The smell of burning rubber wafted through the air as tires were set on fire.
In the distance glass bottles were shattered against buildings – the black asphalt of the street covered in broken pieces along the ground. It was met with teargas, the eyes and throats of Ethiopian Israeli protesters burned as police threw stun grenades into the large mass of people angrily screaming “Stop the murders! Stop the racism!” Civilians scattered in pandemonium as the firework like bombs set off, a thin veil of smoke left in the air in its wake.
“The cry against police brutality put [police misconduct] on the agenda,” said Rina Ayalin-Gorelik, the executive director of the Association of Ethiopian Jews. “Before the protests police weren’t arrested or sent to trial for attacking Ethiopian Israeli citizens. It was the first time.”
Thousands of Israeli Jews of Ethiopian descent took to the streets in mass protests after Solomon Tekah, an unarmed Ethiopian Israeli teenager was shot dead by an off-duty police officer during an altercation in the Kiryat Haim neighborhood of Haifa in 2019. His death ignited protests in cities across Israel in efforts to combat what Black Israelis say is a history of systematic racism, especially when it comes to treatment by the police.
“We are only 1.7 percent of the population in Israel; we are very, very small,” Rina Ayalin-Gorelik, the executive director of the Association of Ethiopian Jews, said. “It’s a matter of power and [the police] feel they can do whatever they want.”
The Association of Ethiopian Jews is an Ethiopian Israeli-led organization that works to advocate for social change equal opportunities, racial equity, civil and human rights, improved perceptions, and better policies towards Ethiopian Israelis. It is a multi-dimensional platform based on research and data, community involvement, and persistent advocacy with Israeli decision-makers.
In partnership with the Association of Civil Rights, The Public Committee Against Torture and Tebeka, AEJ successfully petitioned the Supreme Court in January 2021. The petition requested Israeli officers stop police profiling.
The Israel Police were instructed by the Supreme Court to publish and implement new guidelines in July 2021. Officers are now restricted on when and how police can stop and check Israeli citizens for ID and will not be permitted to do so just because a person looks suspicious or without just cause.
The organization also demanded the use of choke holds to be stopped as a police procedure. In March of 2022, the police prohibited the practice of choke holds in arrests.
Ayalin said the community is hoping for decreased numbers of criminal cases and that officers will follow the new guidelines.
For Jerusalem native Reuven Amstislavski, police aren’t violent with Ethiopians alone. Amstislavski parents immigrated from Ukraine in 1992.
“Right now, Ethiopians suffer more than anybody else,” Amstislavski said. “But not because they’re Ethiopian, not because they are Black, it’s because they are the newest minority.”
Amstislavski recalled a time he hung out with friends from his neighborhood and police stopped and searched them. One of his friends possessed marijuana, the situation escalated, and Amstislavski was beaten by uniformed officers with batons.
He was only 14 years old.
“As a kid, in the middle of Jerusalem, a cop caught me threw me into the police car, threw me on the ground and [a group of them] started hitting me with their bats and metal weapons just because I was a minority,” Amstislavski said. “The police know they can get away with mistreating minorities because they lack connections that would keep police from getting away with [brutality].”
Israeli police were asked to respond to comment on how they are combatting police brutality. According to Israel Police, a Communities Division, an integrated, national, professional body, was implemented to address the issue of racism within the system.
“We constantly strive to protect and faithfully serve all Israeli citizens, and provide equitable police services, with no regard to origin, religion, or skin color. In recent years the police have discovered deficiencies in this service of the community and have subsequently taken a series of steps to strengthen relationships and find solutions to various problems,” a spokesperson from Israeli Police said in a written statement.
According to the statement, the Communities Division is an “active and proactive police action that has yielded significant positive results, including addressing the issue of over-policing, closing the criminal files of numerous Ethiopian youths, constant dialogue with community leaders, multicultural policing workshops, and the activity of dozens of community policemen and women specially trained to work in the community.”
Despite the welcoming policy, Ethiopian Jews face a life of daily discrimination.
David Tzur, a retired police officer who worked in counterterrorism for 15 years said the police realized a change needed to be made after Damas Pakada, who was beaten by an Israeli officer, resulted in demonstrations.
“There was a sense of discrimination, the sense of feeling that the police are overreacting in comparison to other societies,” Tzur said. “[The community] brought us to a point that we had to do something in order to reduce this.”
Pakada was standing by his bicycle in an area police officer were attempting to clear when the officer shoved Pakada away from his bike and hit him as another officer arrived. He was threatened by the officer according to The Times of Israel, saying “I’m doing my job and if I need to put a bullet in your head, I would do it.”
“It was that moment that I feared for my brothers and my sons,” Ayalin said. “Because they cannot feel free in the public sector.”
Ayalin’s said her brother never leaves the house without his ID because of the high probability of being stopped and harassed by police.
Aweke Kobi Zena, an Ethiopian Israeli and the head of The Anti-Racism Coordination Unit in the Ministry of Justice said the unit had to prove through documented cases and incidents that racism is a problem that needs to be remedied in Israel.
The protests led the Israeli government to establish an inter-ministerial unit, The Government Unit for Coordinating the Fight Against Racism. The Government Unit was founded in 2017 and oversees 70 antiracism officers in government ministries and branches, including The Anti-Racism Coordinating Unit. It was created following the Inter-ministerial Report on Curbing Racism Against Israelis of Ethiopian Origin.
The report was used to gather information on cases and events against Ethiopians for their skin color or origin and come up with solutions to eradicate racism and discrimination. The report also sought to change the public mind – forming means to increase the presence of citizens of Ethiopian origin in places of influence.
It was presented to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2016. The report included 53 recommendations to be implemented by various Government Ministries in hopes to shift the culture around policing.
“The Israeli authorities denied the possibility of racism,” Zena said. “Regarding the police, it is tough work to do, but I don’t have the right or the privilege to [change who I am] and so we asked them to recognize the racial profiling, violence and that racism exits.”
According to Zena, about 50 percent of grievances are from Ethiopian Israelis and Arab-Israelis and seven percent pertain to police brutality.
Despite the unit working to create a better reality for minorities in Israel, the death of Solomon Tekah reaffirmed an ongoing issue of racism among the police. That’s why Rina Ayalin got involved with the Association of Ethiopian Jews. She saw an opening position in the non-profit and applied to be the Executive Director.
“It all began during the Solomon Tekah tragedy,” Ayalin said. “I was looking for a place where I could be critical against the government and speak my mind and I knew AEJ is a watchdog force that is invited as a key partner by society, diverse actors, to keep the government accountable to fulfill its legal obligations.”
In 2016, AEJ initiated the Police Forum and invited other non-governmental organizations to advance police reform for marginalized groups and Israeli society. They advocated together and over the last few years have succeeded in changing and improving police conduct.
Now the organization is working on police research on Ethiopian Israeli criminal files in collaboration with the Adva Center. Together they will analyze the rate of change between 2017 and 2020 of criminal cases opened for Ethiopian Israelis compared to the general population.
Alongside working to end police brutality, the organization is focused on changing the narrative around the Ethiopian community.
“[Ethiopian’s] are the proudest, smartest, activist there is,” Ayalin said. “If it weren’t for them, for the activists themselves we would still be in Ethiopia. We managed to do the impossible thing. We managed by the force of our belief, our strong belief, to walk thousands of miles in order to make their dream come true. It’s amazing. It’s an amazing story that is not being told. And this is, I think, the most the most important thing someone could know about Ethiopian Jews.”