Behind the Headlines the Other Face of Israel

Israelis, like Goethe’s Faust, have two hearts beating within their breasts in their attitude towards the Ethiopian Jewish immigrants. Most Israelis are enamored of the newcomers, almost to a point of treating them as an exotic specie from a distant planet. But others, especially the ultra-Orthodox, view them with disdain and with suspicion regarding their authentic Jewishness.

The Ethiopian Jews — or Beta Yisrael (the House of Israel), as they call themselves — are a remarkable people. They are eager to adjust to their new lives in Israel and show an amazing capacity to learn Hebrew and to acquire new skills in a short period of time. They also have an unquenchable thirst for anything Jewish and for studying the Torah.

On Purim eve, for example, a group of Ethiopian Jews who had recently arrived at the Kfar Saba absorption center near Tel Aviv watched intently as a group of Israeli primary school pupils performed a Purim play in Hebrew and explained the meaning of the holiday. The Ethiopians, who had not yet learned Hebrew, were given a running translation in Amharic, their native language, by an Ethiopian who had made aliya earlier.

CELEBRATE PURIM FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2,500 YEARS

This was the first time in 2,500 years that thousands of recent Ethiopian immigrants celebrated Purim. Premier Shimon Peres, addressing a meeting of the United Jewish Appeal Ambassadors’ Mission, pointed out that Purim “is not on the agenda of the Ethiopian Jews. They are committed to the Torah, to the books of Moses, but whatever happened in Jewish life since then was unknown to them because they were isolated, cut off from the life of the Jewish people in the diaspora. They know about Pesach because they participated in the exodus from Egypt. But they weren’t present at the wedding of Esther and Ahasuarus.”

In the spirit of the first Purim, the Ethiopian youngsters at Kfar Saba busied themselves making Purim masks, painting each other’s faces in bright colors, making costumes, and passing out Hamantashen to the guests comprising the Ambassadors’ Mission.

There was no understandable verbal communications between the two groups, but the Ethiopian youngsters, with ever-present smiles, extended their hands in friendship and tacit understanding. Their warmth and their ebullience permeated the air.

Time and again, Israeli officials involved in the absorption of the Beta Yisrael pointed out that despite their isolation and living under conditions of the most cruel experiences of religious oppression, assassination and discrimination in Ethiopia, they had retained their Jewishness and are passionately committed to it. “They are Jewish and remain Jewish,” Peres asserted.

ABSORPTION IS INTRICATE AND COMPLEX

The absorption process is intricate and complex. The Ethiopian Jews have come to a country that is entering the 21st century from a country that is, at best, still in the 19th century. They have to, as it were, break out of a two-century time warp and leap across both time and space.

To ease the transition and to avoid frustration, disappointments and social asphyxiation, the newcomers have been encouraged to retain their tradition and culture. “Retaining their tradition and culture makes it easier and less tension-provoking for them to settle into their new society,” said Chaim Arnon, head of the Jewish Agency’s aliya and absorption department.

It is also necessary, said Arnon and Harry Rosen, secretary general of the Jewish Agency and secretary general of the UJA in Israel, that they be given opportunities and encouraged to express their social and cultural, as well as their familial patterns, their pride and their independence, as well as their feeling of self-sufficiency. This is part of the dialectical process of their absorption and integration.

CHALLENGES AND DIFFICULTIES

But there are challenges — and difficulties — to the absorption and integration of the Beta Yisrael. Unlike immigrants from the West who do not know Hebrew but at least have marketable job skills and knowledge of the practical every-day world, the Ethiopians have neither.

In addition, the language barrier is at times insurmountable. There are very few people in Israel who can speak Amharic and ulpans in Hebrew are fraught with difficulties. Volunteer translators have to be found among either the few Israelis who can speak both languages or among Ethiopian Jews who made aliya some time ago.

The process is nerve-wracking and time consuming. But the dividend comes when a new Ethiopian immigrant begins to speak Hebrew for the first time. The joy is immeasurable on the parts of both the Ethiopian and the Israeli teacher. Whatever shyness and inhibitations the Ethiopians had, suddenly evaporates. They have become Israelis and they are really at home.

SOME UNIQUE PROBLEMS

The absorption of Ethiopian Jews also poses other rather unique problems. “We have to integrate them without creating ghettos, “said Boston-born Rosen who spent most of his adult life working in areas of social planning and community organization before coming to Israel in 1967 and since then.

During the early years of the State, new immigrants were sent to transit camps consisting of tents and, later, of huts and shacks. These became instant slums and ghettos. “We are determined to avoid the mistakes of the past,” both Arnon and Rosen said. Now, the absorption centers provide housing facilities and residential, social and cultural facilities.

After their period of absorption, the Ethiopian Jews are sent to towns where they can be “mutually self-supportive, but not so much that the areas to which they are assigned become ghettos,” Rosen said. This requires advance planning with local authorities so that there is some parity between the Ethiopian Jews and the local inhabitants.

But this itself is a problem because Israel suffers from a housing shortage, making it difficult at times to find the proper mix and often requiring holding back housing units from other immigrants. “Saying yes to one group means saying no to another, a classic cause of social tensions, “Rosen observed. “We have to find ways of equalizing integration of all olim and Israelis without saying no to anyone. And this stretches not only budgets but also imagination and social and community planning.”

Settling Ethiopian Jewish families is another problem, he pointed out. It’s hard to find their relatives in Israel who made aliya ahead of newcomers or those who follow them. The Ethiopians have six to 10 common surnames, the equivalent of Jones or Smith.

“There are no records to check by, like those who came here from the Holocaust, ” Rosen said. “Family relations are very important to them. Their concept of family is extended kinship family and putting these families together is vital but very difficult.”

JUGGLING BUDGETS AND OTHER HUMAN NEEDS

Budgetary constraints, especially at this time under difficult economic conditions, also pose challenges in the absorption and integration of the Beta Yisrael. Rosen estimated that it costs between $6,000 and $9,000 to absorb and integrate each Ethiopian. It takes from one to one-and-a-half years for them to develop a marketable skill so that they can start earning an income. But absorption must go on.

To accomplish this, Rosen noted, other human needs have been cut back. “We’ve had to stop building settlements on the new borders with Egypt and stopped building new settlements in the Galilee, “he said. “Again, saying yes to one need means saying no to another.”

ISSUE OF ACCEPTANCE

Absorption, he observed, is only one side of the process. The other side is acceptance. But the latter is not always forthcoming and tensions between the Ethiopian Jews and others have flared up frequently.

For example, in Beersheba, the Habad Hasidic movement’s Uziel School refuses to register Ethiopian Jewish children for the coming school year. A third of the pupils are presently Ethiopian immigrants and the Habad movement has announced that it will check their Jewish status before deciding if they will be able to continue their studies next year.

Ethiopian immigrants have also been rebuffed in other ways by the ultra-Orthodox. Two weeks ago, some of the Ethiopians were chased away from the Western Wall where they had come to pray and told that they were not Jewish. They have complained about the demand by the Chief Rabbinate Council that they undergo symbolic “conversion” rites, intimating that their authenticity as Jews is the question.

In some towns, they have been told that they are not welcome because the locals fear they will compete for jobs or because there is large-scale unemployment. Peres, in affirming the Jewishness of the Ethiopian immigrants, pointed out that the challenge to their Jewishness is part of the controversial Who is a Jew issue.

WELCOME MATS ARE THE NORM

But there are welcome mats out for the Beta Yisrael, and this is the norm rather than the exception. One prominent example is in Jerusalem where arrangements are being made to recognize the traditional elders of the Ethiopian community, called Kessim in Amharic, as rabbis.

Machon Meir is the institution that is providing religious instructions to a number of Kessim. The institute, described by its director, Rabbi Dov Begun, as Zionist-oriented, has been offering courses in Hebrew to three of the Kessim for the past three months. Plans are under way for another 10 to begin a one-year program, which would also include Jewish history, religious thought and the Bible. The Kessim were respected leaders in Ethiopia but now find themselves without a legal position and penniless.

The institute also hopes to begin a program for 30 to 50 younger members of the Ethiopian community, who will, Begun hopes, form the core of the future spiritual leadership of the Ethiopian Jews. Begun said at the same time, the institute would respect the tradition of the Ethiopians. In spite of some transitory difficulties, Rosen is certain that the Ethiopian Jews will make it here. “Their commitment to Judaism is unbelievable,” he said. “They have been persecuted for hundreds of years for being Jews but they have stuck it out. Ethiopian Jews rejoice when they come here. They just cry. They are an amazing group of people. They have the patience of Job.”

(Next: The West Bank)