Damas Pikada, an Ethiopian-born Israeli, and Freddie Gray, an African American, shared nothing but their skin color until the spring of 2015. The police beating of Damas Pikada, an Israeli soldier in uniform, caught on tape and aired on national television on June 2015, sparked the rage of young Israelis of Ethiopian descent. The young people who took to the streets and clashed with the police protested against what they described as police racism. A few weeks earlier, African Americans in Baltimore took to the streets after 25-year-old Freddie Gray died during police arrest. International media and the demonstrators themselves were quick to point to the similarities of young black people protesting against what they described as police racism and brutality. In Tel-Aviv and in Jerusalem young Ethiopian protestors carried signs in English that read “Black Lives Matter,” alluding to the events in the United States and the African American protest against ongoing police brutality.