Flavors from Afar

Vignettes from the Upper Nazazreth Absorption Center.

The expression “from the four corners of the earth” takes on new meaning as one steps into the Upper Nazareth Absorption Center. Within a 20 foot radius of Director Fani Grobman’s office, personal dramas of international flavor are literally unfolding.

Patricio Blicher, originally from Buenos Aires, made aliyah from Brazil this past Spring a few months before the Lebanese War. Animated and likeable, Patricio tells his story in surprisingly rapid Hebrew. He came with his “beautiful and brilliant” eight year old daughter, Nicole, who has settled “magnificently” into second grade. Fani Grobman, Director of the Upper Nazareth Absorption Center, quickly confirms the facts with a smile and a nod, and Patricio continues. He is part of the Mechanitronics Program – a retraining track for new immigrants with a background in engineering or the sciences. Patricio already has a job as a systems network engineer in a town close by. Although he studied in the Hebrew ulpan, he laughs – “Hebrew? Maybe I should have learned Russian. Everyone in my office speaks Russian.”

 Defining Family

Patricio studies are at the Jezreel Valley College in a track which will extend for another year. Fani stresses that from the previous Mechanitronics program graduates, 99% are working in their profession and 90% have stayed on to make their homes in Upper Nazareth. When asked if he has relatives in Israel, Patricio looks warmly towards another couple from the Mechanitronics program sitting nearby and says, “The Absorption Center is my home, and this is my family. We’ve been through a war together; we struggle with a new language and a new culture together – and we are always there for each other, be it to laugh or to cry.”

Olga and Boris Melnikov return Patricio’s warmth. Married in 2000, the young couple, he, a mechanical engineer, and she, a music teacher, began attending events at the Jewish Agency Center in their hometown of Votkinsk in the Ural Mountains. “Our decision was a few years in the making, but we concluded that we were determined to make Israel our home.” They arrived last August, in the throes of the war. How did Israel strike them when they first arrived? “It was a shock and it still is,” confide the couple. “The language, the landscape, the bureaucracy; we are trying to get used to it.” Fani looks at them encouragingly and shares her story, “When I got here from Russia in 1977, I spent a good part of the first year crying. I had a profession I couldn’t use, in a country whose language I couldn’t understand. I had two small children, with no car and very little money. Trust me, it takes time, and most of all, patience. But it will work out in the end.”  Yonatan Ralte, on the other hand, seems quite unbothered by the newness. In fact, he says, “the view from the mountains here is quite similar to my hometown in Mizoram, India; and even better, it isn’t quite so hot.”

Yonatan who was officially converted to Judaism before he came to Israel, belongs to a people known as Bnei Menashe, Children of Menashe. The Bnei Menashe believe themselves to be descendants of the Tribe of Menashe, exiled in 721 BCE from the Land of Israel. Following a government decision to enable their aliyah, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews under the directorship of Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein raised $1.5 million towards their immigration and absorption.

A Bright Future

Yonatan, a high school graduate, had been working in his parents store when he married Vera. Vera completed her conversion to Judaism and came directly to Israel, while Yonatan had to wait to complete his conversion and for the official government decision to allow immigration. Having communicated electronically, by telephone and by mail, the two are happily back together and eager to set out on their own as soon as they can. Once his ulpan is over, Yonatan plans to study engineering at the college in Upper Nazareth.

“Most of the Bnei Menashe worked in agriculture or carpentry, but there were also storekeepers,” explains Fani. “They are motivated and have great potential to acclimate into new professions. However, due to internal conflicts in India, many of the children haven’t been to school in a few years. We will make full use of our volunteers and will expect a lot of extra work from the children themselves to bring them up to grade level here. I have great faith in them and they have faith in their future.”

Fani continues, “Once the Bnei Menashe came here, I noticed the halls were filled with song. They sing all the time, both by themselves and together; so within a few days, we had formed a band. They have already performed songs in Hebrew, in their own language and in English.

The Bnei Menashe also quickly formed a soccer team, providing some competition for the team formed earlier by the fifty Kedma students. The Kedma program provides a year of intensive language and study skills to new Ethiopian immigrants between the ages of 18-26. Some are high school graduates, while others have never set foot in a classroom. Within the year, they will each amass, accordingly, skills to propel them into Israeli society, be it further programs, employment, higher education or the army.

Fani reaches behind her to the rows and rows of well-labeled files and says, “Don’t think for a moment that we have immigrants here only from Africa, Asia and South America. We have fifty immigrants living here for their first six months in ulpan, from Turkey, Romania, Poland, Russia,” she beams, “and the list continues. Each brings a flavor of his or her own,” adding to the delicious potpourri of Israel.