A group of Israeli college students are traveling the country speaking at schools about what has been going on in Israel and the Jewish Law Students Association at school invited them to speak. One of them immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia with his family when he was seven months old. His story was amazing. I knew about the Ethiopian Jews but I never heard first-hand about an Ethiopian Jew’s experience.
He is the youngest in a 12-child family, which is considered small by Ethiopian standards. Twenty kids is not uncommon. His father is 90-something years old and his mom is 60-something. He is 27. One day in 1980, his father decided they should move to Israel to escape the dictatorship in Ethiopia. So they left everything behind – all possessions, their home, their livestock, their land – and walked to a town in Sudan where they could find transport to Israel. The walk was 300 miles. For perspective, that’s 60 miles longer than walking from Houston to Dallas, in African (maybe like Texan?) heat. It took them three months with a family of 14.
Once there, they stayed in a small apartment with three other families of like size and could not leave very often because Sudan is a Muslim country, and his family ate only Kosher food. They could not risk being seen looking for Kosher foods (if it could be found at all). They got word from the Mossad, the Israeli version of the CIA, that transport could be arranged for them to Israel via Greece.
He was obviously too young to remember any of this, but his father had never before seen a White Jew, let alone a White man, so he expected all of the Jews in Israel – including the Mossad agents helping them – to be Black, or at least dark-skinned. He did not know that Jews were living in all parts of the world and look like, well, all parts of the world. So when he saw the Mossad agents and all the White people in Israel, he though they had been taken to the wrong country.
This story must have repeated itself for thousands upon thousands of Ethiopian families. The students also described the racism in Israel as less color-based, as it is here, and more cultural-based. If people with dark skin are discriminated against, it is less for their color than for their heritage or nationality. One of the students described her surprise at the kind of racism we have in America. She couldn’t understand how color could be the basis for discrimination.
All three students served in the Israeli Army and one was called from reserves to serve in the recent war with Hezbollah. All of their stories were amazing. One, born in England, made the decision to move to Israel when he was 18 and never looked back. His accent was most perplexing – English, Israeli, or both? Both. In America, we say “um” when we’re thinking of what to say. In Israel, they say “em.” He said “em,” but with an English accent. Awesome.
As for where the Ethiopian Jews (aka Beta Israel) come from, there are four theories:
1. The Beta Israel may be the lost Israelite tribe of Dan.
2. They may be descendants of Menelik I, son of King Solomon and Queen Sheba.
3. They may be descendants of Ethiopian Christians and pagans who converted to Judaism centuries ago.
4. They may be descendants of Jews who fled Israel for Egypt after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and eventually settled in Ethiopia.
