Traveling in their Shoes
A CCD Mission begins in Gondar, following the aliyah and integration process of Ethiopian immigrants
They say seeing is believing, but more specifically perhaps seeing is understanding. The participants on the recent Campaign Chair and Directors Mission saw Gondar, once the capital of the Abyssinian Christian Empire, and the primary home of Ethiopia’s Jews for hundreds of years.
| Asher Seyum, Director of the Ashdod Absorption Center, accompanied the CCD mission to Ethiopia. Arriving in Israel in 1984 at the age of 13 after terrible hardships, Asher soon realized that the route to success was through education. After completing his degree, Asher worked in various positions, rising though the ranks of the Jewish Agency. |
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In order to bring the magnitude of the integration process home to the participants, the CCD mission followed the path taken by thousands of Jews on their way to Israel. First traveling to the city of Gondar, participants met the many Ethiopians eligible for aliyah who came in from outlying villages to the JAFI compound to be processed. Once approved, those same individuals then travel onto Addis Abba where a preparatory aliyah station is located on the grounds of the Israeli Embassy. The mission investigated the Addis site and then, as do the immigrants, flew to Israel. There they visited Absorption Centers and facilities receiving Ethiopian aliyah. The jarring contrasts between subsistence farming using oxen-drawn plows with the high-paced entrepreneurial frenzy of modern Israel was irrevocably branded in their consciousness.
Accompanying the mission were eight Jewish Agency workers, all born in Ethiopia. Each of them came to Israel at a young age with Operation Moses in 1984, and each escorted one of the eight CCD tour buses in Ethiopia. Not only could the young Ethiopian Israelis share insights with the mission participants, but they undertook an emotional journey of their own, reconnecting with sights, sounds and smells of a barely recalled past. Both the CCD participants and their Israeli escorts went away from the mission with a deeper understanding of the process of integration; the impact has already come to light in fundraising efforts abroad.
Desert Shelter
“For you were strangers in a foreign land”
Just as the desert heat began to become oppressive at the beginning of July, a refreshing initiative of the Jewish Agency offered a new wave of Darfurian refugees shelter and care. After escaping from the horrors of Sudan and enduring an unhappy sojourn in Egypt, these refugees crossed the border into Israel, bereft of all but each other. On July 9th, 58 exhausted refugees were brought to the Ibim-San Diego Student Village near Sderot, where apartments recently vacated by students were prepared for them.
| Darfurian refugees at the Ibim Absorption Center in the northern Negev. |
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With their absorption expertise, the staff registered and provided for the needs of both children and adults. Two remaining new immigrant students, Mulo from Ethiopia and Robert from the Caucus mountains, ran a summer camp complete with songs, ball games, and arts and crafts.
Taking the Initiative
Concurrent to this group arriving in Ibim, another group of seventy refugees was transferred to Arad where they began work in the Dead Sea hotels, settling in apartments belonging to one of the hotel chains in the city. Teenagers from the Mahanot HaOlim youth movement stepped in to run a summer camp for the children.
As the school year began and the Darfurian children embarked upon immersion in Israeli society, the adults began to express discomfort at being left behind. Explains WUJS-Arad Director Alon Friedman, “They realized that their children will be speaking Hebrew in no time. Soon there will be homework in Hebrew and an acclimatization to Israeli culture, of which the adults, shuttling back and forth to work everyday, will know little.
“At Hadassah WUJS Arad, we have one of the best ulpanin in the country.” But more than that, WUJS prides itself on initiative and social consciousness. By the beginning of the school year, Alon had organized classrooms, volunteer teachers, and a mini-ulpan curriculum. The Darfurians arrange for babysitters, and Monday evening at 6:30 sharp, all the adults arrive promptly to their ulpan class. Alon, however, is hoping for more. “This week, our students from abroad will arrive and with little ado, they will begin to work with the refugees in whatever capacity they can provide.”