I write as an Ethiopian Jewish Israeli American a member of an ancient Black Jewish community whose bond to the Jewish people predates modern Christianity, modern Islam, and certainly modern American politics. I have lived in Africa, Israel, and the United States. As a Black ancient Ethiopian Jew, both Israeli and American, I have served Israel and the United States with loyalty and commitment. Over the years, I have spoken with, worked with American Christians, engaging in thoughtful dialogue as well as honest theological and historical debate. These encounters were neither abstract nor distant; they were grounded in shared values, mutual respect, and a common concern for faith, morality, and the future of our societies.\n<\/p>\n
I know the Christians communities personally. I respect them deeply. And from lived experience, I can say they are fundamentally good people who seek truth, justice, and peace. Yet I have watched with growing alarm as Israel is increasingly turned into a weapon in America\u2019s internal religious and political wars. What troubles me most is not criticism of Israel. Criticism is legitimate. What troubles me is criticism detached from facts, history, and lived reality. Data released by Israel Central Bureau of Statistics ahead of Christmas 2025 show an increase in the number of Christian citizens in Israel. Today, approximately 184,000 Christians live in Israel, representing nearly 2 percent of the population, with steady growth recorded over the past year. Many reside in Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Haifa.\n<\/p>\n
In today\u2019s America, two Christian worldviews increasingly collide. One, represented largely by evangelical conservatives, holds that the Jewish people remain bound to their covenant, that Israel\u2019s existence matters, and that moral responsibility includes standing with Jews. The other, often associated with liberal Calvinist traditions, claims that Christianity has replaced the Jewish people entirely that Israel\u2019s mission is finished and that Jews are, at best, irrelevant to sacred history. This is known as replacement theology. It is not new. What is new is how aggressively it is being laundered into populist politics and media. No figure illustrates this more clearly than Tucker Carlson.\n<\/p>\n
Carlson insists he is merely asking questions. But when he depicts Israel as uniquely sinister, exaggerates routine security procedures into persecution narratives, or suggests that Christians fare worse in Israel than anywhere else in the Middle East, he is not informing Americans. He is discipling them into resentment. I know this because I was there.\n<\/p>\n
When Carlson arrived in Israel, I waited to meet him not to protest, not to shout, but to welcome. I hoped to show him something few Americans see: Black Jewish Israel. I wanted to invite him to Beit Gudjo, the Ethiopian Israeli community center in Jerusalem\u2019s Neve Yaakov neighborhood, where youth programs, family support, and cultural preservation are led by a new generation of Israeli leadership. I wanted him to see African Zionism not as theory, but as lived reality.\n<\/p>\n
I was taught by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks that disagreement without dignity is a moral failure. He warned that power divorced from responsibility corrupts both the powerful and the critic. Truth, he taught, must be spoken with courage and with love. Carlson did not stay. He did not ask. He did not listen. He left and then spoke about us, without us. That choice matters.\n<\/p>\n
Anyone who has entered Israel especially on El Al knows that security screening is not ideology. It is survival. Israel did not invent terrorism; it adapted to it. The same methods Israel uses to protect its citizens help protect Americans every day from groups that chant \u201cDeath to America\u201d alongside \u201cDeath to Israel.\u201d This is the part rarely spoken aloud in American debates: the United States supports Israel not out of sentimentality or theology, but because Israel is the only stable democracy in a region where terrorists target Western values as much as Jewish lives. That is not conspiracy. It is strategic reality.\n<\/p>\n
To accuse Israel of apartheid while ignoring the flourishing of Ethiopian Jews, Arab Christians, Druze, Muslims, and others within Israel is not moral clarity. It is selective blindness. Christians are safer in Israel than anywhere else in the Middle East a fact confirmed by every serious demographic study. Replacement theology may feel abstract in seminaries. In politics, it becomes something else entirely: a permission structure to discard Jews when they are inconvenient.\n<\/p>\n
As a Black Jew, I recognize this pattern. I have seen how quickly moral language turns into moral exclusion. Today it is Israel. Tomorrow it will be someone else. If Tucker Carlson has a message for Israel, he should bring it openly with facts, humility, and dialogue. Hatred wrapped in theology is still hatred. Suspicion dressed up as journalism is still manipulation.\n<\/p>\n
I remain willing to meet him. I know this because I was there. As an Ethiopian Black Israeli who knows American society, Israeli society, and Christian communities in both the United States and Israel, I respectfully offer Mr. Carlson an opportunity for educational dialogue either virtually or in person. My goal is honest discussion, mutual understanding, and peace.\n<\/p>\n
I hope and trust that you are not racist and will not refuse a sincere invitation to peaceful dialogue.I would still invite him to my Shabbat table not because I agree with him, but because Judaism teaches that truth emerges through encounter, not caricature. But one thing must be said plainly: if you refuse to listen, refuse to meet, and refuse to see, you forfeit the moral authority to speak for us. Israel is not a symbol in America\u2019s religious war. It is a living nation Black, white, Jewish, Christian, Muslim defending itself in a world that too often prefers narratives to reality. And those of us who live at the crossroads of these worlds will not be erased quietly.\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tI am a Black Ethiopian Israeli Jew, a scholar, diplomat, and upcoming author of Moral Diplomacy for a Broken World. I am calling on CNN, BBC, Sky News, Fox News, SBN, and Piers Morgan to host a public debate that includes the voices they have consistently ignored: Black\/African\/Ethiopian Jews\/Israelis. The world hears endless commentary about Israel but almost never from those of us who represent Israel\u2019s true diversity. It is time for an honest, global, moral debate about Israel\u2019s identity, the nature of Zionism, the plight of Jewish communities worldwide, and the truth about who the Jewish people really are.
\nFor too long, media panels have portrayed Israel through a narrow racial and political lens. I challenge the international networks to include me in a live debate not as a token voice, but as a representative of millions of Jews of color whose story refutes the false accusations of colonialism and exposes the real moral complexity of this conflict. This is not a political manifesto but a moral movement: a call for peaceful, educational debate grounded in respect, evidence, and human dignity. Please contact me for peaceful, educational debate: educatordrshmuel@gmail.com With wisdom inspired by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Dr. Legesse reminds readers that Judaism is not a religion of division, but of unity; not of power, but of purpose.
\nDr. Shmuel Legesse is an international educator, community activist, and diplomacy expert. He has served in the Israeli police force and worked as a detective for the Supreme Court of New York. He represented Israel’s Knesset in international public affairs and holds a master’s in community leadership and philanthropy from Hebrew University and a doctorate in international Educational Leadership and Administration from Yeshiva University, NY. educatordrshmuel@gmail.com\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I write as an Ethiopian Jewish Israeli American a member of an ancient Black Jewish community whose bond…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-306451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}