We were tired. We had spent three very busy days meeting with Palestinians and Bedouins and touring the Old City. We were scheduled to take part in a march with Ethiopian Jews and we weren't sure if we were up for it. But Micha Feldman, who had been instrumental in Israeli efforts to resettle Ethiopian Jews, said we needed to do it. How could we say no?
Micha picked us up near our Jerusalem hostel, and took us to the beginning of the march. There we learned that the march was part of an annual ceremony commemorating the Ethiopian Exodus to Israel. In the early 1980s thousands of Ethiopian Jews left their villages and walked, sometimes for weeks, to refugee camps in Sudan where they waited for as much as a year or more to fly to Israel. More than 10 percent of those leaving Ethiopia died along the way, either while walking or in Sudan. Our march honoring those who lost their lives would last a couple hours. We quickly realized it was the least we could do to remember the thousands of Ethiopians who never made it to Israel.
We heard many stories along the way. The first man we spoke to lost his 5 year old daughter on the way to Sudan. He was marching today with his 27 year old daughter who was born in Israel. Later a woman we met had lost a grandparent, highlighting the journey's toll on not only the young, but also the old.
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| Our march honoring Ethiopians who lost their lives on their journey to Israel. |
A younger woman who directed a national Ethiopian youth organization, had also lost family and then experienced more loss after arriving in Israel. At 8 years old the Israeli government took her from her parents and placed her in a boarding school. She had received an excellent education but saw a large cultural chasm form between her and her parents. She hoped to prevent this cultural divide with younger generations of Ethiopians and their families, although she acknowledged the challenges were great. She felt that racism towards Ethiopians had actually increased during her lifetime. Still, she somehow carried a bright smile and positive hopes for the future.
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| The masses converge on Mt. Herzl. |
The march ended at Mt. Herzl, where Israel's leaders and fallen soldiers, as well as the father of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, are buried. More than 5,000 Ethiopians gathered to take part in a moving ceremony that included singing, chanting by Ethioian Kesim or rabbis, a speech by a woman who lost two children in Sudan, and an address by Israel's 89 year old President, Shimon Perez. We were overwhelmed with emotion as we sat with so many Ethiopian Jews who had experienced such hardship in Ethiopia, during their exodus, and now in Israel. And to think, we had felt too tired to walk a few kilometers...
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| Ethiopian Kesim (rabbis) sing during the memorial ceremony. |
Our day, however, was far from over. We adjourned to share an Israeli Arab feast with Micha and several others who had been instrumental in helping Jews leave Ethiopia. From there we went with Micha to visit a young woman who like so many other Ethiopians had arrived in Israel as an orphan. She had been abused and abandoned by so many family members her tale was nearly incomprehensible. And yet, like the other young women we had met during the march she was all smiles. She is now excelling at a girl's boarding school with support from Selah (http://selah.org.il/), an organization that supports Israeli immigrants who have experienced tragedy.
We next visited a woman who came to Israel as a 12 year old with no family connections only to discover that the purpose of her trip was marriage. Forced into an abusive relationship at a young age, she eventually escaped with her two young boys. With no family and no local support she too connected with Selah, which was now helping pay for her nursing school, as well as providing emotional support and connecting her to other women in similar situations. Israel's famed welfare system was barely paying a quarter of her expenses - without Selah's support it wasn't clear how she or her sons could survive.
So many stories. So much tragedy. Micha acknowledged that Ethiopians were better off than Palestinians or Bedouin Israelis since at least they were Jewish. Still, their lives were far from easy, and Selah was clearly making a difference. But how could this small non-profit patch so many holes? Was this the Israel Ethiopian Jews had dreamed of for so many generations? Was this the Israel Jews around the world imagined in 1948? No, it was clear that Israel was not fulfilling our dreams. Rather, as our time here was coming to a close, Israel appeared more and more like every other human endeavor at utopia...imperfect at best, and horribly inequitable at worst. Maybe it was this creeping realization that was exhausting us more than anything else.
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