"I bought my son a backpack. He's seen the school," said Belay at a demonstration Monday outside of the Petach Tikvah municipality building. "But they won't accept the boy.... It's because he's black."

While the Israeli Education Ministry struck an 11th-hour deal with three religious elementary schools to allow 30 students to be integrated, activists say the incident is likely to leave an enduring mark on the community's children. Many Ethiopian Jews see the schools' actions as symptomatic of persistent racial discrimination, a phenomenon that has diluted the powerful idealism that drew many to the Jewish state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu characterized the refusal of admission as a "moral attack," using a word often used to describe terrorist strikes. President Shimon Peres said it was a national "disgrace."

Despite the Education Ministry's intervention, many Ethiopian students were reportedly turned away today, the first day of school, according to Israeli news outlets.


'This is leaving a scar on our kids'

At the Monday demonstration, hundreds of protesters blocked the entrance of the municipality building and nearby intersections.

Wearing a T-shirt that read "We want equality, we're all Jewish," protest leader Uri Kabadeh shouted through a megaphone in the community's native Amharric and Hebrew. "Down with racism, down with discrimination," the crowd chanted.

"This is leaving a scar on our kids," said Mr. Kabadeh. "It will prevent them from advancing [in society]."

Israeli police walking with arms linked to push back demonstrators evoked images of the US civil rights anti-segregation battles in the south in the 1950s. But most Ethiopians say this is a different situation.

Shlomo Molla, the sole Ethiopian member of Israel's 120-seat parliament, said ethnic tension is a fact of life in a society which has accepted immigrants from diverse backgrounds. He insisted the anti-Ethiopian discrimination in Petach Tikva, a Tel Aviv suburb, is local rather than chronic.

"There is no racism policy against Ethiopian Jews," he said. "The Israeli government and parliament are very welcoming to the Ethiopians. They have done a lot."


Ethiopian immigrants once celebrated

Some 111,000 Ethiopian Jewish immigrants and their children live in Israel today – a tiny fraction of the country's 7.2 million residents. Most Ethiopians came during the 1990s and 1980s in covert immigration operations that were celebrated in Israel and in the Jewish Diaspora as realization of the state's raison d'etre of taking in at-risk Jewish populations.

The public relations dividend was not ignored. Ethiopian faces were routinely splashed across Israeli brochures to play up the country's multiethnic character and damp accusations of racism.

But today, these communities are struggling socially and economically. About two-thirds of Ethiopian Jews receive support from state welfare agencies. And just over 10 percent recieve post-high school education compared to 40 percent of Israeli Jews, according to an Ethiopian advocacy group.

Explanations vary. Some point to the problems faced by the Ethiopian community in transitioning from an agrarian society back home to the technology dominated economy in Israel. Others see a pattern of ethnic discrimination reminiscent of earlier waves of Jewish immigration from Arab countries. Still others say hundreds of millions of dollars raised in the Jewish Diaspora to absorb the Ethiopians has been wasted in bureaucracy. But many say it comes down to skin color.

"We came here because we thought Israel was our country. We didn't expect this," said Demelash Belay, a 36-year-old English teacher who moved to Israel in 2006. "We heard in Ethiopia that Israel is a democratic country. We found discrimination. And because of it Ethiopians are suffering."

Since 2000, the Jewish state has accepted thousands of immigrants from the "Falash Mura," Ethiopian Christians who trace their ancestry to Jews. The Falash Mura, like some Ethiopians before them, have been pressed by the Israeli Rabbinate to undergo a lengthy process of conversion to confirm their Jewish authenticity.

Schools deny racist policies

The religious schools, which are partially funded by the municipality and the Education Ministry, have defiantly resisted efforts by the national government to intervene. Spokespersons for the schools and the municipality denied accusations of racism.

Tzachi Lieber, a spokesman for all three elementary schools, said they already have 30 Ethiopians enrolled and that the staff considers it an "honor" to have the immigrants enrolled there: "That proves it's not an issue of racism."

Still, Petach Tikvah municipal spokesperson Hezi Hakak conceded that there's de-facto segregation in the public school system. One school is nearly 100 percent Ethiopian. But some activists, such as Molla, remain patriotic and express optimism that Ethiopians will eventually take their place along side other immigrants in key decisionmaking roles in Israel.

But the official obstacle now facing Ethopian Jewish children was keenly felt by Daw Jambh, a young demonstrator who repeatedly confronted policeman Monday. "I just got out of the [Israeli] army, and I feel disgraced," she said. "I feel like getting out of here."

Community activists complain that Petach Tikvah is not the only municipality where Ethiopian students find themselves in segregated schools. And discrimination is not limited to the school system. A recent survey by Israel's Yediot Ahronot found that Ethiopian candidates were less likely to get invited for a job interview than other Jewish ethnicities.

"There are people who are ignorant. They lack knowledge. They know about us from a colonial aspect," says Daniel Admasso, director of the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews. "They think that blacks are pitiful, and they live somewhere else.... The white Jewish culture has lots of stereotypes, and they have trouble with people who are different."

Schools to accept Ethiopian students

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Three private religious schools in Petach Tikvah will admit Ethiopian students.

The agreement, reached just hours before the start of the school year, was announced Monday night by the Education Ministry.

Some 30 Ethiopian students were to be accepted by the three schools on Tuesday, the first day of school, with another 18 to enter during the course of the school year.

Another 60 Ethiopian students who will move to the city in the coming months will enroll in "unofficially recognized" schools run by fervently Orthodox organizations. They will not be assigned to the state religious schools.

On Sunday, the Education Ministry had announced that it would cut off funding to the private religious schools -- up to 75 percent of their annual budgets -- if they refused to accept the students. The schools had claimed that the Ethiopian students require more time and funds than other children to raise them to academic standards.

The schools had agreed to accept children into regular first-grade classes but said the older students must attend special classes, which Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar called "a kind of small ghetto for pupils of a certain origin."