George Floyd and ethiopian Jewry: Do american Jewish organizations care about black Jews?
on june 6 in a Jerusalem Post article discussing reactions to the death of George Floyd, an ethiopian jew living in america stated CoVId-19 and racism are both diseases that must be eradicated. on the surface, american jewish mainstream organizations agree. In response to the Floyd outrage, the jewish Federations, already struggling with the problems caused by CoVId-19, nonetheless asserted their opposition to bigotry. the new york jewish Federation stated “we stand with all people who peacefully advocate against systemic racism. uja supports jewish organizations seeking to build bridges with communities of color.”
not so fast. tell that to the 14,000 Beta Israel remaining in ethiopia who, despite repeated appeals, have not received one penny from jewish Federations to help them resist the onslaught of the coronavirus. not one penny. and it is impossible to ignore race as a factor.
even before the full force of the disease was felt, the jewish communities suffered enormous damage. In Gondar, where most of the remaining Beta Israel live, governmental anti-coronavirus closures have already devastated the community. laborers buy food with their daily earnings; no work on monday, no food on tuesday. they have no savings. In the seven weeks since closures caused community members to lose their jobs, Beta Israel children have gone hungry. and this in a population where over 50% of the children are clinically chronically malnourished.
and now, coronavirus – which arrived two months later in ethiopia than in the us – is firmly established. From may 3 to june 3, the seven-day moving average of new cases increased exponentially from 1 to 124. the ethiopian ministry of health believes the number of daily new cases will continue to rise sharply, and by mid-july the death rate will peak and is likely to last for many months. hundreds of thousands of hospital beds will be needed but they do not exist. severe food shortages are expected as well, and are already reflected in sharply rising prices. .
What does this have to do with american jewish organizations and Floyd? plenty. today they say they are overwhelmed by the demands of coronavirus on american communities. true enough. But even prior to CoVId-19, federations simply ignored this destitute community’s pleas for help while they helped other less impoverished, white, jewish communities. the jewish Federations has not had a serious discussion of the community at its general assembly for the past 10 years. the Conference of presidents travels all over the world on its yearly jaunts; it has yet to visit ethiopia. the american jewish joint distribution Committee, american jewry’s institutional relief organization, says it runs programs for jews in 70 countries. But there is not a single dollar, not a single program for the Beta Israel, even though jdC provides assistance in ethiopia to non-jews. (By way of contrast, the jewish agency recently donated funds to for anti-coronavirus activities in ethiopia). no official representative of the major orthodox, Conservative or reform communal or rabbinic organization organizations visit ethiopia over the past two decades, a stunning contrast to the many rabbinic figures who visited soviet jews in the 70s and 80s. I recall only one congregational rabbi who visited the community over the last 20 years.
eligibility of ethiopian jews for aliyah is a decision the government of Israel will make. But american jewry makes – or should make – its own decisions on where its charitable dollars should be spent. assistance to all co-religionists in distress, in this case potentially in mortal danger, has historically been a priority of the jewish people. that concern and compassion is and has been missing in the case of the Beta Israel remaining in ethiopia.
I am not saying that race is the only factor accounting for this stunning neglect. there are cultural factors as well. years back, one member of a uja mission saying that the Beta Israel – who at that time had just arrived from rural mud hut villages and were mostly illiterate – could not be jewish because they did not send their children to college!
Ignorance is also a factor. most american jews do not know that there are thousands of Beta Israel in ethiopia maternally linked to the jewish people who would be regarded as absolutely jewish without question by former chief rabbis ovadia yosef, mordechai eliyahu , shlomo amar and prominent ethiopian spiritual leaders. nor do they know that most of the Beta Israel lead religiously observant lives in ethiopia, keeping shabbat and the laws of kashrut. the leadership of american jewish organizations know this but do not seem to care. It is difficult to find adequate benign explanations for this malign neglect which don’t include race.
of course, there is a difference between the death of Floyd at the hands of an individual and death caused by a malignant disease. But many of the deaths coronavirus may inflict on the Beta Israel communities in ethiopia can be prevented. through in action, the leaders of american jewish relief organizations, the Federations and the jdC are allowing these deaths to occur. and on the yom Kippur, jews are held equally responsible for sins of omission as well as commission, particularly for the sins of a calloused heart.
The writer has received awards from the Knesset, the Jewish Agency, the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry and Ethiopian Jewish communities for three decades of work on behalf of Ethiopian Jewry.