Enough is enough: Israel must let minority Jews lead - opinion

Israel keeps saying it wants unity. Enough.

Unity cannot be a slogan printed on campaign posters. Unity cannot be a speech delivered after tragedy and forgotten when power is divided.

After October 7, Israel cannot afford this hypocrisy anymore. We have buried too many sons. We have watched too many families get destroyed. We have seen too much blood, too much grief, and too much political arrogance.

Israel’s enemies are not only watching our borders. They are watching our divisions. They are watching whether the Jewish people still know how to live together as one people.

And inside that question is another one Israel has avoided for too long: Who is allowed to represent Israel?

Honest question: When was the last time you saw an Ethiopian Israeli representing Israel on CNN, Fox News, or even in our own national English-language media? Maybe almost never. And if the answer is “almost never,” then we have failed. We have failed to represent the true Israel. We have failed to represent the true Jewish people to the world.

Because Ethiopian Jews are not a footnote in Israel’s story. We are part of the evidence that Israel’s story is real, ancient, diverse, and global. For decades, the face of Israeli authority has too often been narrow: Ashkenazi, European, elite, familiar to Western audiences, comfortable to American donors, and acceptable to international television studios.

That old image of authority is broken. It does not represent the full truth of Israel.

The Jewish people are not only European. The Jewish people are brown. The Jewish people are Black. The Jewish people are African, Middle Eastern, North African, Persian, Indian, Russian, American, Israeli, religious, secular, traditional, and everything in between.

That is not a weakness. That is our true miracle.

We are not decorations in someone else’s Zionist or Jewish story. We are not symbols to be used in speeches about diversity while real decisions are made without us.

We are the Jewish people. This is why the rise of Gadi Eisenkot and the Yashar! Party matters. Yashar! appears to offer an important ideology: responsibility, unity, national service, accountability, security, serious government, and healing after the disaster of Oct. 7. These are not small ideas. Israel desperately needs them.

But Eisenkot himself also represents something powerful. He is the son of Moroccan Jewish immigrants. He comes from a North African Jewish story that helped build Israel, served Israel, and suffered discrimination inside Israel. His leadership should be accepted and welcomed by the people of Israel and by the international community.

A Moroccan Jewish leader does not need permission from old elites to be legitimate. He does not need to apologize for not fitting the old European picture of Israeli authority. He has served. He has sacrificed. His family has paid the price of war. He deserves to be judged as a serious national leader.

And if Israel can accept that, then Israel must go further. It must also make room for Ethiopian Jewish leadership at the highest levels of government, diplomacy, media, and national strategy.

We came home to build. We came home to lead.

American Jewish institutions speak beautifully about inclusion, racism, and democracy. But when Israel is discussed in serious rooms, who is invited? When Zionism is defended, whose face is shown to the world? Too often, Black Ethiopian Jewish voices are invited only when the subject is inclusion.

Israel is a gathering of exiles. If Israel’s friends cannot see that, they cannot fully defend Israel. And if Israel itself cannot see that, it cannot fully become what it was meant to be.

Our enemies call Zionism a racist European colonial project. That is a lie. But Israel weakens its own argument when it fails to elevate the Jews whose lives destroy that lie. Ethiopian Jews are living proof that Zionism is ancient, global, and deeper than race. Moroccan Jews are living proof that Jewish civilization is rooted not only in Europe but across Africa and the Middle East.

So why are minority Jews good enough for the army but not visible enough in the cabinet? Enough is enough. Israeli political parties must place minority Jewish leaders in real positions of power, not symbolic spots. Jewish organizations must put Ethiopian, Moroccan, Mizrahi, and other underrepresented voices at the center of global advocacy.

Israeli media must stop recycling the same commentators and start showing the world the real face of the Jewish people.

Because the next Israel cannot be built by the old arrogance; the next Israel must be brave enough to say that Jewish leadership is not owned by one tribe, one class, one skin color, or one history.

We can serve and sacrifice for our country. And yes, we can lead.