Jewish Jobs Discriminatory advertisements underscore the broader problem of discrimination against Israeli Arabs in the workplace http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=4674

IT BEGAN WITH THE CLOGGED kitchen sink in Ron Gerlitz’s home in Srigim, a moshav near Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem. His wife, then 39- weeks pregnant, pressed him to get it fixed pronto, so Gerlitz let his fingers do the walking in the Dapei Zahav (Golden Pages), the Israeli equivalent of the Yellow Pages.What he found threw a wrench in his equilibrium.“When I opened the section for plumbers I saw that some promote themselves with the slogan ‘avoda ivrit’ [Hebrew labor]. I was horrified. It was very clear what was meant – only Jews work here – no Arabs. I was very upset.”

Gerlitz, co-executive director of Sikkuy, an NGO that aims to advance equality between Arab and Jews, found five more such ads in as many minutes.A few weeks later Gerlitz presented his discovery in a bi-monthly meeting of a forum called Shutafut Sharakah, established in 2009 by 10 civil society organizations with a commitment to the advancement of democratic values and the promotion of an equal and shared society for all Israeli citizens.

Forum members agreed to publicize the issue in order to underscore the broader problem of discrimination against Israeli Arabs in the workplace.The fact that there are only a few dozen such ads among the more than 40,000 in the Golden Pages does not lessen the vitriol for Gerlitz and the others.“The bigger issue, of course, is that people discriminate against Arabs without advertising it,” he tells The Jerusalem Report. “If you want to change society, you first have to make racism illegitimate. If it’s legitimate to publish something like that in Dapei Zahav, then it makes it legitimate not to employ Arabs.”