Municipal rabbi publicly apologizes for questioning Jewishness of Ethiopian mikveh attendant
When Tehila Ishta, an Ethiopian Jewish mikveh (ritual bath) attendant, said she received a phone call in 2016 from the municipal rabbi where she lived in Kiryat Motzkin, Rabbi David Druckman, asking when she had converted to Judaism, she did not know then that she would have to spend the foreseeable future fighting to save her reputation and good name.
The phone call took place a short while after Ishta began working as a mikveh attendant. She was technically free to return to her work a few weeks after the phone call, but by then, word had spread - via phone calls and WhatsApp messages - and she had lost the trust of many of the women who wanted to undergo the process with her. This, according to ITIM, an advocacy organization and legal aid center that works at the cross-section between religion and state, and had taken on Ishta's case in 2019.
Two weeks ago, and about eight years after the incident first occurred, the religious municipality of Kiryat Motzkin, along with Druckman, issued a public personal apology to Ishta, clarifying that her identity and status as a Jew were never in doubt.
Ishta made aliyah to Israel in the 1990s from Ethiopia, along with her brothers, after spending a few months in a refugee camp in Sudan. One of the oldest and most unique Jewish communities, Beta Israel (the title of the Ethiopian Jewish community) maintained their oral traditions in survival for thousands of years, until the aliyah operations of the late 20th century brought them to Israel.
In 1991, the family reunification immigration military plan Operation Solomon airlifted about 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in the span of two days. This operation was preceded by and followed several other aliyah operations of the Ethiopian Jewish community, which continued to trickle over. By the end of 2023, the Central Bureau of Statistics calculated around 171,000 Ethiopian-Israelis.
According to the Association of Ethiopian Jews, basing his halachic decision on the legal precedent set by Rabbi David Ben Solomon Ibn Zimra in the sixteenth century, then-Sephardic chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said in 1973, 'Beta Israel are Jews that must be saved from assimilation [from where they are]. We must advance their immigration process…'
Two years later, then-Ashkenazi chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren told the community: 'You are our brothers,' establishing the collective, widely agreed-upon precedent of the validity of the Jewishness of the Beta Israel community, and certainly of any conversions made within.
These two statements, issued by two figures who served as umbrella halachic authorities for nearly the entire Jewish community, made it so that the validity of Beta Israel's Jewish identity is, broadly, not questioned.
After three years of litigation, which began in 2020, Druckman had to issue a public apology, per a Haifa Regional Labor Court ruling. A February settlement between the two parties held that both Ashkenazi and Sephardic chief rabbis would publicly acknowledge Ishta's credentials, so as to restore public faith in her.
Ishta, like thousands of other Ethiopian olim, was born Jewish and was recognized as such by the chief rabbinate. Which is why the phone call on a random night in 2016 from Druckman was surprising.
Ishta herself lives an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle, which she said is part of what motivated her to take a job as a mikveh attendant, to 'help others observe the laws of family purity,' per ITIM. The job requires trust and a consistent good word of mouth, for assistance to women in an act that is both personal and private - in the context of religious family purity laws.
The mikvaot - and their attendants - are run by the religious councils, which are mostly funded by the Religious Services Ministry, but also by local municipalities.
Ishta, through ITIM, claimed before the court that Druckman called and asked her if she underwent a more stringent type of conversion, usually done when there arises a doubt as to the person's Jewishness. She said she replied that she is Jewish, so there is no need. She added then that after that conversation is when the messages began to circulate.
In court, Druckman denied all the claims against him, the conversation itself, and any connection to the messages. He said he operated only out of his halachic responsibility.
Ishta said she only ever wanted to clear her name so as to be able to return to her professional services. ITIM founder Rabbi Seth Farber said, 'This isn't a victory only for Tehila; it is a victory for immigrants to Israel and for the voices of reason over the voices of racism.'
Shortly after the phone call, messages began to circulate in the community warning against acquiring Ishta's services. She reached out to whoever she could, including haredi rabbis she knew, but none of her efforts bore fruit. Eventually, her children directed her to ITIM.
Sephardic Chief Rabbi David Yosef confirmed her qualifications in a meeting that ITIM set. She is now able to apply to be a permanent mikveh attendant.
Attorney Ela Skat, who heads ITIM's legal department and represented Ishta, said, 'This case serves as a warning sign to anyone who takes the law into their own hands and acts unlawfully and harmfully toward any population.'
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