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Thousands of protesters demonstrate against racist incidents aimed at Jews of Ethiopian origin in a southern Israeli town. Ethiopian Jews have experienced discrimination in recent years.
Thousands of people took to the streets of Jerusalem on Wednesday to protest discrimination against the Ethiopian community.
[Ezra David, Protester]:
"I'm here (as) part of my community - the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel, to make the knowledge here to the government of Israel that we are very suffering from the racism."
The protest came after a recent report in the Israeli media that over 100 families in Kiryat Malachi had agreed not to rent or sell their real estate to Jews of Ethiopian origin.
Recently, graffiti was spray painted on walls and vehicles in the little town.
Demonstrators gathered near the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, to protest against the recent spate of racially motivated incidents.
[Tzipi Livni, Israeli Opposition Leader]:
"It's a legitimate protest, it's an outcry from the bottom of their hearts. And even if along the way someone gets hurt it's absolutely fine. It's their right. It's their right to shout."
Israel's 110 thousand-strong Ethiopian community has long complained of prejudice in Israel.
In recent years, Jewish religious schools have refused to admit Ethiopian Jewish students, which were slammed by Israel's government as "intolerable" bans.
Israel's chief rabbis determined formally in 1973 that Ethiopian Jews were descendants of the Jewish biblical tribe of Dan and were entitled to immigrate to Israel.
Tens of thousands arrived in airlifts in the 1980s and 1990s.
