The following is an excerpt from “Israel: Democracy, Race, Ethnicity, and More” (Fragments #2).
by Michal Avera Samuel
I want to introduce you to a tragedy you probably haven’t read about. It was small, in the grand scheme, but it points to a much larger systemic problem in Israeli society and democracy.
I learned about the story of the Adane family, an Ethiopian Israeli family living in Netanya, about a year ago. Every day, the grandfather would pick the kids up from kindergarten and take them to the playground. One day in May 2023, while crossing the street, they were the victims of a hit-and-run accident that severely injured his 4-year-old grandson Raphael; three days later, the boy died.
The police carried out a brief investigation, and there was barely any news coverage. Perhaps that is to be expected; traffic deaths are tragic, but they do happen regularly. At first, the family received word from the police that the driver was an adult woman, white, named Dr. Heidi Fessler, with her elderly mother, Carol, in the passenger seat. Then they heard nothing. Three months of silence went by. Finally, the family went to the police to ask for an update. They got stonewalled, then got conflicting information. They hired a lawyer who made a formal request for information. Eventually, one of the TV news channels got interested in the story and sent a reporter to start digging. Only then did they begin to uncover something fishy.
First, the police report had been changed. It now said that Carol, the mother, had been driving. Second, it turned out that Heidi, the owner of the car, had tried to repair the damage to hide that there had ever been an accident.
In addition to Raphael’s grandfather, there were other eyewitnesses, but the police never questioned them.
The police description of the accident was entirely inaccurate. The driver hit so hard that Raphael was catapulted across the street. The grandfather held the boy in his arms. All the evidence that the reporter gathered showed how fast the woman had been driving; it made no sense that she said she didn’t see them.
These irregularities brought the Ethiopian activist community into the situation, and we soon discovered why the police were hiding key information. The mother, Carol Fessler, had a prior record of reckless driving. In fact, she had been charged in a similar case previously and had been headed for a jail sentence. Her daughter Heidi Fessler was a doctor with connections in the police department and the state prosecutor’s office. She was able to get the earlier sentence dropped. Eventually it came out that Carol Fessler was visually impaired and scheduled for eye surgery. Her daughter, who owned the car, nevertheless allowed her to drive that day. Contrary to the initial report, Heidi Fessler was not in the car at all.
When the police published the official report, it painted the tragedy as an accident, that the driver didn’t see the people she hit. Miraculously, all the traffic cameras in the area had stopped working — only in that area and only for the duration of the accident. The prosecutor’s office began to defend the driver’s family, playing down their culpability. They claimed she was driving 55 km/hr, when eyewitnesses all agreed she was doing at least 80.
Accidents happen, but you have to take responsibility for them. Israeli law treats hit and runs especially severely. Furthermore, repairing the car constituted tampering with evidence in a criminal case, a further offense.
There were two other similar cases that made headlines. In one, the son of a famous judge was killed in a hit and run. Within a month, the police had all the evidence they needed to charge the driver, who had been speeding; it was easy to look at the camera footage, speak with eyewitnesses, and move the case along. Everyone in the media and society-wide talked about it for weeks. Both the victim and driver were white. In the other case, the 14-year-old son of a famous producer was riding an e-bike illegally, without a helmet, on a dangerous road. A driver, a famous Ethiopian soccer player, hit the teen with his car and then drove away. Later, the driver turned himself in. The case went to trial within a few days.
All this is to say that the police are able to act when properly motivated. They move swiftly when the injured party is powerful or well-connected. But this Ethiopian family had nothing: no money, no fame, no connections. The police tried to convince them not to push too much. The driver was an old woman. It was an honest mistake. They should let her live out her few remaining years in peace.
Failing to get any justice through official channels, the family turned to a social media campaign, “Tzedek l’Raphael” (justice for Raphael). This 4-year-old’s picture was all over Israeli social media. The Ethiopian community mobilized for protests in Tel Aviv, with thousands blocking the Azrieli highway and demanding to see the official police footage of the crime scene.
The police response was overwhelming. They brought in trucks to spray protesters with skunk-spray. The number of uniformed cops who were there was incredible, plus undercover officers infiltrating the protesters. Cameras, including drones, recorded every person present. We also know that the police intentionally provoke protesters, and when the protesters say a single word back, they attack. It was a stark contrast with the pro-democracy protests that were going on simultaneously.
At the democracy protests — like at Kaplan St., where hundreds of protesters gathered weekly — protesters have been known to curse police, even shove them, and the police exercise restraint. They know that everyone there is white, well-connected. Here, when it was Ethiopians on the street, they reacted even to little provocations with massive force. The police commander is on the record, years ago, saying that whenever he sees an Ethiopian, it’s natural to be suspicious. Itamar Ben Gvir, the Minister of National Security, has said there’s zero tolerance for protester violence. Police beat protesters, arrested them — and in some cases, even took them from their homes in the middle of the night.
How did Israeli society react? It took time for non-Ethiopians to join the protest. They questioned the protesters — were they in fact too violent? We didn’t hear from the leaders of the pro-democracy movement. Not about Raphael, not about police violence against us.
Raphael’s mother Simcha Adane is on the record saying, “Hifkiru et haben sheli.” They made my son hefker, a halachic term meaning “not belonging to anyone.” Raphael was more than killed; he was disregarded as an unimportant minor question, not even worth resolving. In January 2024, Carol finally admitted in court proceedings — for the first time — to committing the hit-and-run.
That is the real meaning of this tragedy. This hit and run reveals the extent of Israel’s systemic racism. It is all the more cutting because of the ways I believe Israel uses us Ethiopian Jews as a fig leaf.
In November 19751, the UN infamously declared that Zionism is racism, a declaration reversed only in 1991. This was, in my view, the starting point for our aliyah. I don’t actually think Israel brought us here wholly in good faith, without ulterior motives. Although a few Ethiopians came to Israel as early as 1934, and a small movement was underway in the early 1970s to recognize us as Jewish, it gathered steam in 1973, when the UN was first debating Zionism as racism. It was a PR move. In 1977, Minister of the Interior Shlomo Hillel2 extended the Law of Return to Ethiopian Jews; that cleared the way for Operation Brothers in 1979, which led to the more substantial Operation Moses in 1984. For years since then, we have heard Israeli leaders, including Benjamin Netanyahu, use this as a talking point whenever Israel is accused of apartheid: Israel is the only state that ever brought Black people in en masse not to be slaves but citizens! How dare you judge us? How dare you call us an apartheid state?
The discrimination continues on the religious front as well, where we are still not fully accepted as Jewish. As recently as 2018, at the Yekev Yarkon winery in the north, the mashgiach (kosher supervisor) told the owners not to let Ethiopians touch the wine, because they’re not Jewish, so the wine would no longer be kosher. In 2018!
I used to be CEO of a nonprofit called Fidel, a grassroots organization supporting the Ethiopian and Russian communities, including a youth center. I know too well the different situations that my staff dealt with and how they had to navigate with the police. I know any kid can commit a crime, make a mistake. But will an Ethiopian kid have the same opportunity for justice as white kids?
This is my dilemma as an educator: How much detail should I tell my students about whether to trust the authorities or not? Do I prepare them for the uphill battle they will face and, in the process, make them afraid? I’m afraid for my kids. What tools can I give them? How will they handle this kind of situation in the future?
As a mother, you always worry. But we Ethiopians have extra worry that our children are not safe in any environment. They are not safe in a white environment. Especially when they encounter police.
My family is now in Columbus, Ohio, where I am a researcher and coordinator for the Shalom Curriculum Project, based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. My kids are usually the only Black kids around. Even in the U.S., when my son drives, I tell him, if a cop stops you, hold your hands where they can see them.
I hate this fear of someone who is allegedly supposed to protect you! But that’s the situation. In a white society, Black kids will always be the f irst to be suspected. My dream is to build a world where every child, including my own, can feel safe, judged by their abilities and not by their background or the color of their skin. And not only that, but where every child will see and appreciate the beauty of diversity.
1The resolution drew on prior international declarations, including UN Resolution 3151 G (XXVIII) in December 1973.
2Subsequently, Hillel’s son Ari married an Ethiopian woman, Enatmar. When Hillel passed away in 2023, I heard Ari give a beautiful eulogy, in which he remarked on how his father’s life came full circle: His father had no idea, when he authorized that decision in 1977, that it would impact his own family’s life so personally and lead to him having Ethiopian grandchildren.
MICHAL AVERA SAMUEL (she/her) is a senior executive with 20 years of experience pioneering and leading community-building and educational efforts in the Ethiopian Israeli community and the American Jewish community. She was born in Gondar, Ethiopia and made aliyah with her family in 1984. She is currently a researcher and coordinator of the “Shalom Curriculum Project” at University of Wisconsin – Madison. Prior to that, she served as the CEO of FIDEL Association, working as a leader within the Ethiopian-Israeli community and advocating for the successful integration of Ethiopian Israelis throughout her career.
