I hope this immigration is the beginning, not the end of the Ethiopian black Jews; however, if Israel closes its door for the Ethiopian black Jews and leaves it open indefinitely for the Russian, the European, and the American Jews, then Israel is indeed a racist country.

Closing its door for blacks and leaving it open for whites is not the only racist action Israel has been committing for a long time; forcing black Jews to change their names into Jewish names is also another act of racism being committed by the Israelis.

Thousands of years ago, when the Jews were in captivity in Babylon (Iraq), we remember, as students of the Bible, that the chief officials of Babylon changed some of the exiles’ names into Babylonian names. For example, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Meshach, and Azariah were named Belteschazar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedenego respectively (Daniel 1:6). The Jews then could not resist or protest against these Babylonian officials who changed their Jewish names into the pagan Babylonian names because they were slaves living in captivity and being forced to sing the songs of Zion (Psalm 137:1-6) and had no voices of their owns to say “no” to the Babylonian demands; however, the Ethiopian black Jews are not in Babylon: they are in Jerusalem on their own free wills, not captors from Ethiopia and forced to live in captivity in the land of the Jews. They are free people from a free nation that allows them to go to their original homeland and exercise there their religion freely as they did in Ethiopia without changing it but keeping it as it is because it is the closest religion to the religion of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a religion that has never been modified but remains always inspiring in the hearts of the Ethiopian black Jews until now.

The other racist action Israel has been practicing is drawing a distinction between the Ethiopian black Jews whose ancestors had been converted to Christianity (Flasha Mura) and those whose ancestors remained Jewish, never been converted to Christianity (Bete Israel). The Bete Israel Ethiopian Jews do not have to prove they are Jews; they are automatically accepted by the Israelis as true Jews where as the Felasha Mura Jews have a hard time to prove they are indeed Jews. For example, as The Associated Press vividly explained, Ato Tegebe Jember Zegeye, a sixty-year-old man, who practices Judaism in his heart as well as in his action by attending prayer meetings and learning Hebrew, was disqualified to go to Israel because “his links to Judaism deemed too remote.” This means, if a person is an active participant of the Jewish faith, he is not qualified to go to Israel; on the other hand, if he is not practicing Judaism, but his connection to Judaism is not too far, he is well qualified to immigrate to Israel.

What the Israelis have to understand is that the Felasha Mura and the Bete Israel Ethiopian black Jews are all pure Ethiopian black Jews whether their ancestors were Christians or Jews, and if Israel is willing to take all of them to its land, then take them without any discrimination or making any excuse that the Felasha Mura’s Jewishness is tainted with Christianity but the Bete Israel Jewishness is pure Judaism.

By the way, is there any religion in this world, be it Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or any other religion that has never been mingled with another religion? Judaism is mingled with paganism and Islam and Christianity are mingled with Judaism, and there is no such a pure religion; if so, why Israel tries to make a distinction between the Ethiopian black Jews’ Judaism and the Israeli’s white European Judaism? It is only God who can make such a distinction, not human beings “conceived and born in sin.”