As the world closely follows the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and escalating tensions with Iran, one group of Israelis continues to fight and die unnoticed and unrecognized. I am speaking of my people, Ethiopian Israeli soldiers – young men of courage, descendants of 4,000 years of Zionist tradition.
When we fall in battle, the world remains silent. Yes, we are Black Jews, known in Ethiopia as “Beta Israel,” descendants of ancient Israelite traditions. Today, we are proud citizens of the Jewish democratic State of Israel. We serve in its army. We protect its people. We die for its freedom. We are here. We exist.
Yet, we are too often invisible – to the media, the global public, and even to some of our own brothers and sisters. Where is our story in The New York Times? Where is our voice on CNN, BBC, Fox News, or Al Jazeera? Why do these global platforms ignore our contributions, pain, and deaths?
Ethiopian Jews in the IDF
Out of roughly 168,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel – just 2% of the total population – 8% of Israel’s fallen soldiers in the recent Israel-Hamas War are Ethiopian Israelis. That’s a vastly disproportionate sacrifice from our small community. Yet, our faces do not appear on international news. No one invites our mothers to speak. No one writes about our fathers who bury their sons with pride and silence. Who will hear us? Who will see us?
Our Zionism didn’t begin in the 20th century, nor did it come from Europe. Long before Theodor Herzl dreamed of a Jewish state, Ethiopian Jews were praying to return to Jerusalem, and many did. Our community has been connected to the Land of Israel for millennia, referenced in both Jewish and Christian biblical texts. Historical records show Ethiopian Jews arriving in Jerusalem in 1848, decades before modern Zionism took political shape, and again in 1934. Our love for Israel preceded Zionist ideology.
In Ethiopia, we were called “strangers” or “homeless” – names that reflected our longing for Zion, the ancestral home we never forgot. That is why when Israel called, we answered. When the IDF sent our sons into battle, we did not complain. I have personally spoken with the parents of fallen Ethiopian Israeli soldiers. Not one expressed bitterness.
Instead, I heard over and over again: “I am proud that my son died as a hero for his country.” This is our “Fano,” the spirit of the ancient Ethiopian tradition of resistance and defense. The Fano is a symbol of national dignity. As our ancestors once fought colonizers, we now defend our homeland, our people, Jews of every color, against today’s threats.
Our community has paid and continues to pay a steep price for Israel’s safety and survival in silence. The world remembers the miraculous airlifts of Operation Moses and Operation Solomon, but forgets the thousands who died in Sudanese deserts before they could reach Jerusalem. Now, we die again, defending the country we love, and the world still forgets.
We are not white Europeans, but we are fully and proudly Jewish. Our Zionism is not academic. It is lived, fought for, and buried in uniform.
Why is the world so unwilling to acknowledge that Zionism is not white European colonization? It is, and always has been, a liberation movement – for the scattered, persecuted, and homeless. Zionism is not just in our ideology. It is in our blood, seeking and finding our lost homeland. Now, we die again, defending the country we love – and the world still forgets.
Their stories are missing in Western media
To the Western media: Why are our stories not told? Why is our blood not considered headline-worthy? Is our sorrow not newsworthy? Please, include our stories. Feature our voices. Interview our scholars. Report on our deaths.
We are also asking our European and American Jewish brothers and sisters to recognize this truth. We are not simply immigrants; we are shareholders in the Jewish state. We are your Black Jewish family members standing guard alongside your own children. We are dying for your safety, too. Recognize this truth.
Share power and resources with us. Open doors for Ethiopian Jewish participation in Jewish philanthropy, diplomacy, education, and business. Our children want to learn with your children, befriend them, fall in love with them. We are not guests; we are stakeholders in the Zionist dream. We, too, want. We, too, can. We, too, deserve.
There are still millions of Jews in Ethiopia waiting to return home to Israel. Many are separated from family, dreaming of the day they can live – and even die, if necessary – for a Jewish, democratic homeland. So many of our Ethiopian Jews are still waiting to live beside you, to serve with you.
Of our prime minister and other national leaders, we respectfully request: Make us ministers, ambassadors, UN envoys. Let us speak to the world not just to defend Israel, but to prove with our lives and blood that Israel is not an apartheid state. Israel is not apartheid. It is a house of many colors.
Israel is not perfect. No country is. But it is the only Middle Eastern democracy where Black and white, men and women, religious and secular, live, work, and walk freely in the streets. We serve in the military, universities, and synagogues. Our voice is part of its soul. But if you do not hear us, you are not hearing Israel fully. If you do not see us, you are not seeing Zionism clearly.
If you do not include us, you are rewriting Jewish history with omissions that wound. We ask the international community: include us. We ask the media: tell the truth. We ask the Jewish world: remember us. We are here. We are part of this. We are Jewish history in motion.
Am Yisrael Chai – The people of Israel live. We, Ethiopian Jews, live and die to keep it that way.
The writer is an international educator, community activist, and diplomacy expert. He has served in the Israel Police force and worked as a detective for the Supreme Court of New York. He has represented the Knesset in international public affairs and holds an MA in community leadership from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a doctorate in educational leadership from Yeshiva University.