In this episode, Richard Pater speaks with Roni Fantanesh Malkai about the story of Ethiopian Jews and their integration into Israeli society. Roni reflects on her family’s journey and the deep attachment to Jerusalem that sustained the community for generations.
Roni Fantanesh Malkai is an Ethiopian Israeli activist, commentator and author of ‘We Are Black Jews’. Born in Ethiopia, she came to Israel as a young child. Roni campaigns on issues affecting the Ethiopian Israeli community, with a particular focus on education and social mobility.
Transcript
(This transcript has been automatically generated by AI — please excuse any potential errors.)
00:00:10:21 – 00:00:37:17
Richard Pater
Hello and welcome to the BICOM’s Podcast. I’m Richard Pater, the director of BICOM, and today is the 11th of June. This week’s episode, we take a break from the focus of war and diplomacy and instead focus on issues within domestic Israeli society. Our guest today is the Ethiopian Israeli activist and commentator Roni Fantanesh Malkai. Roni, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
00:00:37:18 – 00:00:39:21
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Thank you so much for inviting me.
00:00:40:01 – 00:00:47:21
Richard Pater
So perhaps we could start and you can introduce yourself and tell us the story of how you and your family came to Israel.
00:00:47:22 – 00:01:16:00
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, like you said, my name is Roni and I. I have to say that I grew up in Israel. I grew up in Israel. I came to Israel when I was three years old to. We walked to the desert, to Sudan. I don’t know how many people in the UK familiar with the story of the Ethiopian Jews, but most of the Ethiopian Jews who came at the beginning of the 80 until 85, they walked to Sudan to come to Israel.
00:01:16:02 – 00:01:51:07
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
The big operations, Moses operation and brother operation. That was before Moses operation. So, like I said, it was at the end of the beginning of 80 until 85. So, my family decided that they want to fulfil the dream of coming back to the to the homeland, because Israel was our home. It was our temporary home. That’s what the Ethiopian Jews always thought for the for 2000, more than 2000 years when they left Jerusalem.
00:01:51:07 – 00:02:18:14
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, they always knew that they’re going to come go back to come back to Israel, go back to Israel. So, my parents started working for me from our village in Ethiopia to Sudan, because somebody told them that the Israeli government waiting for them in the refugee camps in Sudan and from the refugee camps in Sudan, they’re going to take them home to Jerusalem, to Israel.
00:02:18:14 – 00:02:45:22
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, they started walking. I was on a horse with my grandmother because I was a little kid. My brother, my mom carried my brother on her back the whole journey. And we’re talking about like hundreds of miles things about people who walk in hundreds of miles to fulfil the dream of more than 2000 years. So then when we arrived at the refugee camps, we, my father met one of the Mossad guys.
00:02:45:22 – 00:03:10:05
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
His name is Danny Limor. My father met him in in the refugee camp. He started working with him. My father is a Zionist prisoner because of his activism in the refugee camps, helping the Mossad agent to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel. The Sudanese put him in jail. It was half a year in jail. And later he came to Israel.
00:03:10:07 – 00:03:34:04
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
A year after us, he came to Israel and he became a prisoner of Zion. The Israeli government recognized him as his activity, what he did. So, when he came to Israel, we came to bear Shiva in the south of Israel. So, I grew up like in Ashkelon. That’s the places I grew up. It’s in the south of Israel.
00:03:34:06 – 00:04:02:07
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, and that’s my story. That’s the way I came to Israel. Like I said, it was it was like, it’s like an amazing story. Think about people who decided to walk to Sudan. And it was a dangerous place for them because they were Jews. And Sudan is a Muslim country. And you suppose you’re not supposed to tell anybody that you are Jews, but how are you keeping your traditions in the refugee camps around the Muslims?
00:04:02:07 – 00:04:23:23
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Because they can see that you don’t eat, you don’t eat their food. You need to keep kosher. So how are you explaining them that you don’t eat? You cannot eat their food? How you explain that you’re not lighting a fire in Shabbos because you keep in Shabbos. So, it was a lot of things that they needed to think in the refugee camps besides the danger.
00:04:24:00 – 00:04:50:20
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Besides, they didn’t have like proper, proper, proper like, you know, medicine. So, it was really, really difficult for them at the end. Like, as you can see, I’m talking to you from Israel and I’m in Israel. Like I said, I grew up in Israel. So, they made it, they made it, but they lost the token. Jews lost five, 4000 people on the way and in the refugee camp.
00:04:50:20 – 00:05:15:05
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, this this really journey was very, very difficult journey for the Jews. But like I said before, they did everything to make sure that they are going back to their homeland, to Israel. So that’s my story. Like really in a short version of the story of how I, how I came to Israel, how I made Aliyah.
00:05:15:07 – 00:05:36:03
Richard Pater
So just for those unfamiliar, maybe we could just take a step back. And you can describe kind of within your own family legacy. What were the conditions like in Ethiopia, the kind of that led to you wanting to lead to the family to leave? And although you were too young to remember kind of what else kind of is in the family legacy of that of that journey.
00:05:36:05 – 00:06:05:06
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, it’s important to emphasize, because a lot of people think that the Jews left Ethiopia because of the condition that were in Ethiopia because a war or something like this. But that’s not the reason. The reason because they didn’t leave before and they didn’t leave like they left in specific time. It was the end of 79, 1979. That’s the term that’s the year that they took and just started walking to Sudan.
00:06:05:08 – 00:06:49:10
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Why they started walking in 1979. In 1919 76 or 70 8 or 77? Because in 1979 I have a chapter. I wrote a book called We Are Black Jews and I’m talking about I interviewed my family and my mother and my father, and I asked them why you left in this moment. And they explained and like I said, I, I wrote it in the book and I have a chapter called I called the chapter The Rumour That Changed history, because in this specific moment, specific year, specific month, somebody came to their village and told them that Israel is waiting for them in the refugee camps.
00:06:49:10 – 00:07:14:05
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So that’s the that’s the reason they left Ethiopia. That’s the reason people started walking to the desert, to Sudan. So that was and they left everything they had, they had, you know, they had everything in the village. They had they had farms, they had their own houses, and they had a very they didn’t have like a bad life in the, in the, in those villages.
00:07:14:05 – 00:07:39:15
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
But they decided to live in this specific time, in this specific moment, because somebody came and told them. That’s why I’m calling it the ruler who changed history. And think about it, that people, because of a rumour, decided to leave everything they knew because they didn’t know Israel. They didn’t. They never came to Israel. They didn’t come to visit in Israel and then went back to Ethiopia and decided to start working.
00:07:39:16 – 00:08:06:04
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
No, they didn’t know Israel. So to do something like this, you need to be like, I think, very special community to understand that you started and you live in everything that you know, and not only that, you’re jeopardizing your own life and your family life, your kids, because like I said, they walked. They didn’t walk to Switzerland. They didn’t walk to America.
00:08:06:08 – 00:08:29:11
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
They walked to Sudan, to a very dangerous place for them. And even though they knew the danger that is waiting for them in Sudan, in the refugee camps and also on the way to Sudan, they decided to do that because for the Ethiopian Jews, the thing that was always in their mind for more than 2000 years was Jerusalem.
00:08:29:11 – 00:08:57:16
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
We called it yourself. Salaam was the place. They thought about it and they talked about it all the time. Every newborn knew from the from the time he knew how to talk and how to understand language that he knew about Jerusalem. They always talked about Jerusalem. That was the main city, the main place. They always knew that one day they will go back.
00:08:57:16 – 00:09:22:00
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Maybe it won’t happen in their generation, but it will happen in the kid’s generation or the grandkids. So, they always talked about Jerusalem, and they made sure that the kids will know what Jerusalem for them is, and the grandkids will know what the Jerusalem for them. And they continue. Every generation talked about Jerusalem, and we are celebrating a holiday that called segued.
00:09:22:06 – 00:09:51:01
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
And the only Jewish diaspora that celebrating the Ethiopian Jews. And it’s from the Bible from as the and the and they kept it, they kept it. This tradition and what this tradition says, we are once a year, 50 days after Kippur, after we were after the first in the most important day of the fasting of the of the Jewish diaspora, the Jewish tradition.
00:09:51:03 – 00:10:25:06
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
50 days after that, they were the casing, the rabbinical of the of the Ethiopian Jews called Kasim. They took in every village they were walking to the highest mountain in the village, to the Hell’s Mountain in the village. And why they did that? There was standing in the highest mountain in the village and saying, next year in Jerusalem, they were praying for the day that God will bring them back to Jerusalem.
00:10:25:06 – 00:10:55:15
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So that’s the reason that European Jews started walking to Sudan. Not any other reason, because they understood that this is the opportunity God sent them. A message says to the Israeli government, send them a message and said, we are waiting for you in the refugee camps, so you need to come. And that’s why they started walking and at the end they were right to walk, but they didn’t know that that really happened.
00:10:55:15 – 00:11:29:04
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
But at the end, they were right to make this decision because of this walk into Sudan, they made Aliyah. There was the big operation, like I talked about this operation at the beginning, and I talked about the brother’s operation and then later Moses operation. That operation happens because the Ethiopian Jews were smart enough to understand that this is the time to walk to Sudan, because the Israeli government didn’t bring us from Ethiopia, they brought us from Sudan.
00:11:29:04 – 00:11:50:20
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
And for them to be able to bring us from the Sudan, we needed to walk to Sudan. So, we did what the Israeli government told us without really understanding what we are really doing. But at the end it happens that we were smart, like I said to do that, smart to walk to Sudan.
00:11:50:22 – 00:12:03:07
Richard Pater
Absolutely. And what can you tell us about growing up in Beersheba, kind of the integration into Israeli society. And then you can tell us also about the work you do today.
00:12:03:09 – 00:12:32:11
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, I grew up in in the South, like you said, it’s like from Beersheba to Ashkelon. So, I think if when I grew up, people always ask me the question, did you, did you did you felt racism, did like you somebody like, was racist against you or something like this. And, and it’s important for me to say that I grew up back in the 80s and the 90.
00:12:32:12 – 00:12:57:03
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, in those years we were like, when we came to Israel, we were the first Ethiopian Jews to come to Israel. So, think about an amazing story about the black Jews coming back home. So, we were very special. So, everybody treats us like very like we were like, you know, it’s a romantic story. You can make a Hollywood story about this, this really amazing story.
00:12:57:03 – 00:13:26:23
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
But what the Israeli government did together with the Ethiopian Jews, so I, the I didn’t feel like some challenges at the beginning. But later when I grew up, when I grew up, when I went to the army and later to the university, then I understood there is something there is a topic that I need like to start, start maybe working on that, start maybe like to pay attention to it so that there are a lot of challenges to the Ethiopian Jews.
00:13:26:24 – 00:14:03:11
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Then you start noticing about your skin colour that the skin colour saying something, prejudice and other things. But it’s important for me to answer that. I’m an activist, like you said in your intro, and I am, and that’s something that I’m doing. My activism came from this place from partially. It happens at the university, the university. I started to understand that for me to be able to change things in Israel, I need to change them by myself.
00:14:03:12 – 00:14:30:01
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
I need to be the one that make the change that I want to. I want that something to change in Israel. So, I need to be one of the people who change it, not to wait for somebody else to do that. So that’s why I started to be an activist, because I wanted to change. I wanted my kids to grow up in maybe a different place, like better place, not maybe different place, but a better place for them.
00:14:30:04 – 00:14:48:06
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So that’s why I started to be an activist. But like I said, when I grew up, I didn’t felt racism. Maybe I didn’t want to see the racism. And, you know, and when you were a kid, when your teenager, you have other problems to deal with. You want to be part of the group. You want to be part of the society.
00:14:48:07 – 00:15:22:17
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
You want to be part of the other kid. It doesn’t matter what which skin colour they have; you want to be part of it. But I think and there is a difference between the generation. So when I go up and I went to the university and I started studying the academia, so I understood there is a difference between the way I see Israel and the way my parents, Israel, because they, they their experience with Israel was different in mind because like I said, I came to Israel when I was two years old, so I became Israeli super-fast.
00:15:22:17 – 00:15:59:16
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
I learned the language that my main language is, is Hebrew, and I grew up with the Israelis. I was part of the of the society. Most of the people I grew up with them weren’t. It’s Europeans because I said we were the first Ethiopian Jews to come, and we weren’t like a small group. And but my parents needed to study Hebrew, and they came relatively old, you know, and so they needed to have they had they have a different experience than me and they needed to bring food to the table.
00:15:59:16 – 00:16:08:02
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, they needed also to learn Hebrew and to work. So, it wasn’t very easy for them.
00:16:08:04 – 00:16:17:14
Richard Pater
How would you set the integration of your generation of Ethiopians in Israel today?
00:16:17:16 – 00:16:46:03
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
I think if you look back, we came from, from a, from a village. So, I think like what we achieved in Israel, it’s really a big it’s an amazing story because everybody looking at the challenges and what is the prejudice sometimes racism, discrimination and everything. But I think that we need to look at it in a different way.
00:16:46:05 – 00:17:13:18
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
What we achieved is an amazing achievement. We did like really, we did. We are people who we did history with our boat trip, we came, we walked to Sudan to come to Israel. So, this is our story, starting with an amazing story. Like I said, it’s a Hollywood story and what we achieved in Israel. I think it’s we achieved a lot of things.
00:17:13:18 – 00:17:41:04
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
We minimize the gap that we came with, so we minimize the gap and we achieved a lot. We have a lot of people, a lot of students in the academia. We have a lot of Ethiopians in the in the ministries. We have MKs in case the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, we have a lot, a lot of success stories in the army, very high rank in the army.
00:17:41:04 – 00:18:02:05
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, we are there. We are in the academia. We have professor, we have lecturer. So, I think we need to focus on the success story and to take those success story and to duplicate them, to see how we take in those success story and make them duplicate in them, making sure that we’ll have more success story. We’ll have more.
00:18:02:06 – 00:18:29:18
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Because my generation, it’s not the same as the young generation. They are different than me and my generation. It’s not liked my parents’ generation. We are becoming better and better and better and more successful. And what we had 20 years ago, it’s not the same what we have now. The Ethiopian community always spreading the success stories. I think that’s the way I see my community.
00:18:29:20 – 00:18:51:06
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Of course, we have struggled. Of course, we have challenges that I’m not closing my eyes and saying, okay, I don’t see the struggle. I wrote a book about the struggle and how we need to change this, how we need to deal with, with the struggles and with the difficulties we have in Israel. But we don’t need to forget the success, what we achieved.
00:18:51:06 – 00:19:15:00
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
And we only 40 years in Israel. It’s nothing. 40. It’s the people who came super early to Israel, like the first, first people who made Aliyah. But if you think about it, we are 30 years in Israel, 30 or 40 years in Israel. It’s not much to do what we did, and we have a lot of success stories, and we need to work that.
00:19:15:00 – 00:19:42:24
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
We make sure that to make sure that we’ll have more success story. That’s why we have an activism. We’re doing an active. That’s why we that’s why I came in activist. I want to make sure that my that the next generation, the next generation will have better Israel than my generation. And I’m always saying people asking me, okay, but there are racism and discrimination.
00:19:43:03 – 00:20:13:14
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
I say, yeah, but that’s not I don’t want to focus on that. I want that to be the fuel, to be the thing that pushing me to make change, because I don’t have time to sit and mope, to sit and cry. I don’t have time for that because and I’m optimistic in my character and I’m always saying to people, I cannot not be optimistic because I’m coming from a, from parents and community that did what they did.
00:20:13:15 – 00:20:41:16
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
They made history with their own both feet. So how I cannot be optimistic at the end. There were more than 2000 years in Ethiopia, and they made history and they came to fill their dreams, and they did something that it’s unbelievable. So how I cannot be optimistic, how I cannot say, look what my parents did. So, it’s nothing for me to do to work with, with the challenges that we have in Israel.
00:20:41:17 – 00:20:54:00
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
They made they were fighting against like really crazy challenges. So, it’s nothing for us to do, to do, too, to fight for those challenges in Israel.
00:20:54:02 – 00:21:12:09
Richard Pater
Being you make a very important point kind of go to emphasize the, the success stories. But nevertheless, can you give us a, the, the issues that you’ve put in your book for those that haven’t read it and to describe the activism and the campaigns that you focus on in Israel today?
00:21:12:11 – 00:21:40:04
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
One of the most important things for my point of view, maybe other people will disagree with me because one Jew, we have two Jews, we have like four, four opinions or 5 or 6 opinions. So maybe other people disagree with me. But I think one of the most important things, important topics that we need to focus on Israel is it European Jews is education, education and again education and again education and again education.
00:21:40:04 – 00:22:21:12
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Because through education at schools and the academia, we can change our life. We can we can jump from one point to another point. We can make a big difference to our life. I can see that about myself and about other people because we studied, we have Ma, WNBA’s and PhDs so we can make sure that our life will be different and we can make sure that if we can work this job, we can work in other job, that will be better job, and we can give other different life to our kids and to show them how life can be different.
00:22:21:12 – 00:22:49:23
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
I think academia education is freedom from my point of view. Education may can give you tools and can give you opportunities that maybe other things cannot give you. So that’s why I think the main thing that we need to focus in, how we open in the academia for the Ethiopian Jews more than we are now, we need to make sure that every, almost every academia is not for everyone.
00:22:49:24 – 00:23:14:06
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Okay, there are other people who can build startup and do other things and be amazing. But mainly the main, you know, the majority of the people need to study in academia, new to study the university and ecologies to be able to change their life. So, we need to make sure how we open the gates of the academia to more groups in Israel in general.
00:23:14:07 – 00:23:38:19
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Not only do you talk in Jews, other groups that doesn’t go to academia, but if we focus in on the Ethiopian Jews, I think we need to find ways to open the gates for the Ethiopian Jews because, like I said, academia is freedom to change your life. It’s freedom to make sure that you can, you can, you can simply change your life and do other and do great things.
00:23:38:21 – 00:23:49:14
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So that’s the main thing. I will focus on the topic. One of the main topics that we need, I think, to focus on the Israeli society now.
00:23:49:16 – 00:24:01:16
Richard Pater
And is your campaigning focused kind of towards parents within the community, or is it more of an effort to the government? What are your what are your kind of your campaigning issues towards the government?
00:24:01:21 – 00:24:24:00
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
I think both I think both I think we are working both. It doesn’t contradict. We need to convince those young generation and, you know, the young generation now, they’re different than me and you because they all think that they can make money fast. They can be successful. You know, they have the social media, Tik Tok, Instagram, everything is so easy and so fast.
00:24:24:00 – 00:24:43:04
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, you need to convince them, yeah, this is okay, but it’s not the only thing you need to study at the end. You need to stable. You need to have a stable job. You need to have a job that you can you can give you know you can. You need to build your life. So, we need to go to those to the young generation too.
00:24:43:04 – 00:25:03:01
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
And we are focusing on them, how to bring them to academia. And so, and also with the government, because the government needs to understand they need to open the gate because there is a lot of some obstacles for the Ethiopian Jews, for example, to go to the academia. It’s called it’s like an exam in Israel that you need to do.
00:25:03:01 – 00:25:32:05
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
And not everybody able to have those scores in the exams. So, we need to find ways to open the exams to make them different, to make different programs for the topic or to other all the other groups in the Israeli society that cannot achieve high scores in those in those exams. So, we are working parallel, like I said, with the young generation, to make sure they understand the academia and education.
00:25:32:05 – 00:25:50:24
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Higher education is very, very important is also with the with the government and also with the with the universities itself and with the colleges itself. How to open the gates to other groups and make sure they will be part of the academia.
00:25:51:01 – 00:26:02:02
Richard Pater
Thank you. And is there just a final question? Are there any other issues in which you’re campaigning on which kind of is important for you to highlight for a, for an international audience as well?
00:26:02:04 – 00:26:24:19
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, there is I think there’s another topic that people always talking about it in Israel is the Jewish. There is a Jewish community that’s that now still in in Ethiopia they cannot there is like a government decision to bring them to Israel, but they don’t really bring them to Israel because there is a lot of complication and topics and everything.
00:26:24:19 – 00:26:48:06
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, I think this is one of the main topics that we need to make sure that we need to solve this issue. We need to solve this issue because they’re talking about it all the time, but they are not the government, not really, doesn’t really make indecision. They are saying they will make the decision, but they don’t really operate in to make sure that those Jewish people, that it’s staying there for years.
00:26:48:07 – 00:27:17:20
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
United Ababa in Gondar, there’s two cities in Ethiopia. They stay in there; they study the Torah. They’re doing conversion and everything. They stay in there for years and they have families in Israel. So, this is one of the main topics that people always talking about it in Israel. And we need to see how we solve in this big issue that is always there and always influenced in the also the Jewish community, Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel and also the Israeli society in general.
00:27:17:22 – 00:27:25:08
Richard Pater
Well, just can you give a flavour of the complexity of that issue and the scale? How many, how many of the open Jews remain there? And what’s the what?
00:27:25:09 – 00:27:25:17
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
I think.
00:27:25:17 – 00:27:26:00
Richard Pater
There are.
00:27:26:01 – 00:27:50:15
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
2000. There are few thousand into your Jews that they are now in Ethiopia. Now in Israel, we have 170,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel, and we have several. We have some thousand, I think. I’m not sure that the number correct, but I think like a few thousand that they’re there in Ethiopia and they’re waiting to make a to make a Leah to Israel.
00:27:50:17 – 00:28:11:14
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
It’s complicated topic because the government saying, okay, we need to check to make sure that the Jews, because they are converted, they are converted Jews that left Judaism. They called for. It’s very complicated topic to explain that in in in few sentences in a podcast. But the government saying, okay, we need to make sure that they are Jews.
00:28:11:14 – 00:28:34:19
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So, we need to they need to have a procedure in Ethiopia conversion. And to, like I said to learn halacha in the Torah and everything and, but they have families here in Israel. They have families that you can see a son that he’s here in Israel, in the army and his mother, she’s in Ethiopia. So, people say, okay, so why is separated between son and his mother?
00:28:34:19 – 00:28:50:23
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
So that’s why the that’s why it’s very complex. I said it’s a complicated topic, but they’re trying to solve this topic. So, I hope they will solve it because people cannot continue staying in those in some camps in Ethiopia for years and years and years.
00:28:51:00 – 00:29:02:17
Richard Pater
Sure. Roni, thank you so much for sharing your, your, your family story and your lived experience. It’s an incredibly insightful and a fascinating story. So, thank you very much.
00:29:02:22 – 00:29:14:02
Roni Fantanesh Malkai
Thank you very much for inviting me. And thank you, Richard, for this, for your organization. It’s an amazing organization for the great job you’re doing in Biak home. So, thank you so much also for that.
00:29:14:02 – 00:29:16:04
Richard Pater
Very kind. Thank you very much indeed.
00:29:16:05 – 00:29:17:01
Richard Pater
Thank you.