Disciplinary Measures Of Ethiopian-Immigrant Parents Disproportionately Affect Ethiopian Children

The couple, who only became parents after moving to Israel, never exercised such discriminatory discipline toward their children when they still lived in Ethiopia.

Mevasseret Tziyon, October 25 – Civil rights and social equality organizations condemned a local couple today for what the groups allege constitutes discriminatory treatment of disadvantaged minorities, after information came to light that the man and woman, both born in East Africa but now living in Israel, consistently punish minority children more than they do the children of “veteran” Israeli children of European or even Mizrahi extraction.

Half-a-dozen activists from various civil rights NGOs gathered outside the immigrant absorption facility in this Jerusalem suburb today to protest the couple’s flagrant anti-immigrant and racist bias. The demonstrators called on the community to shun Shlomo and Bitania Berihoun, who, the groups have charged, meted out disciplinary measures only to their two children of Ethiopian heritage and ancestry, never so much as even threatening to withhold dessert from children of any other background.

“The prejudice here is so blatant, there’s not even a pretense of fairness,” accused Association for Civil Rights in Israel representative Manda Kharshme. “We have alerted the police, who I hope will investigate any potential criminal violations that have taken place here.”

Ms. Kharshme recited a litany, for the benefit of reporters, of the punishments or deterrent policies that have resulted in 100% of the negative consequences for misbehavior accruing to children of Ethiopian immigrants. “Loss of dessert, as I mentioned,” she began. “Withholding of screen time privileges for incomplete homework; cancelation of play dates after failure to clean the bedroom floor; repeated time outs for yelling, throwing, or engaging in violent behavior; revoking of privileges as a result of mouthing off. Every one of those episodes, sometimes several per week, occurred in this family only when children of Ethiopian ancestry were involved.”

Other attendees sounded a more nuanced tone. “There must be internalized racism at play here,” suggested Hedda Perbutt of Btselem. “I’d wager that this couple, who only became parents after moving here, never exercised such discriminatory discipline toward their children when they still lived in Ethiopia. Israeli society, with its dominant culture of Ashkenormative supremacy and marginalization of brown-skinned people, has clearly had a deleterious effect on the way these parents treat their children of color.”

The rally got off to a shaky start, witnesses reported, as none of the demonstrators could distinguish the Berihouns from any of the other dark-skinned residents of the absorption center, and assumed each time an Ethiopian-Israeli emerged from it, the group began to chant its slogans and harass those passers-by.

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