JERUSALEM
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said Sunday that his country did not do enough for Ethiopian Jews and failed to solve their problems.
He was quoted by Israel radio as saying that rectifying this mistake falls on the government, the judiciary, the law-enforcement agencies and the civil society.
Israel's Ethiopian Jewish community held a special ceremony on Sunday to honor those who had died while trying to reach Israel from their home country.
According to Channel 7, around 4,000 Jews died or were killed while trying to reach Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who attended the event, has vowed to uproot racism and discrimination against Ethiopian Jews.
On May 3, thousands of Ethiopian-Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv to protest against what they described as "discrimination" against them by police and government agencies.
The demonstrations, which continued for days, were triggered by an assault on an Ethiopian-Israeli soldier by two Israeli policemen.
Jews of Ethiopian descent accuse the Israeli authorities of discriminating against members of their community.
Three years ago, Ethiopian Jews staged demonstrations in central Israel to protest the refusal of a number of Israeli schools to allow the enrollment of children of Ethiopian descent.
Unofficial estimates put the number of Jews of Ethiopian origin in the self-proclaimed state at about 125,500, some 5,400 of whom serve in the Israeli army.
