The immigrants claim that they have not received government benefits for the last few months and that they cannot find work or an additional income.
By RUTH EGLASHEthiopian protest PMO 224.88(photo credit: Avi Masfin/Israel Assocaition for Ethiopian Jews)
Despite reassurances that things at the Jewish Agency-run absorption center on Kibbutz Beit Alfa, near Beit She'an, would change starting as soon as next week, 33 Ethiopian immigrants spent the Yom Kippur fast outside the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem protesting what they see as unacceptable conditions at the center.
Just hours before the fast began, the agency, in coordination with the Immigrant Absorption Ministry and the National Insurance Institute, issued a statement pledging to provide the more than 500 Ethiopian immigrants with emergency aid starting Sunday.
Jewish Agency chairman Ze'ev Bielski called on the people, including more than 100 young children, who had already spent two cold nights sleeping in the capital's streets, to return to the absorption center in time for the holiday.
The agency provided several buses to take them home, as well as food packages to last them through next week.
The immigrants claim that they have not received government benefits for the last few months and that because the absorption center is fairly isolated, there is no chance for them to find work or an additional income.
Some of the people claim they have absolutely no resources with which to feed their children. Following the first year as new immigrants, funding from the Immigrant Absorption Ministry ends and benefits are supposed to come from the NII. Most of the Ethiopian immigrants have been in Israel for more than a year.
A spokesman for the Immigrant Absorption Ministry admitted there had been a delay in the NII payments but said that a small advance had already been handed out to the immigrants.
A spokesman for the Jewish Agency told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that some of the immigrants' claims were unfounded, but he added that the agency would do all it could to make their lives more comfortable and attempt to solve their problems.
Avi Masfin, spokesman of the Israel Association of Ethiopian Jews, a nonprofit organization that has been helping the immigrants since they arrived in Jerusalem on Monday, said that the 33 people who had remained in Jerusalem over Yom Kippur were dubious that the authorities would really follow through on their promises to change the situation at the absorption center.
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