“Earlier this year, I returned to Kiryat Malakhi , the southern city I immigrated to from Ethiopia as a child almost 40 years ago. Only this time, I arrived as a senior policeman – the Commander of the city’s Police Department.
I believe that my connection to the city and its people is the story of this department and of our role. At the Kiryat Malakhi Police Department, we’re building a community.
The station typically kicks every week off with a situation assessment – a standard routine during which we update each other and conduct short-term planning. At my first meeting on in charge, I took all the police officers to a new space. We didn’t hold our situation assessment between the four walls of the police station that day. Instead, we met in a space that we had to get to know better.
Less than six miles away from the police station (a drive of only a few minutes) lies the Kedma Youth Village for at-risk youth. I thought this was the perfect place for us to learn about the impact we have on the people we serve and reflect on the significance of our roles; this was the space where we could personally hone what our roles are to ourselves.
We met with Shahar Rubenstein, the CEO of the youth village and a fellow MAOZ Network member, and teens from the village, as well. We heard about their experiences and charged encounters with the police, and we brainstormed about collaborations. This time, we, the powerful police officers, sought their assistance. For example, the next time we arrest a young man for his involvement in a low-level crime, maybe we can refer him to the village instead of opening a criminal case against him.
During this conversation, I turned to Yehudah, one of the young Ethiopian-Israeli men, and asked him: ‘What’s your dream?’
‘To start a family,’ he replied quickly.
‘And what are your expectations of us?’ I asked.
‘Let me be an equal citizen,’ he said to me just as quickly. ‘Speak to me in a down to earth manner.’
I remember that moment because I saw the looks in the eyes of the other police officers. That sentence stuck with us. Suddenly, they saw Yehudah, a young man with dreams and aspirations sitting in from of them. He wasn’t just ‘Y.’, a kid who had gotten mixed up in criminal activities. They realized that Yehudah has expectations of us, and that it’s our responsibility to meet them.
I hope that the meeting affected the young men as much as it impacted us. I hope they didn’t see a police officer or the Commander of the Police Department sitting in front of them in uniform. Instead, I hope they saw Mevorach, who had immigrated from Ethiopia to Kiryat Malakhi and looked exactly like some of them. I hope they saw that I’m a police officer who listens and cares and wants to learn from them.
When we returned to the station, it was clear to everyone that what we had seen in the youth village needed to be incorporated into our work plan. We had to figure out how to become police officers who don’t simply exercise our authority by virtue of our positions, but through seeing residents, teens and kids as people.
The reality won’t change so quickly. We will still see tension and racism in the world and among police officers. I don’t expect one meeting to change everything. But I’m sure that this meeting has blazed a trail forward for us.
I think of Yehudah, the police officers and myself, and it’s precisely during these difficult days in the already incredibly complex Israeli reality when I allow myself to dream. To dream of a reality in which young people of all backgrounds can see a police officer and not be afraid or apprehensive, but instead know that he or she is here to help them and our society.
That’s what fills me with hope.