Free Hebrew people in its land...

In 1991 Ethiopians were caught in the middle of a famine and a bloody civil war. On the brink of extinction they wanted nothing more than to be free from danger and to be able to live in the Promised Land – Israel. On May 23, 1991 they were rescued as part of an airlift operation called Operation Solomon. 14,324 Ethiopian Jews were taken in thirty-three jets in about thirty-six hours. In The Israelis by Donna Rosenthal, she tells us that these Ethiopians believed that they were the world's last remaining Jews because they were so separate from everything else. Rosenthal shares that an Israeli waitress said that “just when we Israelis were wondering what Zionism was all about, we saw it in action,” (150). Rosenthal goes on to say that “it's unusual for Israelis to share a consensus, but almost all agreed that the rescue of Ethiopia's Jews was one of the country's finest moments,” (150).
One moment that I'm sure Israelis do not consider one of their finer ones happened back in September of this year. A few dozen Ethiopian children were not accepted to religious schools in Petah Tikva. The color of their skin was holding them back from receiving a proper education in the Israeli school system. Ethiopians were surprised by this because they don't normally get harassed about race. An Ethiopian that Rosenthal interviewed said that “Ethiopians are especially sensitive to questions of color because we never were a racial minority until we arrived in Israel,” (166).
The author of the online article, Gideon Levy, goes on a rant in his writing. He is clearly bias in his opinions and overtly lets them be known. He says that “all of a sudden, we can say "racism." A shock wave has struck complacent Israeli society. A few dozen Ethiopian children were not accepted to religious schools in Petah Tikva. That is truly terrible, everyone tsked-tsked at the heart-rending picture of Aschalo Sama, a boy without a school. Even President Shimon Peres expressed shock. Everyone is permitted to be shocked; it is politically correct.” About racism he says that “that's the way we are. From time to time, when the sewage overflows, and the stink spreads everywhere and we can no longer hold our noses, we all cry out against injustice until, once again, the cover is closed. The water underneath continues to froth and stink, but it will be covered and repressed.”
Even with all of this racism he asks “how many self-righteous and tsking parents would have agreed to register their children in a class with a majority of children of Ethiopian origin. And how many would rent an apartment to an Arab student?” Israeli society is filled with racism, according to him. Levy says that “every day security guards check people entering Ben-Gurion International Airport on whether their accent sounds Arab, and no one complains. That is not racism. It's how we have organized for ourselves an ethical code of double and triple moral standards. We fight against a few manifestations and close our eyes to other, far worse, examples.”
In conclusion he says that “when the children of Petah Tikva have all found schools to attend , even though their skin is black, society will not stop being racist. It will return very quickly to business as usual and self-satisfaction. See how there was racism here, we fought it and it disappeared without a trace.”

Reliability is a difficult thing to define here as the author is very clear on his own sentiments. He lets us know that racism is a persistent problem not only in the world but in Israeli society. Ethiopian Jews have every right to be free in the land of Israel as well as anywhere else they choose. As a Jewish people, we need to be more open to the fact that Judaism is different everywhere and that in the end it is our Jewishness that connects us all.

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