An investigation was launched into Public Security Ministry director-general Moshe "Chico" Edri after the official was heard making a racist remark directed at Ethiopian Israelis during a ministry conference, N12 reported.
"Do you think Ethiopians would go play in a field with Jews?" Edri reportedly said, sparking outrage. According to N12, some 20 employees of the Public Security Ministry attended the meeting, most of whom were called to testify.
"Ever since losing the nomination for Israel Police commissioner, Chico became hostile and aggressive toward ministry employees," a bureaucrat told N12, with two other workers supporting the claims.
Another ministry employee told N12 that those who attended the meeting did not believe what they heard. "One of the participants, a member of the Ethiopian-Israeli community, stood up in shock, until [Edri's] aide asked her to sit down."
The Public Security Ministry responded to the controversy, saying Edri "has led dozens of projects in coordination with ministry bodies, including restructuring the Public Security Ministry, the establishment of advance technological concepts... and more."
The ministry added that "any attempt to cast doubt on the ministry's director-general while using information given during an ongoing preliminary investigation constitutes cheap gossip."Israel has seen several controversies relating to the Ethiopian-Israeli community in recent years. In late February, four officers from the Kiryat Malachi precinct were dismissed over a KAN report revealing local officers bragged about brutality and violent behavior against Ethiopians they had arrested. This followed two large waves of protests over the killing of Ethiopian-Israelis by police in 2019.In 2018, a controversy was sparked when Israel's Barkan winery asked employees of Ethiopian descent to transfer to jobs that did not require touching the wine.
According to KAN, the winery feared that by touching the wine, Ethiopians would make it non-kosher as they may not be considered Jewish under strict rabbinical standards. Jewish law forbids non-Jews from making kosher wine.
The controversy eventually led to a decline in the winery's sales as outraged Israelis began a campaign to boycott the company. At the time, a seller interviewed by The Jerusalem Post said Barkan's sales dropped by 60%. Others, however, claimed the sales were not affected.
A year prior, Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's main emergency medical service, first began using blood donated by Ethiopian Israelis after recommendations supporting the reform were published by the Health Ministry. Prior to the reform, blood donated by Ethiopian-Israelis was discarded as waste.
Yet another controversy concerning the community made headlines a decade ago, with a 2009 research published by Isha L'Isha-Haifa Feminist Center supporting claims of birth restriction among Ethiopian-Israeli women. According to the report, the women were injected with Depo Provera, a long-term contraceptive suppressing fertility for 12-14 weeks.
A 2013 report by the Knesset Research and Information Center said it did not intend on confirming or denying the issue nor did it have the tools to do so, while supporting claims of Ethiopian-Israeli birth rates declining. According to the center, the decline was mainly the result of encouragement.