(re)producing the Israeli (European) body: Zionism, Anti-Black Racism and the Depo-Provera Affair

This article examines the Depo-Provera Affair—where Israeli doctors administered the contraceptive Depo-Provera to newly immigrated Ethiopian Jewish women—to argue that the Israeli settler colonial project depends on these forms of gendered anti-Black violence, through the management of Black African bodies. In 2013, then Israeli Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman admitted that they had administered Depo-Provera to Ethiopian immigrant women without their consent, after reproductive and civil rights activists in Israel called for an investigation after a drop in the birthrate among Ethiopian women: close to 50 per cent within the previous decade. The demarcation of Blackness as a political tool necessary to advance Israeli modernity and the situating of Black bodies as antithetical to the state of Israel are not contradictory but rather illuminate Israel’s deployment of anti-Blackness through the racial and reproductive violence necessary to become part of the superior, European West.

Providing Stroke and Hypertension Education in Amharic for Ethiopian Persons Living in Dallas, Texas, United States

BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to compare knowledge of a stroke education module provided to bilingual members of the Ethiopian immigrant population in Dallas, Texas, presented in the Amharic language as compared to in English.MethodsA convenience sample of 84 participants were recruited using a snowball technique and randomly assigned to receive education in English or Amharic. The participants completed a pre- and posttest of their knowledge about strokes, a demographic survey, and a satisfaction survey. Data was analyzed using a general linear model and chi-square analysis.ResultsThere were no statistically significant differences between satisfaction scores comparing those educated in Amharic versus English (χ2 = 6.5108, p = .0107). Although mean pretest (10.8) and posttest (16.4) stroke knowledge scores were higher across all groups (p < .001), the mean posttest scores were lower for subjects who watched the Amharic versus the English video (14.9 vs. 18.1, p = .003).ConclusionThis study did not show a statistically significant increase in knowledge about stroke when presented learning materials in subjects' native language compared to in English. The use of video to present stroke and stroke-risk educational content can be used in future research and global health initiatives to increase stroke knowledge in the Amharic-speaking community.

Using reflexivity journaling to lessen the emic–etic divide in a qualitative study of Ethiopian immigrant women

This article explores the use of journaling about reflexivity as a method of lessening the etic–emic divide in a cross-cultural qualitative study. The journaling process discussed demonstrates reflexivity as personal introspection, social critique, and biography in a study of 14 women who immigrated from Ethiopia to the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The author conducted face-to-face interviews and intentionally journaled about her reflections as she recruited participants and conducted interviews over a one-year period of time. The reflexivity journal process highlighted both similarities and differences between the researcher and participants.

Between a Western Career and Traditional Community

The study’s objective was to examine the relations between successful Ethiopian immigrant women in Israel and their traditional community, as well as the strategies they adopt to contend with its expectations. Based on a qualitative life and work history methodology, the data were collected from 34 successful women who emigrated from Ethiopia to Israel. Results show three dialectical axes scrutinizing the interrelations of the participants with their community (found both between different participants and within the same woman): (a) trenchant criticism of the community coupled with praise and pride, (b) community as a support base or as hindering personal development, and (c) a desire for separation/detachment from community coupled with a desire to support the community. The findings demonstrate how the Ethiopian women contend with the normative demands of two different, clashing systems: the Ethiopian community-family system and Israel’s neoliberal labor market.

Acculturation of immigrant diet, basic taste responses and sodium appetite

In young new Ethiopian immigrants (EI, about 0·5 years since immigration; n 20), veteran Ethiopian immigrant students (ES, about 13 years since immigration; n 30) and native Israeli students (NS; n 82), dietary macronutrients and electrolytes, and responses to basic tastes were compared in a cross-sectional design. From EI, to ES, to NS, dietary energy, protein, fat, and Na+ increase, whereas carbohydrates, K+ and Ca2+ do not differ. Corrected for energy intake, only Na+ increases. EI consume less dietary Na+, like foods with less Na+ content, salt their food less, yet show a greater hedonic response to salt taste. In contrast, preference for sweet does not differ. Taste psychophysics, 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) responses and lingual fungiform papillae density differ by group (and sex), but do not relate to dietary intake. Together, these changes could reflect dietary acculturation, increasing overall intake, Na+ in particular, accompanied by decreasing taste sensitivity, and changes in sensory perception and preference in these Ethiopian immigrants. The fact that immigrants find salt more hedonic, yet eat less of it, could suggest increased sensitivity to its taste, and might suggest restoring sensitivity to reduce Na+ intake for all. Similar alterations in taste sensory responses might be obtained in other forms of dietary flux. Understanding dietary acculturation can focus efforts (e.g. on Na+), to anticipate the disease burden of diets of affluence among immigrants. Yet, these immigrants’ nutrition is healthier in its low fat and Na+, suggesting that nutritional advice should focus on preservation, as well as prevention. Our study adds Ethiopian nutritional acculturation to that of the varied immigrant groups around the world.

Voices of Ethiopian immigrant women

This qualitative research article explored the lived experience of Ethiopian immigrant women in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. Data were collected through face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with 14 participants. The themes that emerged included the important role family members who already lived in the United States played in connecting participants with housing, jobs, and educational opportunities.

Intimate Partner Jealousy and Femicide Among Former Ethiopians in Israel

Ethiopian immigrant women in Israel are overrepresented as victims of femicide; they are killed at more than 16 times the rate of the general population. This article suggests integrating current theoretical and empirical models to explain Ethiopian femicide, and stresses that considering psychological or sociocultural explanations as risk factors alone is not enough to understand this phenomenon. We distinguish between risk factors and triggers for femicide against Ethiopian women. While sociocultural and even psychological changes are risk factors for femicide, one, two, or three main triggers may activate such potential risk factors, such as the woman’s willingness (WW) to leave the intimate relationship, sexual jealousy (SJ), and formal complaints against the abusive partner. The first two triggers are jealousy oriented. To analyze this phenomenon in Israel, we examined all court decisions on intimate partner homicide (IPH) from 1990 to 2010. After reading former studies on IPH and identifying important variables that could explain the phenomenon, we first catalogued the data in every decision and verdict according to main independent variables mentioned in the literature. The study population consists of first-generation immigrants, N = 194: native Israelis (47%), new immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU; 31%), and Ethiopians (16%). Our analysis of court decisions reveals that triggers containing jealousy components are responsible for 83% of femicide cases committed by Ethiopian men, in comparison with native Israelis (77%) and immigrant Russian men (66%) who murdered their intimate partners. In addition, there is a significant correlation among motive (jealousy), method of killing (stabbing), and “overkilling” (excessive force).