speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

Taking Sides
Jew. Although the country celebrated the airlift of Ethiopian Jews, orthodox
rabbis required Ethiopian men to undergo a ritual circumcision
before marrying and refused to recognise the religious authority of the
kessim (62 traditional elders). A spokesman for the Chief Rabbinate said:
"It is the same as with physicians from Russia who headed hospital
departments there but have to take tests here." Israel is more uncomfortable
with the 50-100,000 Falash Mura, who converted to Christianity in
the nineteenth century; thus far it has admitted only a hundred, who have
a least one child in Israel. The 1300 members of the Black Hebrew
movement—African Americans claiming to_be one of the biblical tribes,
who settled in the Negev—were not admitted under the Law of the
Return, although they have just been given temporary resident status.
New York Times A4 (September 29, 1992).
56 Sarat(1977).
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