photographer / artist

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Avraham Bardugo, Born 1944, Haifa, Israel. (Klil 2011) 90/120 cm

The Black Panthers, 40 Years later

The Black Panthers were one of the earliest social protest movements in Israel, formed in 1971 by youths in the beleaguered and impoverished neighborhood of Musrara, on the border between East and West Jerusalem. The Panthers rose up to demand social justice for themselves, their families, friends and neighbors – Mizrahi Jews who immigrated to Israel from Middle Eastern and North African countries, who were met with discrimination by the Ashekanzi establishment and who struggled with harsh social and economic realities. The group staged multiple demonstrations – which often took place without police permits and at times ended in violence – to spotlight these ethnic tensions and social gaps, and the Black Panthers ultimately
won the attention of then Prime Minister Golda Meir, who famously described them as “not nice people” after meeting several of their leaders. Despite this, the Panthers succeeded in getting
the government to establish a committee to investigate social issues, which reported on the “severe economic distress among ‘immigrants from Asia and Africa’” and the lack of policy to confront it. Their social protest was sidelined, however, with the start of the Yom Kippur War in
1973, when government resources were diverted toward Israel’s security needs.