JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday condemned three Jewish religious schools for what he termed their immoral refusal to admit 100 Ethiopian Jewish students.
Spokesmen for Israel’s 100,000-strong Ethiopian community described the schools’ decision as discriminatory. Black Jews have long complained of prejudice in Israel.
The private ultra-Orthodox institutions, which also receive money from the government, denied the ban was racially motivated, saying the children required special funding and classes to raise their academic standards.
But Netanyahu called the ban “intolerable”.
“Rejecting Ethiopian students is simply an attack on our morals, contradicting our ethos as a country, as a society, as Jews and as Israelis,” Netanyahu said in an interview conducted jointly by Israel Radio and Army Radio.
“A school that continues along this line will suffer the consequences,” he said. “I have told (the education minister) to act as forcefully as possible.”
Education ministry officials have been quoted by the Israeli media as saying government funding for the schools, in the central city of Petah Tikva, would be withheld unless they admitted the students.
President Shimon Peres said last week the schools’ policy was a “disgrace” no Israeli could accept. Most Ethiopian Jewish children attend state schools, many of them religious institutions.
Israel’s chief rabbis determined formally in 1973 that Ethiopian Jews were descendants of the Jewish biblical tribe of Dan and were entitled to immigrate to Israel. Tens of thousands arrived in airlifts in the 1980s and 1990s.
11 thoughts on “Israeli PM Netanyahu slams school ban on Ethiopia Jews”
allBeth Israel:
Comeback to Ethiopia and lets live together again. We may be poor, but we sure are happy to have you back. This people to people offer.
This was long overdue for P.M. Netanyahu to just say what he is saying. He knew there were many other incidents where Ethiopian children were denied of access to their basic rights. Mr. Netanyahu, let’s see how serious you are now, after being exposed by President Peres.
Come to the USA. I think this people have an Israeli citizenship and they can come to the USA and settle…
very shame for Israelis we Ethiopian Christians respect JEWS more than they expect but they hate our bloods FALASHA so we love our people they can come and live together without discrimination.
our country also the land of GOD.
shame on you Ethiopian, you are not poor, you have a rich land if you work. Isereal is 1/40 of Ethiopia and desert, there is nothing in Isreal just stress. if you claim you Isreali let you know all Amhara and Tigrain (Habesha)are Isreali Trib (you don’t need any proof, it is missed history), but they have big fertile land there is no need to claim this piese of desert.
stop war work hard and feed the whole area including Isreal.
This selected trib foun early a fertile and big land why they need to go back to that cursed land.
Believe me Isreal is as big as Addis Abbaba only. There is fact if you lazy and poor even your brother hate you.
Ethiopians thik twice, your angel Haile Silasie calculation was wrong. By taking land of other people and live in war. This calculation put Ethiopian in slag for ever.
Still the successor governmnet didn’t solve the problem. Keep making mistake and insteade of buying tractors keep buying Tanks. Instead of producing food, produce bullets, instead of teaching the people how to fish, teach how to beg (how to eat fished fish).
Listen Ethiopia is reach.
If you want to see this lease your land for year to Singapoor or Isreal, they will show how to feed the whole world using your land.
I do not think the Middle East peace the World hopes for under the Obama administration will materialize. If the peace deal is stuck then, on what pretext the billion dollar US aid to Israel will be justified. But by a miracle if it happens, then the Felashas are done! They were primarily sought for the army now they will be dispensable. Yes, Ethiopia is their country if they want it but they believe that they are Israelis. Israel is a big (not in terms of square kilometers) and technologically advanced country. Who does not want to associate him/herself to a big country? So if they come back to Ethiopia, since they think that they are Israelis (chosen people), won’t they claim being ruling class in Ethiopia (replacing the Tigrians)? What chance could be better for us Ethiopians than being ruled by chosen people? If we ruled by them may be we will get back every land we lost from our country, even we may get more!!!!
Stuipid Falashas why did you claim that you are not Ethiopian but “Jew”in the first place? Ethiopia is a poor country but it is your country. You have abandonded your country to fill you stomack with food and now when your stomack is full you started talking. You have got what you desereve. Are you gonna tell the world that you have not heard that the Palistinian people suffer because of racism?
Is is news for you that Zionism is racism? Wake up and smell the coffee…
No where to go, fight for your right as you belong to the holy land. Israel is your home and no body, bo body can discriminate you in your own homeland.
It may no be easy to win the fight in a short period of time but it is the right thing to do, it is possible.
By the way, Israel is the only democratic society in that part of the world, you have the support of the government and you have the spiritual superiority.
you know, you guy’s back to your mother land ethiopia please, this is terible way of life, being suffering from the way people treating you, in my point of view leave thair country and back to your home land sweet……
Of all people Israelis discriminate against others based on race? Why are other Jewish not Appalled by these xenophobic behaviors? Does the name Hitler ring a bell? How soon could they forget that 6 million Jewish had been gassed in concentration camps allover Europe and still hated by Arabs and Nazi sympathizers. More than anyone else Jewish and the state of Israel should understand the meaning of hate.
The Ethiopians were not privy to the talmudic traditions. They are far superior than the others in the humanitarian sense.