JERUSALEM
— Israel's ceremonial president said Monday that an outbreak of
violent protests by Ethiopian Jews has "exposed an open, bleeding wound
in the heart of Israeli society" and that the country must respond to
their grievances.
Reuven
Rivlin spoke a day after thousands of people clashed with police in Tel
Aviv. The protesters shut down a major highway, hurled stones and
bottles at police officers and overturned a squad car. They were
ultimately dispersed with tear gas and water cannons. More than 60
people were wounded and 40 arrested.
Simmering
frustrations among Israel's Ethiopian community boiled over after
footage emerged last week of an Ethiopian Israeli in an army uniform
being beaten by police.
Ethiopian
Jews begin migrating to Israel three decades ago. Many complain of
racism, lack of opportunity, endemic poverty and routine police
harassment.
Rivlin
said Israel was seeing "the pain of a community crying out over a sense
of discrimination, racism, and of being unanswered."
"We
must look directly at this open wound. We have erred. We did not
look, and we did not listen enough," he said. "We are not strangers to
one another, we are brothers, and we must not deteriorate into a place
we will all regret."
Sunday
night's violence was the second such protest in several days, and
demonstrations are expected to continue. Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is scheduled to meet Monday with the beaten soldier and
community leaders.
About
120,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel today, a small minority in a
country of 7 million. Their absorption has been problematic, with many
arriving without a modern education and then falling into unemployment
and poverty as their family structures disintegrate.
Ethiopian
Jews trace their ancestors to the ancient Israelite tribe of Dan. The
community was cut off from the rest of the Jewish world for more than
1,000 years.
Israeli
clandestine operations rescued large groups of Ethiopian Jews from war
and famine in the 1980s and early 1990s. Later waves of immigration also
included the Falash Mura, members of a community that converted to
Christianity under duress more than a century ago but have reverted to
Judaism.
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