Last Wednesday, 50 members of the African Hebrew community in Dimona received letters ordering their deportation within the next 60 days. This announcement came as a shock to them and the other approximately 85 members of the community whose lack of official status in the country has been under review by the Ministry of Interior over the past year. It came as a shock, not only because of their complete cooperation with the Ministry in an effort to normalize their status as contributing members of Israeli society, but also because after decades (for many after a lifetime) in Israel, they will lose the only home they have ever known. 

Unfortunately, this effort is only the most recent iteration of what appears to be an agenda of active discrimination against members of the African Hebrew community. An animus that has perennially threatened their continued existence in the State of Israel, and has extended its hostility to African- American and Caribbean American Jews attempting to visit or make Aliyah. 

Despite being initially welcomed with open arms and given citizenship in 1969 under the Law of Return, by 1970 the law was changed. The then 400 souls who were previously sent to settle the Negev alongside Moroccan and Indian Jewish new immigrants, were then stripped of their citizenship and exposed to multiple episodes of arrests and deportations in 1973, '85 and '86.