Ethiopian Jews in Israel Go on Strike

Hundreds of Ethiopian Jews are refusing to work or attend Hebrew classes because of demands by Israeli rabbis that they undergo symbolic rites of conversion to Judaism, their leaders said Monday.

Leaders of the black Jewish immigrants told Israel radio they will strike today--for the third day--to protest a ruling by Israel’s two chief rabbis that they undergo a ritual bath as converts to Judaism do.

About 15,000 Ethiopian Jews have been brought to Israel. Many were flown here in a secret airlift.

The Ethiopians are upset mostly because they are the first wave of immigrants that the rabbinate has required to undergo the symbolic ritual, said Steven Kaplan of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

The rabbinate recognizes them as Jews but refuses to marry couples without the symbolic immersion because of the possibility of previous intermarriage with non-Jews, he said.

But Kaplan maintains that the Ethiopian Jews are generally more religiously observant than most other immigrant groups in Israel. There has been no large-scale intermarriage, and non-Jews who have married Ethiopian Jews have became wholehearted converts to Judaism, he said.