JERUSALEM (JTA) -- When violent riots against African migrant workers erupted in south Tel Aviv recently, a mob attacked Hanania Wanda, a Jew of Ethiopian origin, mistaking him for a Sudanese migrant worker.
"Wanda is my friend," says Elias Inbram, a social activist in the Ethiopian community and a former member of the Israeli diplomatic corps who served as spokesman for the embassy in South Africa. "I knew I had to react somehow."
He suddenly realized, says Inbram, 38, "that since to white people, all blacks look the same -- I, an Israeli Jew who is black, or anyone in my family, or anyone in my community, could be attacked, too."
That moved him to stencil "CAUTION: I am not an infiltrator from Africa" onto a bright yellow T-shirt. He then drew in by hand, in the upper left corner, the unmistakable yellow "Jude" patch from the Nazi era.
Last week, he posted a picture of himself wearing the shirt -- the only one he has printed -- on Facebook. It already has gained thousands of “likes.”
"I want to force people here to think of the racism and hatred in Israeli society," Inbram, who holds a master's degree in law and is interning before applying for the bar, told JTA.
The wave of violence in Israel against African migrant workers and asylum seekers, in which nearly a dozen Jews of Ethiopian origin also have been attacked in the past few weeks, has forced many Ethiopian Jews to deal with race in a way they have until now mostly avoided. Some said it has forced upon them a new consciousness and political awareness. |
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