Reminiscing Martin Luther King Jr., hundreds take to the streets of Kiryat Malachi to protest a policy that prevents them purchasing certain properties.
Likening their battle to fighting the institutionalized racism that was once present in America, hundreds of members of the Ethiopian community took to the streets of Kiryat Malachi on Tuesday to protest reports of blatant racism publicized recently on national television.
“We believe in what Martin Luther King did,” one of the protesters, 23-year-old student Shira Esayas told The Jerusalem Post. “We believe that racism has an effect on all of society and sadly Israel is very far behind America on this issue.”
Esayas, who traveled with friends from Haifa to join the protest, held a hand-written sign with the words “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere.”
Elsewhere banners reading “No to racism” and “I have a dream,” were commonplace.
“This is a battle against social injustice and it is not just for the Ethiopian community, it is for everyone in Israel,” commented one of the main organizers, Kiryat Malachi resident Avi Yalou.
He continued: “There is institutionalized racism everywhere against the Ethiopians, we see it on every level and in all areas of society.
Sadly, it is nothing new and today we are hoping that the rest of Israeli society will take up this battle too.”
Tuesday’s protest was sparked by a story broadcast last week on national television showing how a young Ethiopian family had attempted to purchase an apartment in a certain block in the town but by accident discovered that the tenants had collectively signed an agreement not to rent or sell their properties to members of the Ethiopian community.
“We have already forgotten about that story, it happens everywhere in Israel, in every town and city,” lamented Yalou. “There is a whole phenomenon and although it might have started here, there is nothing to stop it happening in Ashkelon, Beit Shemesh, Haifa or elsewhere.”
Yaakov Tala, who has lived in Kiryat Malachi for four years, said that such discrimination against Ethiopians has existed locally for a while but most members of the community refuse to talk or complain about it.
“Ethiopians are very quiet people,” he explained. “They all knew that it was happening but they did not want to say anything.”
The protest on Tuesday included a very vocal march through the streets of Kiryat Malachi from a community center for Ethiopian immigrants to the residential blocks that are accused of signing the discriminatory document. The demonstration ended in a rally at the local municipality forecourt.
Twenty-one-year-old Oshrat Masala, a local resident who joined the protest at the apartment buildings that had apparently decided not to rent or sell to Ethiopians, arrived with her black face painted a ghostly white.
“Maybe now I will be able to buy an apartment here,” she quipped, describing how this kind of racism has existed for a long time and adding, that “finally the time has come for everyone to speak out against this.”
“Maybe our parents generation were quiet about this kind of racism but we are the second generation [of immigrants] and we are speaking out about what is going on,” said Masala, who was born in Israel.
Elias Inbram, an activist that helped raise awareness to the protest by gathering supporters on Facebook, said: “enough is enough.”
“The authorities are always telling us to be patient, that [immigrant absorption] is a process but we are seeing that even in the next generation things are the same,” he said, highlighting, “We have been living in this country for more than 30 years, we have university degrees, we have served in the army, how much longer do we have to wait?” Residents of the apartment building that had allegedly signed the discriminatory agreement told The Post that the media had grossly exaggerated the issue and that no such document existed.
One resident, who refused to give her name, said that she had no problem selling her apartment to members of the Ethiopian community.
“Money is money,” she said, adding that her daughter had many Ethiopian friends in school.
In light of the protest, Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver issued a statement saying that her office was shocked and deeply saddened by events in Kiryat Malachi.
“It is very sad to hear that in 2012 there is still this kind of racism in Israeli society against new immigrants,” she said. “It is important to note that not so long ago all of us were new immigrants to Israel and ashamed to discover that this kind of impatience exists among Israel’s population.”
In addition, Knesset Member Danny Danon, chairman of the Knesset Committee for Aliya, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs announced Tuesday that his committee would hold an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss the matter.
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