Inspired by US protests, Ethiopian-born Israeli ministers battle against police brutality
She is a fighter, too. When she was just five, she joined her father at a demonstration in front of the Knesset against the Chief Rabbinate, which questioned the Jewish identity of Ethiopian immigrants and demanded that they convert again. She carried on the struggle as a young Knesset member. This came in the wake of an investigative report, which found that unlicensed and inexperienced mohels were being sent to circumcise the infant sons of Ethiopian immigrants, because, “They don’t understand. They’ll never feel it if the mohel makes a crooked cut.”
After calling for the matter to be brought up before the Knesset’s Interior Committee, she gave an impassioned speech, saying, “We have become pawns in the hands of anti-Semites who hate Jews. No one has the right to challenge our Judaism. … Is it because of my skin color? If that ever happened to immigrants from Europe, there would be a worldwide ruckus. This is a country that hates black people and hates Jews. My grandfather carried the Torah scroll from our village all the way to Israel, and you are calling into question whether he is Jewish?”
These harsh remarks caused a huge commotion at the time, but even now that she is part of the government, she claims to be there to instigate change but from the inside. After the George Floyd incident and the ensuing protests, Tamano-Shata said that the Israeli Police and the government itself must wake up and show that they are aware of systemic racism and discrimination, particularly within law enforcement. She argued that Israeli society can no longer accept the structural distortions that result in a disproportional number of Ethiopians in prison, considering their overall percentage of the population. Furthermore, there are many more police investigations centering on Israeli-Ethiopians who are charged with particularly minor crimes. In other words, the community faces excessive policing.
Demonstrations broke out in 2015 after an Ethiopian soldier named Damas Pakada was beaten by a member of the riot police. These demonstrations soon became riots. The demonstrators threw rocks and bottles at the police and smashed store windows; the police responded with stun grenades, water cannons and tear gas. In many ways, these demonstrations were more reminiscent of recent events in the United States. The government responded by deciding to establish a Unit to Combat Racism, among other things. The new unit recommended that thousands of cases against young Israelis of Ethiopian origin charged with minor crimes be dropped. The unit also collects data about institutional and other types of racism. Its most recent report, from 2019, found that 37% of the complaints it handled came from the Israeli-Ethiopian community. The report also notes that while Jews of Ethiopian origin make up 1.7% of the population, they make up 3.27% of the number of people arrested.
After the George Floyd incident, Yevarkan wrote on Facebook, “This is one of the most racist, cruel and deadly events ever recorded. The case proves again that racism is a lethal weapon. … Police violence against blacks is a plague, with many countries around the world fighting against it. … Here in Israel, we also have a lot to do. Policemen and women need to understand that they have enormous power, but also that they must use it proportionally, in accordance with the law, common sense and basic morality. One thing people must know is that white citizens of Israel feel safe when there is a police car in the neighborhood, while black citizens of Israel do not feel safe at all.”
The very fact that Yevarkan and Tamano-Shata were appointed to senior positions in government is especially important to the fight against institutional racism. Their test will be whether they succeed in bringing about real change in the coming years.