A Full Palette
Rishon LeZion
Yohanes Azanaw, on Israeli society.
Yohanes Azanaw immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia in 1990 with his mother and seven siblings. His father stayed behind, refusing to leave until his brother, imprisoned for helping smuggle Ethiopian Jews through Sudan, was released.
Yohanes first faced discrimination as an Ethiopian Israeli in preschool in Beer Sheva, when he learned that white children were being sent to one classroom and Ethiopian children to another. He has spent the rest of his life responding to moments like that one. He started a modeling agency for dark-skinned models in 2009 to call attention to racism through beauty. He worked in the industry for eleven years. When a major Israeli TV channel told him the quota for people of his color was filled, he said he understood: this is the way the system works, and it's up to me to find ways to change it. Today he produces music with Ethiopian musicians and hosts a radio show in Amharic that aired live on Facebook and YouTube throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. He's been working on an album about friendship, memory of homeland, love, and the violence his community continues to face.
A few years ago, at a bus stop while he was a student at Sapir College, a small boy pointed at him and called him chorne, Russian for black. His mother didn't respond. Yohanes turned to her and said: if you don't have markers at home, I can buy you a pack so you can teach the boy colors.
