The catastrophe facing the African Hebrew Israelite community is disheartening to anyone concerned with democracy and civil rights in Israel.
Democracies must treat all people fairly and humanely, and certainly this is true for people who have lived and contributed to that democracy for decades. The African Hebrew Israelites threatened with deportation have family and community ties to Israel. They see themselves as part of the fabric of Israeli society and behave accordingly. They have excellent relations with their neighbors and often serve in the Israeli army. Hebrew Israelites are hardly strangers, but even if they were, to love the stranger, the oppressed, the disadvantaged, is a profoundly Jewish value for the Jewish state to uphold.
There is, however, a larger challenge here. In addition to being kind-hearted and generous, Israel must get beyond the provinciality of assuming that everyone who really belongs is either a grandson of Tevye from Fiddler, or a daughter of Baruch from Marrakech. Not every Israeli grew up eating gefilte fish or couscous. A great many others – Jewish and non-Jewish – are part of the reality of Israel’s past, present and future. Israel is a beautiful, frustrating, exciting, and for some, painfully challenging country. After 73 years, it is still very much a work-in-progress. It has always been, and always will be, home to all kinds of people.
Therefore, Israel must endeavor – in ways large and small – to expand its national narrative to not only understand and show compassion for the other, but to embrace the other as full partners in its becoming. It’s well past time for the Israeli government to abandon the notion that Israel is exclusively for people who look (up until now at least) like their still mostly white, male, Jewish ministers.
Along the road to independence, and in years since, successive Israeli governments have not adequately embraced indigenous Palestinians, nor handled as well as they could the challenges of refugees, minorities, asylum seekers, migrant laborers, and non-Jewish religious and cultural communities who have braved their way to Israel. Some arrived through legal means, while others entered illegally, often fleeing from neighboring countries or from the continent of Africa. Too often, religious sects that consider themselves part of the Israeli narrative but have been shunned by Israel’s religious and political establishment, fall victim to discrimination by the authorities.
We have each met and become dear friends with Hebrew Israelites. We have visited their schools, cultural centers, factories, and homes in Dimona. We celebrate their contributions to Israel’s diversity and defense. They are part of the mosaic of colors, cuisines and communities at the heart of America’s principal Middle East ally. What a wound to the vibrant US-Israel relationship, for Israel to threaten to expel these Americans, who love and cherish Israel, and who act as a living bridge between Israel and people of color around the world.
Non-Jewish citizens and residents of Israel have lives and stories that matter. The Israel we love has compassion for the other, and more crucially, is open to fully accepting others as sisters and brothers.
Jonathan Kessler, A’shanti Gholar, Joe Perlov and Stav Shaffir are on the board of Heart of a Nation, an international community of purpose committed to Embracing Better, Together. For more information about this new organization visit: heartofanation.io.