An Ethiopian Israeli should be able to become the prime minister, the president, or the chief rabbi of Israel.
An Ethiopian Israeli should also be capable of leading a major Zionist or Jewish institution, and should appear on CNN, Fox News, the BBC, or Sky News.
Or even with Piers Morgan when discussing and debating Iran, Gaza, diplomacy, antisemitism, Jewish identity, and Israel’s future.
But until Israeli leaders, international Jewish organizations, and major media institutions begin treating Ethiopian Jews as potential leaders rather than permanent subjects of somebody else’s conversation, their language of diversity and inclusion will remain incomplete.
For decades, Ethiopian Israelis have been presented primarily through three narratives: immigration, discrimination, and poverty. Those stories matter. But they are not our entire story.
Where are the Ethiopian Israelis discussing national security, Jewish law, Africa, diplomacy, and Israel’s relationship with the United States?
Where are the Ethiopian Israeli candidates being prepared for cabinet ministries, senior diplomacy, major Jewish institutions, or national religious leadership?
International media organizations debate Israel every day, yet Ethiopian Israeli intellectual voices remain remarkably rare.
Israel also bears responsibility. Do not appoint an Ethiopian Israeli simply because an institution needs a Black face in a photograph.
And do not select an insufficiently prepared representative, watch that person struggle internationally, and then quietly conclude that Ethiopian Israelis cannot perform at the highest level.
Find the qualified people. We already exist.
Qualified Ethiopian Israelis
Today I present two leaders among many: Rabbi Reuven Wabashat and Fentay Maharat-Alamu. And, with humility, I include myself not as someone claiming entitlement to office, but as another example of a generation asking for the opportunity to serve.
Rabbi Reuven Wabashat represents a remarkable bridge between the ancient religious tradition of Ethiopian Jewry and contemporary Israeli rabbinical scholarship.
Born in Anbobar, Gondar, Ethiopia, he is a descendant of generations of Ethiopian Jewish spiritual leadership. His grandfather, Qes Wabashat Aytegb, and great-grandfather, Qes Aytegb Tamenu, were respected Ethiopian Jewish leaders.
He immigrated to Israel as a child in 1972, before the great Ethiopian aliyah operations. He later served as an IDF officer, became a rabbinical judge and halachic scholar, and authored works of Jewish law and biblical interpretation.
I know Rabbi Wabashat personally – as my rabbi and mentor.
So I ask a question Israel should confront seriously: Why should a scholar of his caliber be viewed principally as a rabbi for Ethiopians?
Why shouldn’t Ethiopian-Israeli Torah scholars compete for municipal chief rabbi positions – and eventually Israel’s highest rabbinical offices?
THEN THERE is Fentay Maharat-Alamu.
Her life challenges almost every stereotype about Ethiopian Israelis. Born in Gondar, Ethiopia, in 1984, Fentay was still a baby when her family undertook the perilous journey through Sudan toward Israel.
In the desert, the family ran out of water and came dangerously close to death.
During that ordeal, she suffered an injury near her eye. She arrived in Israel carrying a scar before she was old enough to understand what a scar meant. But the scar did not define the limits of her life.
Before entering Israel’s Foreign Service, Fentay accumulated roughly 15 years of professional and management experience in the private sector, including years at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
She later represented Israel diplomatically on several continents, including assignments in Chile, Ethiopia, and the Netherlands. Consider that transformation.
A one-year-old Jewish baby carried through the Sudanese desert grew up to represent the sovereign Jewish state internationally. That is not merely an Ethiopian story. That is a Zionist story.
Now Fentay is opening another chapter through literature and lectures. Her forthcoming novel, The Scarred Stone, received support from the Israeli center for Libraries even before publication.
The book turns the lens backward toward Beta Israel life in Ethiopia, particularly the lives, courage, and memories of its women.
Who were Ethiopian Jews before the world called us immigrants?
Before Sudan. Before rescue operations. Before absorption centers.
There were families, villages, traditions, religious scholars, mothers and fathers who dreamed of Jerusalem. We did not enter Jewish history when Ethiopian Jews landed at Ben-Gurion Airport. We were already living Jewish history.
Fentay’s forthcoming book therefore deserves an audience beyond the Ethiopian community. It offers readers an opportunity to encounter Ethiopian Jews not merely through rescue and suffering, but through family, faith, womanhood, memory, and belonging.
MY OWN path is different. I came through education, law enforcement, public service, journalism, and Jewish advocacy.
I studied educational leadership and conflict resolution, spent many years in American public service, and have written and spoken about Israel, Ethiopian Jewry, Jewish unity, moral diplomacy, equality, and world peace.
I mention this quietly because this article should not become my campaign biography. My point is, there are many of us.
Our community contains rabbis and diplomats, educators and officers, writers, entrepreneurs, academics, and public servants.
The tragedy is not that Ethiopian Israel has failed to produce leadership. It is that institutions and the stereotypical system too often fail to recognize it.
Political parties should recruit Ethiopian Israelis for meaningful parliamentary careers and prepare them for cabinet responsibility.
Religious institutions should cultivate Ethiopian Torah scholars for leadership of the entire Israeli public, not merely Ethiopian congregations.
The Foreign Ministry, universities, Jewish Federations, and international Zionist and antisemitism organizations should identify Ethiopian Israeli leaders and strategists capable of reaching their highest ranks.
International media must change as well.
We Ethiopian Israelis exist. Please call us to discuss Israel.
Can an Ethiopian Israeli become president of Israel? Why not?
Can an Ethiopian Israeli become chief rabbi? Why not?
Can an Ethiopian Israeli someday become prime minister of the Jewish state? Why not?
I’m not saying that Ethiopian Israeli leadership should replace anyone else, because leadership should be determined by knowledge, character, preparation, service, and vision.
Rabbi Reuven Wabashat represents one expression of that leadership. Fentay Maharat-Alamu represents another – from the dangers of Sudan to Israeli business, diplomacy, literature, and public service.
I humbly hope to contribute my own small part alongside them.
And we must start looking at those who are already contributing.
