Monday, March 05, 2012

Ethiopian immigrants earning 30%-40% less than Arabs

(Mar 05, 2012, Ha'aretz)--Ethiopian immigrants without work experience have unseated Arab Israelis for the title of the lowest-earning group in Israeli society, a new study has found.

The research, conducted by Dr. Erez Siniver, chairman of the School of Economics at the College of Management, Academic Studies and Prof. Gil Epstein of Bar-Ilan University, is based on Central Bureau of Statistics data from 2010. It compares earnings data for people with 12 years of schooling or less.

It wasn't long ago that bold and proud newspaper headlines marked the 20th anniversary of Operation Solomon, the second major drive to bring Ethiopia's Jews to Israel. Drawing comparisons to the exodus from Egypt, some 15,000 Africans dressed in white descended from Israel Defense Forces planes, filling Israeli hearts with pride. But since then, the now-100,000 strong community doesn't appear to have many reasons to be proud.

Albeit full of good intentions, Israel made every possible mistake when it came to integrating the Ethiopians. True, they weren't placed in transit camps or sprayed with DDT; but dumping villagers in urban neighborhoods with no regard for how they'd earn a living, and all the while trampling the honor of their community leaders, quickly turned them into society's weakest group - weaker even than Israeli Arabs. The very bottom. Read more from Ha'aretz »

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