Ethiopian Black Jews Denounce Racist Israeli minister
04/08/2007
Israel’s interior minister faces accusations of racism after he suggested suspending the policy of allowing Ethiopians with Jewish ancestry to move to the country.
While rabbinical authorities judge the so-called Falash Mura to be sufficiently Jewish to qualify for Israeli citizenship, Meir Sheetrit said they were not really Jewish and had been let in only because of “political correctness”.
In remarks that incensed the large Falasha community already in Israel, he implied that Ethiopians were fleecing the state by leaving the economic hardship of their birthplace and enjoying comfortable new lives in Israel.