A Long Way from Gondar
REBIBO, JOEL
ALONG WAY FROM GONDAR Five years after Operation Moses, Ethiopian Jews are embroiled in religious turmoil and heartsick for family members left behind, but making it economically in Israel JOEL...
...Within a year they w* alt be m permanent housing,* promised an aide to former Absorption Minister Yaaccv Tsur last year At a time when budgets were being severely cut everywhere including defense, health and education, money was allocated for Ethiopian absorption So tar, however, S20 million given by the Jewish Agency « all the money that has actually been allotted Trie government bought 514 apartments, but n the mean time the Jewish Agency and the Absorption Ministry are at odds over who is responsible for the other S20 million, and the Etfwc*»rts soli Ian-gush m the centers...
...Operation Moses was the rescue mission that brought some 7,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel from November 1984 to January 1985...
...But in Israel, practically no one who arrived with Operation local Jewish community relations councils circulate petitions on behalf of Ethiopian Jewry addressed to U.S...
...But the biggest obstacle to bringing Ethiopians into the Orthodox fold is that they have been seriously hurt by the insinuation that their Jewishness is in doubt...
...Exacerbating the inevitable dislocations due to cultural change is the pain Ethiopian Jews are suffering from the separation of families...
...The guilt is compounded by the fact that in Ethiopian culture the young are expected to provide for their elderly parents...
...They also no longer have the support of Jewish villages, the remnants of which have been absorbed into non-Jewish villages...
...In 1969 he sent his son, Yosef Hadane, to Italy to study in ajeshiva and bring back the "new" ways of the Oral Law (halacha), but political unrest in Ethiopia prevented Yosef Hadane from returning...
...Once, when we camped, I couldn't find any water so I asked them for some...
...Unfortunately, the kessim find it difficult to adjust to Israeli ways and cannot provide the leadership they gave in Ethiopia," said Yosef Hadane...
...Some Ethiopians have found their native skills are still economically viable...
...The Orthodox saw it as a miraculous "ingathering of exiles," the secular as part and parcel of the Zionist dream: Persecuted, hungry Jews were coming home to Israel...
...on the other hand, he is the first to admit that "Ethiopians are religious people and must receive religious instruction...
...When Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam ousted Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, students and intellectuals were forced into hiding...
...He organized demonstrations in the summer of 1985, to protest against the chief rabbis' ruling requiring Ethiopians to undergo "symbolic conversions" in ritual baths...
...Messele missed his family, and with the exception of a few hours a day of a Hebrew-language ulpan course, he had nothing to do to pass the time...
...The Ethiopians left behind are much worse off than before Operation Moses began...
...They are beginning to see that down the road they will face problems, and the young leaders who are egging them on now, won't be around to solve them," said Yosef Hadane...
...While many Ethiopian women stay away from the mikvah because they are wary that it could be a ploy to convert them, many others are afraid to use it because they've been told that the rabbis put a strange substance in the water that will make them insane, said Tekva Hadane...
...He never told them that he was Jewish...
...Today, Ethiopians live in 52 communities, but there isn't a single Ethiopian synagogue in Israel, no place for father and son to go on Shabbat, like they did in Ethiopia...
...Messele, who had sought a verdict that would authorize all kessim to perform marriages, was nevertheless pleased by the compromise...
...Messele is in a difficult position...
...When he finished his work, they gave him a voucher and sent him to an office in Gadrif for his money...
...For 40 years he led the isolated Jewish community of Ethiopia...
...I want Ethiopians to be just like all other Israeli Jews...
...Messele denies that he ever threatened violence against the chief rabbis...
...Because of his stand on conversion and his refusal to perform marriages that contravene the chief rabbis, he has been ostracized by the Ethiopian Jewish community...
...physically, lie's in class, but his thoughts are always in Ethiopia...
...Once the Ethiopians are convinced that no one is out to convert them, they will be willing to return to regular use of the mikvah, and gradually accept the religious authority of the Chief Rabbinate, Yosef Hadane predicted...
...Eliahu proposed that the Chief Rabbinate appoint Netanya's Sephardi chief rabbi, David Chelouche, as its official registrar for Ethiopian marriages...
...here, it isn't so...
...Messele was among those who decided that Ethiopians should only be married by the kessim, who would not require the bride to immerse in the mikvah before the ceremony as did the rabbis...
...These leaders don't have the interest of the people at heart...
...The fear of the mikvah has reached absurd proportions...
...In Ethiopia, Jewish villages were always located near rivers so that men and women could purify themselves through ritual immersion...
...Most indicators would seem to point to a remarkably successful Ethiopian adjustment, by Western standards...
...This situation could destroy Ethiopian family life, one absorption official who asked to remain anonymous worried: "The couple isn't married according to the state, and legally there is nothing to bind the man to his family...
...Rather than issue a formal ruling, however, the court recommended that both sides accept a trial period...
...His critics say that he has fueled suspicion of the Orthodox establishment, and that he has used "unconventional" discipline methods learned in the Ethiopian underground to keep his followers in line...
...In March, Elazar discussed his concerns in person with President Bush and National Security Advisor Brent Scow-croft Elazar and other advocates argue that the time is ripe for the U.S...
...Hundreds of graduates are already in trie army, some serving as officers in elite combat units...
...Safad...
...The Israelis are doing their best to rescue Ethiopian Jews," says Elazar, "but they need help...
...Something has changed (with this proposal...
...The opposite is true...
...The Ethiopian immigrants t\ Upper Nazareth have started their own nonprofit organization, called Meseret (meaning 'roots' in AmhanrJ to preserve their native culture and tradi ton and act as a bridge between their oU culture and true new home...
...One of the merchants discovered me trying to kill myself and agreed to give me some water...
...We now have the sense that we are equal citizens...
...He slept nights at a mosque, which provided water and sleeping mats for the homeless...
...His clothes, worn through by the desert sun and the vigorous farming work, were literally falling apart, so his first stop was a tailor...
...On the other hand, NJCRAC delegates decided not to address a petition directly to the Ethiopian government, for fear it would only make that government more hostile...
...We just want to be treated equally," says Messele...
...I told them that I was a fanner, because they never would have taken along a student—it would have been too dangerous for them if they were caught...
...they baked a special bread for Shabbat and made a sharp drink called tela...
...The merchants, a group of 12 or 13, had plenty of food, drink and weapons...
...More than 130 senators and representatives already have formed a Congressional Caucus for Ethiopian Jewry, and Congress is expected to pass a joint resolution in support of reuniting Ethiopian families in Israel...
...He can't concentrate on studies...
...There is a general order not to go to any pool, or swim in any stream during hikes," Messele said of his boycott...
...If they live in Be'ersheva, they should get married by their local rabbi like anyone else, not only by the Ethiopian rabbi," Yosef Hadane said...
...With all the heartache and difficulties endured by the Ethiopians in the process of assimilation, one should not lose sight af Israel's impressive achievements...
...At the time of Operation Moses, the Absorption Ministry was the only government agency that recognized marriages performed by kessim and supported young leaders such as Messele who challenged the chief rabbis...
...Arriving in Israel was very emotional...
...The exceptions are those who attend B'nei Akiva schools.* They get a very good religious education that sticks with them...
...A 16-year-old student gets a letter saying 'If you don't get me out of here soon, we won't see each other in this world, but in the world to come.' What's he supposed to do...
...Many enter deep depression, and are unable even to eat...
...I thought that everyone here kept the mitzvot (commandments) and that cohanim (priests) did the service described in the Bible, and that the country was ruled by kings, like those we heard about from our fathers...
...Despite the differences of opinion that remain, according to Glenn Stein, associate director of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, there is increasing unity in the American Jewish community as to how American Jews should express their concern for Ethiopian Jewry...
...government officials...
...A compromise offered by Sephardi Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu could break the impasse between the Chief Rabbinate and the Ethiopians, and end the bitter feud between Addisu Messele and Rabbi Yosef Hadane...
...When the first busload of Ethiopian Jews pulled up to the Mevasseret Zion Absorption Center nearly four years ago, a burly Israeli maintenance man jumped into the bus and emerged moments later with a big smile on his face, and a thin, fragile Ethiopian child in his arms...
...In 1987, Hadane also established the Spiritual Center for Ethiopian Jewry, a yeshiva for married Ethiopian men, to develop new young leaders versed in both Orthodox tradition and Ethiopian culture...
...They get ill, are sent to doctors and hospitals and are often referred for psychiatric treatment...
...For example, in Israel, marriage and divorce is under the exclusive domain of the chief rabbis, who do not recognize marriages performed by non-Orthodox rabbis...
...I had never been so thirsty...
...We were taken to the Be'ersheva absorption center where we were greeted by Jewish Agency officials who picked Hebrew names for us from a list...
...He wanted the Chief Rabbinate to empower all local rabbis to marry Ethiopians...
...But I found the opposite...
...The Karaites were a Jewish sect, founded in the eighth century, that rejected the talmudic-rabbinical tradition...
...Within a week I had lost all of the identifying signs my parents had given me," Messele said...
...It was such a celebration," Messele said...
...Eleven men are studying full-time at the center in a program that offers intensive study in Mishnah, Talmud and halacha (Jewish law...
...Ethiopian Jews are not strangers to the concept of the mikvah...
...If we hadn't taken those steps they would have been worse off than the Karaites...
...But it was also an emasculating experience...
...We come from a different world...
...He later learned that his vaccination was a token circumcision (hatafat dam brit), and his immersion in the waters of the mikvah was part of a conversion ceremony...
...He is loyal to Israel's chief rabbis, and believes that the only way Ethiopian Jews will be accepted by mainstream Judaism is to comply with the rabbis' requirement of symbolic conversion...
...I was in such despair that I went off into the desert and broke a rock by throwing it against another...
...Messele, himself, is a controversial figure...
...The interview reported that after the U.S...
...Operation Moses was disrupted prematurely by leaks in the media, and nearly 12,000 Ethiopian Jews were left behind...
...Israel fulfilled its mission in saving Ethiopian Jewry, it helped Jews who were in distress," said Ethiopian teacher Elias...
...We feel tremendous guilt that we are here and they are there," said Messele, "I'm afraid to open a letter from my mother...
...presidential election, Mengistu sent an unusually warm congratulatory message to George Bush...
...People urged us to get violent, to block roads and throw stones, but that isn't our nature," he said...
...That means that Ovadia Yosef, who has always held that Ethiopians are Jews, controls the key ministries that can give legitimacy to Ethiopians Jews...
...Yosef Hadane, a soft-spoken man who dresses in a dark blue suit and black hat, is an optimist, convinced that his hard work—he is rarely home before 11 P.M.—will pay off...
...The proposal, submitted to the High Court of Justice in the course of a petition filed against the Chief Rabbinate by the Ethiopians, was welcomed by nearly all the interested parties...
...If they had told us it was a conversion to remove any doubts about our Judaism, we would have all refused on the spot," Messele said...
...In Ethiopia, there was respect for elders, concern for others, politeness, manners . . . this was the way people were raised...
...In Ethiopia, Shabbat was special...
...After it arrives I'm unable to function for several days...
...I was sure that the Ethiopians who preceded me would be even more committed to Torah and mitzvot, and that they would be on a higher level of worship...
...At the end of their journey, they came across a tribe of nomads in Sudan, who treated Messele well...
...The matter of separation of families must be resolved, Israeli officials acknowledge...
...Messele is pitted against the Hadanes, father and son: Kes Lika Kahanat (chief priest) Hadane Tekva Rafael—Tekva Hadane— titular leader of the kessim (Ethiopian Jewish priests) and Yosef Hadaiie, his equally prominent son, the only Ethiopian rabbi in Israel...
...He latched on to a group of black market merchants who agreed to serve as his guide for the S5...
...Rabbi Yosef Hadane, son of Tekva Hadane, who arrived here in 1972 and was ordained by then-Sephardi chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef, worked behind the scenes to get the government to recognize the Ethiopians as religious Jews and to have them educated in Orthodox schools...
...The Hadanes would argue with this premise but they face an uphill battle in regaining the trust of the Ethiopians and edging them back into the Orthodox framework...
...Messele, 27, today heads the Beth Yisrael organization, which he says represents 95 percent of the Ethiopians in Israel...
...We have no opposition (to his demand to observe the laws of mikvah)," said Messele, "because it is for the purpose of marriage, not conversion...
...Before long Messele met a group of Ethiopians who had escaped the Marxist regime and he moved into an apartment with nine other men...
...By bribing Sudanese officials and forging passports, Messele's former Hebrew teacher, working for the AAEJ, helped Ethiopian Jews get out of Sudan...
...At present, because of Ethiopia's human rights violations, it is illegal for the U.S...
...There, everyone was religious...
...A man in a white jacket used a disposable needle to draw blood from his penis...
...That dream gave way to a harsher reality and to a new dream that, more in tune with life in Israel, shows every chance or realization...
...pressure They say that Israel's behind-the-scenes efforts on behalf of the Ethiopians are the most effective approach possible...
...All of the couples Chelouche married have been recognized by the State of Israel, entitling them to the rights given to every married couple...
...Thirty-eight percent of those who arrived in Israel from 1983 to 1984 are one-parent families...
...After four months of back-breaking work ("I still have back pains," he said), Messele was given an afternoon off...
...If he gets tired of them, he can just walk out, without a divorce or child payments...
...While wandering around the city, he bumped into his former Hebrew teacher who was in Sudan as a representative of the American Association of Ethiopian Jews (AAEJ...
...Do you know what it's like to get a letter from your mother saying that she's starving and will die unless help is sent immediately...
...They took pride in their Judaism and had sacrificed dearly to come to Israel, losing 4,000 of 8,800 along the way to disease, bandits and desert heat...
...The same people who would not leave Ethiopia without first receiving his blessing, today refuse to speak to him or his son...
...are enrolled m vocational training programs thai combine job sMtS with instruction in democracy and leadership Ethiopians have generally not been ghet-toned, like some previous imnugraflt groups They are spread out m more than 50 communities throughout Israel As a matter of pokey, the Absorption Ministry limits the number of Ethiopian families that it puts in any one bulding Housing has been a difficult problem, but a solution appears to be n sight Some 5000 Ethiopians are stuck m absorption . 8*ajJ*L_ centers—m Ashketon...
...I wasn't involved in any political activities," said Messele...
...asked Akiva Elias, a guidance counselor who works in the Jewish Agency's Youth Aliya schools, where 1.000 of 2,500 Ethiopian students have no parents in Israel...
...The Ethiopian government they argue, has demonstrated that it cannot be swayed by public opinion or U.S...
...Since these efforts are kept under wraps (see box, p. 44), it is impossible for the government to offer comfort beyond these generalities...
...Messele took courses at Ben-Gurion University and then moved to Tel Aviv to study mechanics...
...having sold their land and livestock for the journey, they now have no means of income...
...I took a sharp fragment and tried to slash my throat, but I didn't have the strength to cut myself...
...Messele was born in Wuzava, a village in Gondar, and was the only one of the nine children in his family to be sent to the city for a high school education...
...Tekva Hadane blames the Absorption Ministry under its previous minister, Yaacov Tsur, for helping to incite Ethiopian Jews against the Chief Rabbinate...
...I had nothing but the clothes on my back...
...The Absorption Ministry grants key immigrant rights like housing, and the Interior Ministry issues identity cards and passports and controls the bureaucracy that confers citizenship...
...We need new leaders who understand both cultures...
...For so many years, I longed for Jerusalem and thought that in Israel everything would be good, spiritually," Tekva Hadane said quietly...
...we all kissed the ground," Messele recalled...
...Kvyat Gat Beer-sneva...
...Chelouche, popular and trusted within the Ethiopian Jewish community, believes that Ethiopians are Jewish and need no conversion, "symbolic" or otherwise...
...This is going to create a rift in the homes, because children are learning in school, but the parents aren't making any progress at home...
...The previous ministry said it had no choice but to recognize the will of the Ethiopians, but others, including the Sephardi chief rabbi, suggested that then-Absorption Minister Tsur, a leftist member of the kibbutz movement, was only too happy to undermine the Chief Rabbinate...
...government to pressure the Ethiopian government, perhaps by offering new forms of aid with strings attached...
...They said they had only been paid to bring me across the desert, not to feed me...
...Synagogues that offer adult education classes would help," Yosef Hadane said...
...AttiL Parties Hanna and Kiryat Arba—where they feel isolated and abandoned, but 140 million had been allocated by the Treasury and Jewish Agency for the purchase of 1.000 apartments...
...And in Ethiopian culture—where an aunt is considered a mother, a cousin a brother or sister— the pain of separation is even greater...
...The problem may be working itself out, as young couples begin to turn secretly to rabbis, primarily Sephardi ones, to marry them, after immersion in the mikvah...
...On the one hand, he opposes the Chief Rabbinate, the official representative of the religious mainstream in Israel...
...The water was ice cold and I didn't want to go in because I was afraid my malaria would flare up, but the rabbi told me it was okay to go in," Messele recalled...
...When I first had to go to government offices here, my ears hurt from the shouting...
...Messele recalled that he was then directed to a ritual bath, where he was instructed to immerse in cold water...
...The young leadership, who had arrived along with the other Ethiopians from 1980 through 1983, rose to prominence during the 1985 demonstrations, as did Messele...
...Meseret meets m a former kindergarten building, donated to them by the municipality The Absorption Ministry and Histadrut in Upper Nazareth both offered assistance but organizers felt that it would be better to be independent The condition set by the municipality for giving them the building was that the organization be completely independent and the Ethiopians agreed Meseret acts as a cultural community center employs eight people, and other workers volunteer their tune There are looms that provide work for elderly Ethiopians, provide income fc the center, and keep the old traditions alive Initially traditional Ethiopian clothing and prayer shawls were made, but they now weave pillow cases, scarves, tabtedothes dresses and bags Another room includes displays of basket weaving and pottery, all handmade at Meseret A textile worker at Meseret averages NIS 500 02751 and NIS 900 9600) per month...
...With the arrival of thousands of Ethiopian immigrants during Operation Moses, he got involved in the leadership of the Ethiopian community...
...In Ethiopia we didn't have suicide, here we have suicide," said Messele...
...They are enjoying the attention and respect, at the expense of the people...
...The government is doing everything in its power to reunite families, officials say...
...Though he is authorized by the Chief Rabbinate to perform weddings, Yosef Hadane is reluctant to do so for fear of becoming "the Ethiopian rabbi...
...They were involved in negotiations between the kessim and the chief rabbis, they were interviewed daily in the press and, it is charged, they used the demonstrations against the mikvah as a means to consolidate and advance their position within the Ethiopian community...
...A few years after the revolution, Messele was forced to flee...
...More needs to be done to provide further education, but every Jew, especially Jews who gave so much, should take pride in what has been done...
...There, no one needed psychiatric help, here people need help...
...I kept on the run for about a year-and-a-half in a jungle area near the Jewish villages in Gondar, and then left Ethiopian Jews Adapt, Excel in Israel Ethiopian Jews now settled in Israel have come a long way from the villages of Gondii Marty have jobs and permanent housing and are standing on then own two feet They have televisions and videos and are struggling to make ends meet not kke other Israelis, The Ethiopians have proven to be eager to learn, disciplined, hard working and am contributing to the country's economy and to its defense...
...With the High Court ruling and the political changes, chances are good that the conflict will eventually be resolved...
...This greater unity has been brought about by a new "maturity on both sides," according to Stein...
...The 12,000 Jews who are still in Ethiopia today (some put the' figure as high as 17,000) were left behind in 1985 when the Ethiopian government halted that rescue operation...
...Some Jewish leaders say there is little to be gained by petitions and other such tactics...
...When he arrived, he found that he barely recognized the Ethiopian community there...
...There is practically no Ethiopian family that hasn't left someone behind...
...At one point during the demonstrations, he reportedly threatened to "slaughter the rabbis and lead the Ethiopians back to Ethiopia...
...Tekva Hadane stayed behind during Operation Moses* in order to save those who were turned back by the bandits and the brutal heat of the desert...
...He chose the Sephardi siddur because he feels the Sephardi approach is more consistent with Ethiopian culture...
...to send Ethiopia any aid except famine emergency supplies) Bush and Scowcroft assured Elazar that State Department officials will press for the release of Ethiopian Jewry at the appropriate diplomatic meetings...
...With the equivalent of S5 in his pocket, "enough to buy 10 beers," Messele journeyed across the desert...
...Sephardi Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu told MOMENT that the reason for the chief rabbis' ruling was to "keep the Ethiopians from being considered a separate stream in Judaism...
...The women cooked until about 2 or 3 P.M...
...His supporters, however, including senior officials at the Absorption Ministry, regard him as a responsible young leader who represents most Ethiopian Jews...
...See box, p. 47...
...The odd situation, whereby the government as a whole—including the Interior Ministry— does not recognize their marriages, but the Absorption Ministry does, threatens to keep the Ethiopians isolated from mainstream Judaism, and could undermine stability within families...
...The community is coming to a consensus that although many aggressive tactics—demonstrations against the Ethiopian government angry full-page ads and so on—might only make the Ethiopian government more hostile, "we do need a responsible ongoing expression of our concerns," Stein said...
...B'nei Akiva schools are a network of high schools run along the philosophy of the national-religious movement...
...That smile, on the face of a Moroccan Jew who had immigrated in the 1950s, captured the spirit of Israel during Operation Moses...
...Tekva Hadane, who spent a year studying at Machon Meir, a Jerusalem national religious educational center, serves as the marriage registrar...
...The couples don't object because the same is required of all Israeli brides...
...Most of these students throw their kxppa off as soon as they graduate," he said...
...A long history of disagreement between Jews and Karaites resulted in estrangement between the two groups...
...The key to the compromise is Che-louche's credibility among the Ethiopians...
...Many in Israel and elsewhere knew that Operation Moses was taking place, but the American and Israeli press was urged to refrain from reporting it Most reporters and editors cooperated, and a few leaks in the Israeli media escaped world attention...
...They ant much more disciplined than native Israelis They have much more stamina than the average soldier' Lieutenant Colonel Un Manos sa*J at * recent conference of Ethiopian officers and soldiers They also nave exceptional ability to adapt to new situations, end a good sense of orientation and nawgabon in unfamiliar Unemployment among Ethiopians who are employable is less than 5 percent less than the national average about 30 percent cannot work because they are the only parents in young single parent families, or because they are 55 years old, whch m Ethiopian culture is retirement age) Some 1,500 youngsters aged 12 to 18 attend the Jewish Agency's Youth Akya boarding schools, where they receive Jewish education m an Orthodox framework, meals clothing, counseling and organised vaca toons...
...He also dismissed allegations that he belonged to the student underground that formed after the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia...
...But at the end of the trial period, Rabbi Chelouche had performed only 15 marriages of Ethiopian couples because the Religious Affairs Ministry had not given him the tools he needed: a map of Ethiopia highlighting Jewish villages and identifying the kes of each village, the number of families living there and the names of family heads, as well as a computer on which to store the information and an assistant fluent in Amharic to enter the data...
...I was shown one letter, from a grandparent, that said, "We have no food for your children...
...Many were in mid-flight...
...They lied...
...But charges have also been made that the Ethiopians were used by Israel's left-wing political groups and non-Orthodox movements to undermine the authority of the Chief Rabbinate...
...People took advantage of the innocence of the Ethiopians to push their own causes," said Matti Elias, an Ethiopian teacher and one of the few Ethiopians who lives on a kibbutz, Nezer Sereni, near Ramie...
...Recently, 25 Ethiopian Jews were massacred by their Christian neighbors there and anti-Semitism appears to be growing "We feel we have to ask the world for help," says Rachamim Elazar, chairman of Israel's National Council for Ethiopian Jews...
...Even critics of Israel's absorption policies agree that the country deserves credit for its achievements...
...to 1 A.M...
...ALONG WAY FROM GONDAR Five years after Operation Moses, Ethiopian Jews are embroiled in religious turmoil and heartsick for family members left behind, but making it economically in Israel JOEL REBIBO Three days after he arrived in Israel from Ethiopia, Addisu Messele was taken to a small, concrete building and told to lower his pants for a "vaccination...
...There's a recognition that on the one hand, those perceived as being radical and irresponsible are really not and on the other hand, those who have been portrayed as uncaring are really not" Moses was using the mikvah when Tekva Hadane arrived...
...The fears about Ethiopian government reaction stem from the tragic experience of Operation Moses...
...While more than 90 percent of Ethiopian children attend state religious schools, Yosef Hadane feels that most are in "weaker" schools that don't succeed in instilling Orthodox values...
...How could you have been so cruel as to leave them behind...
...Tekva Hadane seems a victim of the politics surrounding the conversion of Ethiopian Jews...
...But when the Washington Jewish Week published a front-page story, it was viewed as a go-ahead signal by The New York Times and other general-circulation newspapers...
...The Jews Still in Ethiopia: How Can We Help...
...Another source went so far as to predict that if nothing is done, "in a few years, Ethiopians will fill the mental hospitals in Israel...
...He missed the religious life of his village...
...People scream and threaten and speak so coarsely...
...We can be proud," he said...
...But they are seeing some encouraging signs...
...In the interview, Mengistu emphasized that he wished to improve relations between Ethiopia and the United States...
...We usually traveled at night, when it was cool, and slept during the day...
...In some cases, parents left children behind with grandparents, taking along only those old enough to walk across the desert or youni...
...The justices, in accepting the proposal, hailed it as an "efficient, practical and speedy solution...
...Still, he too praised the plan, calling it a "breakthrough...
...Some advocates for Ethiopian Jewry took theseactions as signs that today Mengistu may be especially receptive to pressure from the West, particularly since Soviet aid to Ethiopia is reported to be on the decline However, it is hard to predict the long-range effect of a May coup attempt on Mengistu's receptiveness...
...The woman then remarries, has more kids and the kids don't know who their real father is...
...Grants and donations enable the center to keep gong, but ultimately they intend to be self-sufficient and to have a showroom m the center of Upper A Long Way from Gondar continued from page 47 for Sudan in 1979, when it got too dangerous to stay...
...The unsuccessful coup by some of Mengistu's generals also disrupted relief programs, including that conducted in Gondar by the Joint Distribution Committee...
...There delegates voted—against the wishes of NJCRAC leadership—to have 44 M O M E N T • A UG U S T 1989 There is no doubt that the Ethiopians were genuinely hurt by the ruling...
...The whole family would come to the courtyard of the synagogue with the bread and tela...
...enough to be carried...
...He knows everyone in the community, and can tell you the father and grandfather of any Ethiopian Jew," said his son...
...Ethiopian Jews and their advocates are desperate to rescue the 12,000 Jews remaining in Ethiopia, many of whom are separated from their children and other close family members already in Israel...
...The Absorption Ministry has caused grave damage to the Ethiopian Jewish community," Tekva Hadane said...
...They immersed so frequently that they were distinguished by the smell of water on their clothes...
...It became a worldwide major news story and the Ethiopian government immediately terminated Operation Moses...
...The kessim chose me to lead because they couldn't do so in this environment," he said...
...Thus the key people controlling citizenship believe the Ethiopians are Jews and do not need symbolic conversion...
...When he performs marriages, he demands that women undergo immersion, but the Ethiopians accept it because they know he isn't trying to convert them...
...The Hadanes are available for consultation when questions arise about the lineage or marital status of couples who want to marry...
...The new absorption minister, Yitzchak Peretz, is more sympathetic with the position of the Chief Rabbinate...
...The organized American Jewish community took a step closer to supporting ElazaPs viewpoint in March at the 1989 meeting of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJCRAC...
...They thought we didn't know our own ages so they just guessed...
...Messele charged that Yosef Hadane, the rabbi who urged him to enter the ice cold mikvah in Be'ersheva, "is nothing" in the Ethiopian community...
...The result has been a long-term boycott of the mikvah and hostility against the chief rabbis by many Ethiopians...
...Z...
...Yosef Hadane has taken other steps to ease the Ethiopians into Orthodoxy...
...With time, he is convinced, the hurt the Ethiopans feel at being treated like "second-class Jews" will fade, and they will enter the Orthodox mainstream, where he and his father believe they belong...
...He finally agreed to leave Ethiopia after his fellow kessim convinced him that he could do more for Ethiopian Jewry from Israel...
...Yosef Hadane was also less than satisfied...
...Messele was smuggled by truck into Khartoum, Sudan, and after a year of helping the American, he flew to Greece, and from there to Israel...
...They offered him a job harvesting their crops and took care of him when he came down with a serious bout of malaria...
...They took these young people, many of whom were schooled in brainwashing in the Ethiopian underground, and gave them power, with salaries and budgets, to help oppose the rabbis...
...He has translated a haggadah and a siddur (prayer book) into Amharic (the official Ethiopian language...
...Roughly ] BOO others, aged 18 to 25...
...Messele found a job as a waiter in a hotel, working some days from 5 A.M...
...Life in the absorption center was lonely and traumatic...
...In the government elected last November, Sephardi rabbi Ovadia Yosefs Shas party received both the absorption and interior portfolios...
...In late 1988, Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, the president of Ethiopia, met with a Western reporter for the first time in several years...
...Officially recognized by the new Marxist government as the Lika Kahanat (equivalent of chief rabbi), he was authorized to grant pardons to the "traitors" who left the country...
Vol. 14 • August 1989 • No. 5
