Bid for medical care among many battles facing immigrants
ELLEN GROSMAN
and YOSEF I. ABRAMOWITZ
Special to Jewish News
NEVE CARMEL, Israel -Ethiopians stand shoulder to shoulder in the muddy courtyard of the Neve Carmel absorption center holding fluorescent yellow and pink placards which read "enough racism" and chant "enough." For three days in March, children have been kept home from school, and the center, home to 2,500 recent immigrants from Ethiopia, has ground to a halt, while the residents strike to protest the recent cuts in their medical clinic hours, and plans to close the clinic.
Peter Gilboa, the director of the center, says, "They are right. Half the population is small children and many are sick. To travel to Haifa for medical care is a big hardship."
Adisu Messale, the only Ethiopian member of Knesset, stands at a microphone in a shed, out of the rain. He has come from the Knesset in Jerusalem to address the crowd. Handsomely dressed in a tweed jacket and Italian loafers, Messale tells the community, "We must stand together and fight for our rights, together."
Later, seated inside the center's office, Messale gestures toward his shoes and says, "To come to Israel I walked for 32 days barefoot to Sudan and now, I wear Italian loafers. Israel has done a lot for the Ethiopians and we want to do in return for Israel. We are proud to be Israelis."
Avraham Negusei, a longtime Ethiopian activist, explains, "In order to fight for our rights most effectively, the Ethiopian community must be unified. We are small, only 60,000 people, and we must band together, but this is very difficult. In addition to our own differences of opinion, the Israeli government doesn't want us united, so they give benefits to certain groups and not to all, splitting people, one from the other."
After five days, the strikers succeed - for the moment. The ministry of absorption and the national health insurance agree to keep the clinic open five full days a week for another two months, when they will reevaluate the situation. The residents of the Neve Carmel Absorption Center do not expect their needs to change by the end of May.
Israeli officials did not respond to requests for comment.
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