Ethiopia had a very large Jewish community. Their origins are debated. Several possibilities exist: Moses had a wife from Kush (Ethiopia). Isaiah 11:11 suggests a community in 740 BCE ("...the Lord will extend his hand...to recover the remnant that remains of his people...from Kush"). Perhaps they are descendants from the lost tribe of Dan. They may be descendants of Jews who fled Babylon after being released from captivity. King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba had a son who was the founder of the Ethiopian Solomonic dynasty. And we know that Judaism was common in Ethiopiaa before the Asum dynasty converted to Christianity in the fourth century.
From that conversion onward, the treatment of Jews in Ethiopia went downhill. Coptic Christians forbade Jews from ownling land starting in the seventh century. They were called "Falasha," strangers. Some were sold into slavery or massacred. Many Jews "converted" to ensure survival. In the fascist Italian occupation of 1936, synagogues and schools were closed and they suffered from famines and civil wars.
Israel was the Promised Land. It was foretold in the Jewish religion and they heard about the glories of the state. Several rescue operations and purposeful immigration have resulted in 80000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Upon arrival, many of them kissed the ground. They were warmly welcomed and given four times as much aid as Russian immigrants, generous housing subsidies, free language classes, health coverage, and scholarships for university.
But the Promised Land was not really flowing with milk and honey. Culture shock was extreme coming from an underdeveloped, rural area to one of the most tech-savvy countries on earth. Teenagers were often pulled from their families for boarding schools in a misguided attempt at assimilation (sound familiar?). They are still the poorest Jewish group in Israel with high dropout and unemployment rates.
Things are slowly getting better and the future holds hope. They are increasingly seen as a part of Israeli identity and are taking jobs as models, singers, and professors. Many Ethiopians work as security guards. Ethiopian food is becoming increasingly popular.
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Today's postings are very, very interesting, Becca. I would like to point out that not only the children of Ethiopian immigrants were "pulled from their families" and sent to boarding schools. I taught in one such boarding school prior to the Ethiopian influx. Many of the kids in the school (outside Jerusalem in Ein Karem - birthplace of John the Baptist) were from families that were either so large and or poor that the family could not house/feed all the children or, in a few cases, the kids were rather exceptional (read bright and promising) and were in homes that could not offer them the kind of education in which they would flourish. There were a number of kids from "Mizrachi" households but I also had a student from the U.S. and, if I recall correctly, many, many of the students were of Ashkanazi backrounds. In any case I could not describe those Ethiopian kids as being "pulled" from their families. It sounds all very sinister - as if they were kidnapped and put into terrible child-labor situations. B.
ReplyDeleteI didn't read it as sinister at all - rather like the good/bad results from Native American kids who go to cross-cultural schools. (This *was* sinister, in some places, in the U.S. in the past, but now it is a real option.) Creating a massive technology & culture rift between parents and children is problematic - how can we bring rural immigrants into a techno society without destroying their culture, esp. the good parts of it?
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