Opportunities for Assistance:
The Challenge
Israel’s Ethiopian community is a minority immigrant community of color which has made great leaps as part of its adjustment from a predominantly agrarian society to life in modern, technology-oriented Israel. However, it still faces considerable challenges and obstacles to integration due to discrimination, poor socioeconomic conditions, and lack of opportunity. The majority of Ethiopian Jews were shepherds and farmers in Ethiopia with little or no formal education. In Israel, moreover, most Ethiopian-Israelis are low-skill, low-wage workers. With five times the number of dual-breadwinner working-poor families and more than double the number of single-parent households as the rest of the country (29%), many of the community’s families are struggling. These conditions, along with a perception of prejudicial behavior by police, have in recent years led to demonstrations, sometimes violent, by young Ethiopian-Israelis against police. One incident involving an unarmed youth, for example, sparked days of disruptive protests. Another will surely set off more, unless proactive action is taken to address the misperceptions driving these tensions.