Israel says no to taking blood from Ethiopian Jew
14 Dec 2013 5:11 AM IST
The refusal of Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross to accept blood from an Ethiopian Jewish lawmaker sparked demands for a review of guidelines seen as deeply discriminatory.
The rejection of the blood from Pnina Tamano-Shata by an official of Magen David Adom came at a donor drive outside parliament and was caught on video footage which was widely aired by Israeli television channels.
‘Under health ministry directives, we are unable to accept blood from donors of Ethiopian Jewish origin,’ the health official is heard to say as he spurns the donation.
Ministry guidelines do not in fact bar donations from all of Israel’s more than 120,000 Ethiopian Jews, only to those 80,000 among them who were born in Africa and migrated to Israel, most of them in two massive airlifts in 1984 and 1991.
The pretext long given is that it is a measure to prevent the AIDS virus getting into the blood bank and being spread through transfusions.
But critics say the blanket ban has no medical basis and masks persistent racism among other Israeli Jews towards the black Ethiopian minority.
Tamano-Shata is a member of parliament for the centrist Yesh Atid party, part of Israel’s governing coalition.
The rejection of the blood from Pnina Tamano-Shata by an official of Magen David Adom came at a donor drive outside parliament and was caught on video footage which was widely aired by Israeli television channels.
‘Under health ministry directives, we are unable to accept blood from donors of Ethiopian Jewish origin,’ the health official is heard to say as he spurns the donation.
Ministry guidelines do not in fact bar donations from all of Israel’s more than 120,000 Ethiopian Jews, only to those 80,000 among them who were born in Africa and migrated to Israel, most of them in two massive airlifts in 1984 and 1991.
The pretext long given is that it is a measure to prevent the AIDS virus getting into the blood bank and being spread through transfusions.
But critics say the blanket ban has no medical basis and masks persistent racism among other Israeli Jews towards the black Ethiopian minority.
Tamano-Shata is a member of parliament for the centrist Yesh Atid party, part of Israel’s governing coalition.
Next Story
