The Jewish Ethiopian community in Israel has been struggling with different forms of discrimination in the years since they arrived in the country. They are fighting for their spiritual and religious leaders (the kessim) to be recognized by the Israeli religious establishment to formalize their status as part of the system of religious services in Israel.

The kessim achieved another victory last week, when a government subcommittee recommended that the kessim be permitted to perform holiday ceremonies and burial and purity rites and administer synagogues. Nevertheless, they still have a long way to go for full religious authority, such as the right to conduct weddings.

The Ethiopian Jewish clergy served as the religious and spiritual leaders of the Ethiopian Jewish community for centuries. They were responsible for the unique ways in which the community observed Jewish religious law as it appears in the Torah. When the Ethiopian Jewish community immigrated to Israel (mainly in the 1980s and 1990s), they discovered that the country’s rabbinic establishment would not recognize the religious authority of the kessim.

After years of struggle and angry demonstrations by Ethiopian immigrants in 2015, a ministerial committee headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was established to advance the community’s integration into Israeli society. This February, the committee decided to formalize the status of the kessim. Netanyahu said, “This community has a special status precisely because it kept this heritage even in complete isolation. I find this moving and close to my heart. Therefore, this is a historic undertaking."