AMIT Student Addresses the President to Fight Against Racism
By Heidi Mae Bratt
What does it take for a 15-year-old girl to address the president of her country and exhort the leaders of her beloved nation to fight against discrimination and racism? Courage.
That and intelligence, confidence, poise, and a heart that wants to do right.
Liel B., a 9th grader at AMIT Yud Ashdod and a first-generation Israeli whose parents were born in Ethiopia, gave a stirring speech recently at President Reuven Rivlin’s residence before a 200-person packed room, which included high-profile dignitaries from across political, business, and professional worlds who gathered there for the signing of a treaty against racism.
“My dream is to become a doctor, a surgeon in either cardiology or neurology and I am ready to do whatever it takes to make this dream a reality,” Liel told the rapt crowd as she introduced herself as the middle daughter of parents, Daniel and Miriam, who made Aliyah from Ethiopia during the 1980s so their families could live in Israel as proud Jews.
Liel maintains superior grades as an honors student at her AMIT school, is enrolled in a pre-university program taking college courses at Tel Aviv University, volunteers with Magen David Adom, and is an alumna of the highly selective Center for the Gifted, a municipal program for advanced studies.
She also had been part of another academic afterschool program when she was in 4th grade, ALBERTO, the city’s math and science excellence program. In 4th grade, Liel was learning chemistry.
But her experience there was marred.
“I was forced to quit the ALBERTO program after a year due to a personal encounter with racism,” she said in her speech. “A boy chose to call me black, to make me feel like I did not belong, told me to return to ‘my country.’ Israel is my country. This is where I was born, I will get married, and raise a family.”
ALBERTO wasn’t the only place she encountered terribly hurtful remarks. Another boy at the Center for the Gifted teased her because of the color of her skin, called her “Sudanese,” and told her that she didn’t belong in Israel.
Liel said she began to feel unsafe and her trust in people was affected. She kept those feelings and thoughts bottled up, until she couldn’t take it anymore.
She quit the ALBERTO center, but encouraged by her mother, decided to continue at the Center for the Gifted, a decision she is happy she made.
But when the violent protests and demonstrations erupted in Israel the summer of 2019 following the shooting death of Solomon Teka, an Ethiopian-Israeli, by an off-duty police officer, Liel’s memories of her own experience of discrimination and racism came flooding back.
“My previous episodes and feelings from encounters of discrimination were resurfacing. The pain and confusion was stronger than ever. I felt lost, insecure in my identity.
“I was unsure of how I felt. On the one hand, I felt pain and hopelessness and the desire for change. I knew this would only happen if we become doers and actively build a new future devoid of violence, a better future for us and for all generations.”
At the peak of the riots in Israel, Liel was approached to be part of a news segment on Channel 13. Liel’s father is a well-known author of Ethiopian Jewish heritage books and gives lectures about Ethiopian Jewry. A follow-up story and a posting Liel made on Facebook captured the attention of a high-profile lawyer of Ethiopian descent, Shlomit Brahano. Brahano has spoken out on discrimination and what it is like to be a woman of Ethiopian descent in a white world. Brahano invited her to speak at the conference on racism, which took place on February 2, 2020.
Liel remembers how nervous she was to speak before the esteemed crowd. As she spoke, Liel scanned the room to find her parents to focus on them and quell her nerves. While looking around, she noticed that the audience was captivated and that during her speech, President Rivlin was nodding his head in approval.
Liel comes from a family of staunch Zionists in Ethiopia. For many generations, Liel’s family had a strong connection to Judaism in Ethiopia. Her parents had only Hebrew names and not secular Amharit names. And her maternal grandfather was a Kes, an Ethiopian rabbi, who was jailed in Ethiopia because he was openly and proudly Jewish.
This 15-year-old who is becoming a voice against racism counts among her role models some extraordinary activists.
Among them, Martin Luther King, Jr., the slain American civil rights leader. She also admires Malala Yousafzai, known as Malala, the young girl who stood up to the Taliban in her country of Pakistan, and was shot in retaliation.
While she is the only Ethiopian student in the gifted 9th grade class at AMIT Yud Ashdod High School, Liel was able to make an impact and help educate her fellow students about her proud heritage. Last year during the holiday of Sigd when she realized that no one really understood the Ethiopian Jewish holiday, which is a national holiday in Israel, Liel took the initiative to explain its significance and shared an Amharit quote, making an impact on her school.
Liel knows that creating a better tomorrow, starts with action.
In her closing remarks during the speech, Liel made a powerful plea to Israel’s leaders.
“I am asking you to invest in educating the next generation,” she said. “Today’s children are the prime ministers and presidents of tomorrow. Together, let’s end this pain. We are the generation that needs to achieve a better reality. Please give us this chance.”
Danelle Rubin, PR & Development Project Manager in Israel, contributed to this story.
