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June 3, 2005/Iyar 25 5765, Volume 57, No. 40
First Ethiopian deputy mayor faces problems
BRETT KLINE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel - Balinach Ayech went from being a bank official in Addis Ababa to washing floors in Kiryat Malachi, a working-class Israeli town near Ashdod. That was 14 years ago.
Today, she's one of the town's deputy mayors - the first Ethiopian ever voted deputy mayor of an Israeli city - but she's involved in a clash with Mayor Moti Malka that has prevented her from assuming her duties.
Ayech came to Israel with a firm belief in God, a determination to help herself and her people and gratitude to the Jewish Agency for Israel for bringing her to the Promised Land.
Ayech's life in Ethiopia was unusual for a Jew: She was born in a village in the Gondar region but lived and studied in Addis Ababa and has an urban background. Her personal and professional success in Israel has been spectacular.
For the past five years, she has been the point person for her community in the town's two health clinics.
"They come to me for everything," she said. "Even after years in the country, many of the older people still cannot function in the system without help."
The Jewish Agency provided Hebrew ulpan instruction for the immigrants, "but many people simply could not learn, and so they cannot work," she said. "And many people did not go to ulpan because they never went to school in Ethiopia either.
"The generation born in Israel writes and speaks Hebrew, of course, but many young people have other problems," Ayech added. "Their families fell apart and they began with drugs and prostitution. So I have always had my hands full and worked very hard."
Kiryat Malachi - home to about 3,700 Ethiopians out of a total population of 22,000 - is one of two cities in the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix's Partnership 2000 program; the other is Hof-Ashkelon.
The Kiryat Malachi city council chose Ayech as deputy mayor over another member of the community, but from there the picture gets cloudy.
"It should be beautiful, this story of the first Ethiopian deputy mayor, but it's not," said Yossi Perez, spokesman for the Kiryat Malachi's mayor's office. "This has become a case of dirty politics in Israel, and it's too bad."
According to Perez, the mayor and the council had agreed to elect the head of the local Ethiopian association, Salomon Yayo, as deputy mayor. Ayech was number two in the group, known as Hatikvah.
According to Perez, at the last second Ayech formed a coalition with opposition council members and managed to get seven of the 13 votes needed to be elected instead of Yayo.
"She has a good family and educated children," Perez said, "but she divided the community and stabbed the mayor in the back. It was not a good thing. The mayor is not thrilled."
Kiryat Malachi has two deputy mayors, including Ayech. She is scheduled to have four main portfolios: immigration, absorption, women's rights and children's rights.
"The mayor has decided that for the moment, she will not be doing anything at all," Perez said. "By Israeli law, he has the power to decide what and when to hand over to deputy mayors."
Ayech has a different story. She said Yayo was involved with financial allocations to Hatikvah, but that money disappeared.
"People were angry and ashamed," she said. "For some reason, though, the mayor kept on insisting that he wanted to work only with Salomon Yayo. We do not understand the relationship, honestly."
Yayo could be reached for comment for this story.
Ayech believes that despite its problems, the Ethiopian immigration to Israel has been a success. There are about 70,000 Ethiopians in Israel, more than 1 percent of the country's population.
"This is the most difficult group the agency has ever dealt with," she said. "They were rural, isolated people from Africa. The most intelligent and modern people have been able to succeed in Israel, but many simply received the 2,000 shekels a month" -a stipend of about $400 for rent and food, provided by the Jewish Agency and the Absorption Ministry. Often they went from the absorption camps to JAFI-run apartments that quickly became ghettos, and watched their families fall apart.
"I want the agency to come once a week to examine families, case by case," she said. "I want them to find the kids in trouble and help them."
One path to integration in Israel for Ethiopians, as for so many other immigrant groups, has been the army. Ayech's eldest son, Gidon, 27, is a captain in the army and a career soldier. He holds a master's degree in economics and runs a supply unit.
"I have 20 soldiers under my command, and they are all 'white' Israelis," he said. "The issue of my being a black African immigrant has not arisen.
"I got this far because of my mother," he continued. "She taught us the value of education."
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