The Black Panthers (, translit. HaPanterim HaShkhorim) were an Israeli protest movement of second-generation Jewish immigrants from North Africa and Middle Eastern countries. It was one of the first organizations in Israel with the mission of working for social justice for Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, drawing inspiration and borrowing the name from the African-American organization Black Panther Party. It is also sometimes referred to as the Israeli Black Panthers to distinguish them from the original American group. History The movement was founded early in 1971 by young people in the Musrara neighborhood of Jerusalem, in reaction to discrimination against Mizrahi Jews, which existed since the establishment of the state. The movement's founders protested "ignorance from the establishment for the hard social problems", and wanted to fight for a different future. All of the initial ten members were children of Moroccan immigrants, around ages 18–20, and most had dropped out of elementary school and spent some time in juvenile delinquent institutions. They were influenced by the Community Work Division of the Jerusalem municipality, who introduced them to the mass media as an outlet for expressing their demands for change. Other forces of influence were anti-Zionist high-school and university students. The Black Panthers felt that discrimination against Mizrahi Jews could be seen in the different attitude of the Ashkenazi establishment towards the immigrants from the Soviet Union. While most other Mizrahi organizations in Israel were religious, such as Shas, the Black Panthers were secular in orientation. After the 1947–1949 Palestine war, Musrara went from being a wealthy Arab neighborhood to a neglected area with a dangerous no-man's land full of mines, on the border of Israel and Jordan's West Bank. Jewish immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa were not given adequate housing by the Israeli government and many settled in Musrara. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Musrara went from being a dangerous neighborhood on the border, to being the center of a united Jerusalem. The government began planning to rebuild the neighborhood with high-rise apartment complexes for Soviet immigrants, meaning that the North African Jewish residents would be displaced. Charlie Bitton, Sa'adia Marziano, Roni Orovitz, Reuven Abergel, Meir Levi and Kochavi Shemesh were prominent members of the Party in its early days. They succeeded to make people believe that their movement would improve the lives of the disenfranchised and received media attention. Protest activities In the beginning of 1971, the