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For centuries, scholars and rabbis have tried to unravel the puzzle of the Jews of
Ethiopia, fmding nothing terribly conclusive about their origins. No matter.
The Jews of that African nation have long been considered to be a part of the
Jewish Diaspora, which includes all Jews dispersed around the world.
Because of the ancient connections between Ethiopian Jews and other Jews inspite of the fact that the Ethiopian Jews are black-Israelis say the recent airlift of Ethiopian Jews from war torn Ethiopia, marks an effort to bring all Jews back together in a country, that, had it existed during the 1930's and 1940's, could have been a haven from the Holocaust. The airlift occurred over a 24-hour period beginning May 25. 14,000 Ethiopian Jews got out with the help of the Israeli government.
For the better part of a morning earlier this summer, a group of American writers and photographers spent time at one of Israeli's 46 absorption centers, talking, playing, singing and questioning some of the hundreds of Ethiopian Jews who were living there. As a journalist who is black, it was an especially important part of the trip, knowing so well some of the tensions and frustrations that blacks and Jews share with one another.
The principal absorption center for the Ethiopians in the city of Jerusalem is the Diplomat Hotel, which was formerly one of the city's poshest hotels. In recent years the hotel had fallen on hard times. Development moved towards the center of the city and the hotel was eclipsed by newer ones. But the building still stands as an example of the glamour of the city in the 50's and 60's.
The hotel is located at the bottom of a hill lined with palm trees and bougainvillea. Israeli security had set up a rope at the top of the driveway and questions anyone trying to get inside. Once inside the gate, the world seemed to change, with dozens of Ethiopians, with their distinctive physical features, roaming around the area, leaning against walls and cooling themselves under the shade trees.
One of the things I expected to see was fear in the eyes of many of the people who were almost miraculously spirited away from a country that had for years turned on its citizens. Many of the immigrants didn't speak English, so talking in great detail about the airlift was not always possible. But several of the teenagers in the group we saw, mainly boys, recounted some of their memories of their recent exodus. Eighteen year-old Wdadu shared the following memories: It was a silver bird, they were all lined up and we got on. Some of our people were crying. Mostly, we did no say anything. It was so fast, but we knew we were leaving to go to Israel."
One wall of the huge hotel ballroom was full of pictures the children had drawn. There were pictures of animals, airplanes and the Israeli flag. There were no sad faces among the many stick figures cut from cardboard.
Zimne Berhane, an Ethiopian born Jewish agency official who coordinated the Ethiopian Jew situation at the Israeli Embassy in Addis Ababa, told the Jerusalem Post that during the day of the airlift, "All of Addis was there," and that the scene was reminiscent of Saigon in the days before its fall to the Communists.
The thinking among Israeli leaders that it was time for another airlift of Ethiopian Jews came about almost a year ago, when the Israeli Embassy compound in Addis Ababa became swamped with Ethiopian Jews from the North, where most of the fighting began in the recent rebellion that brought down dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.
One of the most special things about the airlift of Ethiopian Jews is that of the 14,000 people who immigrated to Israel, more than 8,000 were children and teenagers. "To me, that means they have a future as integrated Israeli citizens," said a Jerusalem resident, Yael Rosenberg. "And the fact that they are also black will make Israeli society as rich and diversified as it should be."
Many black Americans questioned the intentions of the airlift. Was it excellent public relations, an effort to reach out to the American black community or what? "It was all of these things, unavoidably," said an official from the Israeli Tourism Ministry, which hosted the trip. "But the simple fact of that matter is that these are Jews, whether they are black or white or blue is of less concern. This is their home, too, and we want them here. Nobody was forced to come, let me assure you.
How the Ethiopian Jews evolved in that country over the centuries has become one of the hot intellectual topics in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv these days. But the most celebrated links between Jews and Ethiopians occurred when the Queen of Sheba met king Solomon. It's part of the Old Testament. The queen ruled over what is now Ethiopia and Yemen and was impressed with Solomon. So much so that she brought four tons of gold for his temple. The Bible says that in return, Solomon gave the Queen of Sheba "all her desire." The Ethiopian Jews claim this as their birth. The Queen of Sheba discovered she was pregnant upon her return.
Josesphus, the first century Jewish scholar, has written that Moses once reigned as the king of Ethiopia after he fled Egypt and married the daughter of the king. Other theories suggest that the Ethiopian Jews were a part of the Exodus, but failed to make it across the Red Sea when it parted down the coast to what is now Ethopia.
But, as an Ethiopian Jew who was a part of the airlift said in Jerusalem: Those kinds of questions are really secondary to me," said the school teacher from Gonder, a war torn city in the north. "The real question is how did Judaism survive there for so long? We must explore that."
And as the Israelis and Jews around the Jewish Diaspora explore those issues, the 30,000 or so Ethiopian Jews who have immigrated to the country over the last decade will be integrating themselves into Israeli society and culture. But there remains some doubt about the country's ability to truly absorb the new immigrants. Many of the immigrants have only been able to find menial jobs, and with high unemployment rates, as well as, the highest percentage of unemployed physicians in the world, it's going to be tough to get many of the Ethiopians into meaningful jobs, even the intellectuals.
The same problem may exist for those Ethiopian Jews who were a part of the educated elite of their former homeland. But one Ethiopian Jew who was a part of the 1987 airlift, Eleni said she sawopportunities for her people in Israel.
Eleni is working as a flight attendant for El AI, the Israeli national airline in a program created to add diversity to the airlines staff. She joined a Russian immigrant as well as a Korean native who was adopted during childhood by an Israeli couple. "I knew I would be comfortable here," the 23 year-old woman said in soft tones and perfect English. "After all, Israel is a country of immigrants. "
Did she feel any trepidations about being black in her new homeland? "No, I never worried about that because we are all Jews," she said.
She did finally express a bit of apprehension. "For some reason I thought only Jews lived in Israel and that it would be strange. But the adjustment was so quick. "
For Eleni, immigrating to Israeli had been a dream of her family's for a long time. "My father had wanted to go to Israel before he died. So when I had the chance to come here, my mother encouraged me to leave Ethiopia."
Eleni got a bit of a surprise after the airlift this past May. Her 18 year-old brother, Samuel, was one of the people who had been taken out. They were reunited on national television. To her surprise. "I did not know what was going on and I really didn't recognize him at first. I hadn't seen him for four years. Now we are waiting for our mother to get out and we will all be happy, " she said. Her mother had notified her earlier that her brother would be coming. But they were not certain until she met him there.
Eleni's family was part of the comfortable middle class in Ethiopia. Her father worked for the Health Ministry and her mother was a nurse. Eleni was in training to be a nurse at the time of the airlift.
The government, apparently sensitive to charges that there will be no jobs for the new immigrants, have alloted waivers for the immigrants that will permit them to pay cheaper prices for rent. But the special allotments have depressed rental prices, say some in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israeli's biggest cities. Nonetheless, the government has continued the practice.
All immigrants take classes in Hebrew to speed up their learning of the language. The classes are taught by volunteers. A week after the arrival of the recent Ethiopian immigrants, they all started classes. Eleni is just about through with her Hebrew lessons and said learning the language was not as difficult as she had expected. "These are all Semitic languages so there are connections that make them all accessible once you know how to speak one of them," she said.
Some of the Ethiopian Jews arrived in Israel suffering from depression. Israeli medical officials said it was understandable that some of them would be upset over the deaths of their friends and relatives. But fortunately, few of them were suffering from any grave illnesses at the time of their arrival.
The measure of goodwill is apparent in a few small but noticeable areas. During the 1987 airlift of Ethiopian Jews, the black Jews were referred to as "Falashas," which is the Hebrew term for strangers or others. Many blacks saw that as a perjorative term that other Jews were using to maintain the distance between themselves and the new immigrants. It was also seen as an indicator that the Jews still hadn't fully accepted the Ethiopian Jews. Some of the animosity stems from the rabbinical community, some of whom still say there are no real links between the groups.
However, some softening has been indicated as of late. Tea leaf readers in Jerusalem point to the fact that the rabbinical authorities sanctioned the airlift on the Sabbath in the name of ' 'pijuah nefesh, " the religious imperative that allows for violations of the Sabbath to save Jewish lives.
There are still pockets of resistance in Ethiopia and there is still famine and starving. Observers in Israel as well as in the United States wondered about the extent to which the Mengistu government used the Jews as political pawns during the rebel uprising. "That's quite possible, but with the help of President Bush we were able to get a break in the fighting so that the Jews could leave. Now, Mengistu knew enough about public relations and world opinion to do the right thing," said Uzi Michaeli, a senior government official.
Israelis know about good public relations and world opinion as well. Radio stations and television station commentators urged citizens to have an open mind about the Ethiopian Jews. Calls went out for people to donate clothes to the absorption centers. The absorption center in Jerusalem was virtually inundated with plastic bags and cardboard boxes filled with clothes. Ethiopian women, dressed in the traditional shamu (the white robes), stood in line to collect clothing for their family members. Also, one nearby hotel, the posh Laromme, stripped all the beds in the hotel of their sheets and donated them to the recent immigrants.
In spite of all the goodwill the Israelis have shown toward the black people they are referring to as brothers and sisters, the true test will come when it is time to include the experiences of the Ethiopian Jews into the country's overall history, which now showed not one example of the history of Ethiopian Jewry. It will only be then, when Jewish scholars and intellectuals have re-written their history, that the black Jews will be fully integrated into life in Israel. - Oct. 1991