Home, at Last: from Repression to Freedom

“Is this really Jerusalem, really Zion?” This question is asked over and over again by Jews from Ethiopia as they alight from the planes which have brought them here to freedom. When the new comers are told that they are indeed in the Promised Land and in the Jewish State, most kneel down and kiss the soil.

They arrive in Israel without any luggage and are dressed more often than not only in a thin white cotton shirt — the “shammas”– and are often barefoot. The lucky few wear tattered sandals. After a quick medical examination at the airport, the new arrivals are taken to a special reception center in Ashkelon where they undergo a more thorough medical examination and are given elementary supplies, including new clothing.

INTRODUCTION TO A NEW WORLD

For virtually all of them, this is their first introduction to a new culture — almost a new world. They have never before seen electricity and electrical appliances. When they are provided with a refrigerator, they use it to store their new clothes, not knowing its proper purpose. The newcomers are also amazed and bedazzled by the buildings which surround them and in which they will now reside. They have never lived in houses of more than one story.

But the Israeli officials from the Ministry of Absorption as well as from the Jewish Agency, assisted by Ethiopian Jews who came here over the past year or so, say the newcomers, who have been arriving quietly and secretly for several months, are quick learners.

“They are very well disciplined, are quick learners, and adapt speedily to new surroundings and new circumstances,” the officials say. But this is not mere happenstance.

A SPECIAL PROGRAM TO HELP THE NEWCOMERS

A special program has been drawn up to help the newcomers cope with the new conditions. During the first two months after their arrival they receive medical treatment, rest from their travels, are aided in their search for relatives from whom they had been separated in the past who arrived here earlier, and with the help of a team of translator guides they begin to acquire some initial idea of life in Israel.

After these two months, the immigrants begin to learn not only the Hebrew language but also basics about Judaism. They are taught arithmetic so that they can shop, they are also taught how to run a home, maintain hygienic conditions, and how to use household appliances.

Most of the immigrants who arrived up to approximately a year ago did not know how to read or write and were not accustomed to basic ideas and practices which are taken for granted in Israeli society. The route from the repressive and famine-stricken society in which they lived before to the freedom they now enjoy cannot be traversed overnight. It is an often difficult and painstaking evolution. But Israeli officials and ordinary citizens take great care and patience in helping the new immigrants to assimilate the new culture and integrate into Israeli life.

(In New York, Yaakov Tsur, Israeli Minister of Immigration and Absorption, said that “an ancient tribe is now coming home to us after 2,000 years. We accept them like brothers.” He told the 26th triennial convention of the Labor Zionist Alliance that there would be many problems in absorbing the Ethiopian Jews. “They have to close a gap of more than 2,000 years. “But he described the ingathering as a “test for Israel and a test for the mutual responsibilities of Jews between Jews in the diaspora and in the free world.”)

SOME CRITICISM IS VOICED

There is, however, some criticism of how the newcomers are divided up among the various absorption centers to which they are sent. Members of the Gush Emunim and the settlers in Kiryat Arba, the Jewish suburb of Hebron, have been eager to accept the new immigrants — for political reasons. The Jews from Ethiopia are religiously-oriented and would fit in well with the Orthodox milieu of the Gush settlements. They would also help expand the numbers of settlers in the administered areas.

But villages and settlements in northern Israel complain that the Ethiopian Jewish newcomers have been brought to their towns “like thieves in the night — without warning and without preparation. We wake up in the morning and find that several families have been settled in a new housing block which does not yet even have a water or sewage system.”

Residents in these areas ask: “What are we expected to do with them? We already have unemployment among the veteran residents — and the new immigrants have no knowledge of machinery and have no special skills. More thought should have been given to their absorption.”

Meanwhile, the new immigrants seem oblivious to all this. They are busy settling down and beginning a new life. At the moment they are preoccupied with one thought — they are home, at last.