[photo: Miriam&Gideon-3086]
Caption: Minnetonka resident Bruce Goldstein, who has hosted PACT Hadera
participants, listens as Noah, a student in PACT’s Alternative Learning Space program
in the Givat Olga school, reads a Hebrew book about a dog and a cat.
(Photo: Mordecai Specktor)
[photo: Goldstein and Noah]
Caption: Minnetonka resident Bruce Goldstein, who has hosted PACT Hadera
participants, listens as Noah, a student in PACT’s Alternative Learning Space program
in the Givat Olga school, reads a Hebrew book about a dog and a cat.
(Photo: Mordecai Specktor)
Minneapolis Jews on a ‘mission’
Israel’s new Ethiopian Jewish immigrants benefit from the charitable contributions of their
coreligionists in faraway Minnesota
By Mordecai Specktor
KIBBUTZ MA’AGAN, Israel -- Unlike normal tourists, the Minneapolis-area residents visiting
Israel this week under the auspices of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation, are on a “mission.”
Specifically, this is the “Israel @ 60 Mission” -- marking 60 years of independence for the State
of Israel; and the mission rubric means that the local Jewish junket is designed to allow
participants to experience the wonders of the Jewish state together, and to see how the
Federation’s charitable contributions are working here. The Federation is the Jewish community
chest that annually raises about $15 million to support educational and social service groups both
locally and abroad.
On Wednesday afternoon in the town of Hadera, a group of 54 Minneapolis Jews, and their
Israeli hosts, assembled in a circle of chairs on the floor of an elementary school auditorium and
listened to the story of Miriam’s journey from Gondar, Ethiopia, to Israel.
Miriam says that her family, part of Ethiopia’s oppressed, ancient Jewish remnant community,
always heard about “Jerusalem.” One day they learned that they might be able to realize their
dreams of aliya (literally, “ascending,” in the sense of the geographical and spiritual going up to
Jerusalem; or immigration to Israel): there was a route to Israel open through Sudan. They sold
off all of their possessions and began the long trek to the “Holy City, Jerusalem.”
Speaking calmly in Hebrew, her remarks translated to English by Gideon Herscher, an Israeli
staff member of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), Miriam recounted
that the trip to Sudan was aborted; the route was closed and the family was now in even worse
straits, because they had sold all of their worldly goods. They waited for nine years.
Then they learned of another route that went through Adis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. It was a
dangerous journey on a road plagued by bandits. However, life was so grim in Gondar and the
tug of “Jerusalem” so strong that, after waiting 10 months, they forged ahead.
In May 1991, as Eritrean and Tigrean rebel fighters converged on Adis Ababa, preparing for the
final battle against the forces of the dictator, Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, American and
Israeli negotiators arranged to pay $35 million in bribes to the rebels, and to the government
forces clinging to power — the ransom price for the Jews of Ethiopia.
On May 24, a Saturday, a fleet of converted El Al 747 airliners and Hercules C-130 cargo planes
began to ferry the Ethiopian Jews to Israel. The flights to Israel, on planes stripped of seats and
galleys in order to accommodate the largest number of passengers, continued for 36 hours. More
than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were rescued — in a modern version of the biblical exodus story —
in what is known as Operation Solomon, a reference to the biblical king who, by some accounts,
was the ancestor of the pre-rabbinic “Beta Israel” community in Ethiopia.
When the Ethiopians landed at Ben-Gurion Airport they kissed the tarmac. The Ethiopian Jews
thought that they were finally in the Holy City, that all of “Israel is Jerusalem,” Miriam
explained, and added that many were so elated they fainted upon arrival.
The 54 members of the Federation’s Israel @ 60 delegation broke up into four smaller groups
and visited sites of the PACT (Parents and Children Together) program, which prepares
Ethiopian kids with the remedial skills and emotional support that they need to succeed in
school. When the Ethiopians journeyed from their mountain homes in Gondar to modern Israel,
the three-hour flight also involved a leap forward several centuries for the Amharic-speaking,
agrarian Jews. Israeli educators soon found that the Ethiopian children were completely ill-
prepared for the school system — many of their parents were illiterate and struggling to adapt to
the new society.
The Minneapolis Jewish Federation is a major financial donor to PACT, which works in
partnership with the JDC, the international relief arm of the North American Jewish community,
and the Hadera municipality. Federation funds are allocated to Jewish schools and agencies in
the Minneapolis area; but a big chunk of the annual fundraising campaign proceeds are sent on to
the Jewish Agency for Israel and the JDC.
One group of Minneapolis Jews visited PACT’s Warm Room Alternative Learning Space in the
Givat Olga elementary school, where some of the young Ethiopian-Israeli children with
emotional and developmental disabilities get remedial help to develop both cognitive and motor
skills. Noah, a young PACT enrollee, demonstrated an exercise that had him gliding on his
stomach atop a skateboard and transferring variously colored beanbags from one spot to another.
The Ethiopian-Israelis have not had an easy time adjusting to their “Jerusalem” – in reality a fastpaced, high-tech society Traditional family relationships have been strained as children have
learned Hebrew faster than their fathers, challenging the authority of the fathers who have to turn
to their children for assistance with simple daily tasks. The Father and Son program, a
component of PACT Hadera, works to mend the familial rifts. Tali Veiner, a Minneapolis native
who now works with PACT in Netanya -- the program operates in 14 Israeli cities -- said that
PACT staffers have learned to emphasize “emotional support together with the academic
support” for the Ethiopian-Israeli kids.
The Israel @ 60 Mission members have been impressed to see how their charitable contributions
are making a difference in the lives of Israelis. The visitors from Minneapolis toured some of
Israel’s top attractions – the Old City of Jerusalem, Masada, the Dead Sea – but most of them
remarked about their visits to educational and social uplift programs in Jerusalem, Hadera and
Kiryat Shemona, a development town in the far north of the country.
“The parts that I enjoyed the most on the trip – probably, because I’d been to the tourist sites a
lot of times – were the visits to the Federation programs; and those were the times I was moved
to tears,” commented Bob Karasov, a St. Louis Park pediatrician and mohel, practitioner of ritual
circumcision.
“It’s just so inspiring for me to see these programs, to see how Israel is constantly rebuilding
itself
The grim prospect of thousands of Jewish children growing up separated
from their parents in Israel almost became a reality. Little could be done
to persuade the Mariam government to increase the trickle of Jews
leaving Ethiopia in the years between Operations Joshua and Solomon.
But in November 1990, Ethiopia and Israel reached an agreement that
would allow Ethiopian Jews to move to Israel under the context of
family reunification. It soon became clear, however, that Mengistu was
willing to allow Ethiopian Jews to leave outside of the guise of
reunification. November and December, 1990, showed increased
numbers of Ethiopians leaving for Israel. The Ethiopian Jews were
finally ready to come home.
In early 1991, Eritrean and Tigrean rebels began a concerted attack on
Mengistu forces, meeting with surprising success for the first time since
the civil war began in 1975. With the rebel armies advancing each day,
Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam fled his country in early May. Rebels
claimed control of the capital Addis Ababa shortly thereafter, and the
situation of the Beta Israel took top priority in Israel. The Likud
government of Yitzhak Shamir authorized a special permit for the Israeli
airline, El Al, to fly on the Jewish Sabbath. On Friday, May 24, and
continuing non-stop for 36 hours, a total of 34 El Al jumbo jets and
Hercules C-130s—seats removed to accommodate the maximum
number of Ethiopians—began a new chapter in the struggle for the
freedom of Ethiopian Jewry.
Operation Solomon, named for the king from whom one of the theories
suggest that the Beta Israel draw their lineage, ended almost as quickly
as it began. Timing was crucial, since any delay by Israel could have
allowed the rebels to hold the Jews as bargaining chips with Israel or the
United States. A total of 14,324 Ethiopian Jews were rescued and
resettled in Israel, a modern exodus of the grandest design. Operation
Solomon rescued twice the number of Jews in Operation Moses and
Joshua, in a mere fraction of the time. Though it is too early to predict
their impact on Israeli society, the 36,000 Ethiopian Jews now living in
Israel (rescue efforts are under way to transport the remaining 2,100
Ethiopians who wish to emigrate to Israel) will play an important role in
Israel for generations to come.
Editorial 11.14.08 Jerusalem
A day in Jerusalem
JERUSALEM — The sobering moment came yesterday. I was with some folks from the
Minneapolis area, part of the Federation’s “Israel @ 60 Mission,” touring Hadassah-Ein Kerem
hospital, one of the amazing medical facilities in the Jewish state founded by Hadassah, the
Women’s Zionist Organization of America.
The hospital spokesman, Ron Krumer, led us through the children’s hospital and then moderated
a program about the Israel National Tissue Bank. The new unit’s director, Dr. Keren Meir, a
board certified pathologist at Hadassah-Ein Kerem, explained her work in establishing a center
for “biobanking” in Israel. Collecting tissue samples for the use of Israeli hospitals, and medical
centers abroad, will provide a valuable resource for doctors trying to treat patients with cancer
and other diseases.
Meir, who looks like a character out of ER or Grey’s Anatomy (I refer to the shows generically as
Pretty Doctors), mentioned that she was selected to set up the tissue bank by Dr. Aaron
Chiechanover, a co-recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and a Hadassah-Ein Kerem
luminary, and two of Chiechanover’s colleages (“the three wise men,” she called them).
Back to the sobering moment. We toured the 700-bed hospital, with 120 outpatient clinics, which
treats patients from all sectors of Israeli society — Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, tourists
and visiting dignitaries. Of course, we were ushered into the hospital chapel and saw the
amazingly beautiful, whimsical, symbol-laden stained-glass windows by Marc Chagall. (On a
less aesthetic note, we were shown the “VIP suite,” an emergency bed set in alcove, behind
wooden sliding doors to seclude it from the other beds in the ER; this is where Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon was treated after he suffered his debilitating stroke.)
Before entering the Trauma/Shock Center of the hospital, our guide pointed out the vault-like
double doors at the entrance, and the heavy steel shutters that can slide across the windows in the
unit; there is also a sophisticated air-filtration system for this part of the hospital. These security
measures are designed to ensure that the hospital’s emergency staff can operate normally in an
emergency; they won’t have to wear cumbersome hazardous materials suits, if there is an
unconventional weapons attack on Jerusalem — if one of Israel’s enemies strikes with chemical
or biological bombs.
Standing inside the Trauma/Shock Center, empty of patients when we toured it on Monday, you
can imagine, perhaps, the scene when dozens of ambulances start pulling up at the door
delivering the broken and bleeding victims of a terrorist attack in downtown Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, the doctors and nurses at Hadassah-Ein Kerem are experienced in dealing with
such situations, which occurred with some frequency during recent years, when Palestinian
terrorists detonated their bomb belts within Israel. Lately, it has been quiet; but I was stopped in
my tracks, looking at the steel entrance doors to the Trauma/Shock Center and pondering life in a
society that is prepared for the day when an unimaginable act of terror is loosed upon its citizens.
They are not playing around in Jerusalem. This is the Middle East — a rough neighborhood, as
the saying goes.
We arrived in Jerusalem last Friday, after Americans voted and elected Sen. Barack Obama as
their next president. The election results were met with jubilation by the throngs in Chicago and
other U.S. cities, and by those around the globe who hope that change in America will offer a
measure of positive improvement in their lives. So, it has been somewhat disconcerting to find
that there is one group that for the most part is not excited by the Obama victory — Jews in
Israel.
Change we can do without, sums up the thinking of many Israelis I’ve talked to over the past few
days.
For example, the other day in Independence Park behind the Sheraton Plaza hotel, where the
Minneapolis Jewish Federation delegation is staying, I chatted with Theo Bloomfield, a
Connecticut native who’s been living in Israel for 35 years. He was out on a lovely afternoon
walking his dog, a Pomeranian-Welsh terrier-toy fox terrier mix named Prince Scrumptious
Peanut. So what’s the problem with Obama?
“Big question mark,” Bloomfield, a fit-looking man in his early 60s, replied.
Unlike the current occupant of the White House, Israelis generally feel uneasy about the policies
toward the Jewish state that will be developed by an Obama administration.
“The Jews liked Bush because he kept America safe and he kept Israel safe,” Bloomfield
ventured. “The rest was a disaster, I’m sure.”
Pressed on the specifics of his analysis, Bloomfield allowed that he “exaggerated” somewhat;
Israelis were not safe in 2006, when Hezbollah terrorists fired 4,000 Katyusha rockets into the
north of the country. But Bloomfield, who ran two small hotels in the Old City for many years,
maintained that American Jews “miss the whole jihad mentality” of the Muslims living in and
around Israel. The notion of “killing for God” is built into the culture, he said. If only a tiny
fraction of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world act on an extreme interpretation of their religious
ideology, that means big trouble for Israel and the West, Bloomfield contended.
“There never will be peace,” he said.
On Bloomfield’s point about Bush vs. Obama, Caroline Glick, a columnist for the Jerusalem
Post, wrote the other day: “Whatever the Obama administration's position on Israel may be, it
will not be more supportive of the country than the Bush administration has been. And over the
past year, the supportive Bush administration has decided not to prevent Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons and not to support an Israeli effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear
weapons.”
Glick continued: “If Israel's next prime minister intends to prevent Teheran from acquiring the
means to implement its stated aim of destroying Israel, he or she must be prepared to stand up to
America. Indeed, the greatest diplomatic challenge he or she will likely face will be standing up
to a popular new President Obama, supported by large Democratic majorities in both houses of
Congress and the overwhelming majority of American Jewish voters.”
As Israelis prepare for national elections next Feb.10 — after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
resigned in September, in the midst of various fraud and corruption investigations — the pundits
and politicians are making arguments about which political alignment would match up best
against an Obama administration. The Kadima and Labor partisans on the left of the spectrum
argue that their candidates could work well with Obama; and Netanyahu, a “Republican,” would
have difficulties with the Democratic officials on the other side of the ocean. Glick, cited above,
and others on the Right here, see the need for a leader in Israel who will oppose Obama and the
Democrats, who are seen as capitulating to Tehran and ready to endanger Israelis by making
territorial concessions to the Palestinians.
But that’s not the whole story. There are Israelis who still have hopes for an Israeli-Palestinian
peace settlement, along the lines of the 1993 Oslo accords, the two-state solution.
Talia Sasson, a former legal advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on settlements, illegal
outposts and the rule of law in the occupied territories, told me that “Americans can contribute a
lot” to alleviating suffering in the Middle East.
She said that she’s “excited” by the possibilities presented by the incoming Obama
administration: “I have great expectations of Obama.”
Sasson, who visited the Jewish World offices last July, allowed that Obama “has so many
problems to deal with,” but hopes that “he has time to think” about a solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conundrum.
And she expressed concerns about the continual building of Jewish housing in the West Bank.
Contrary to the stated desire of the Israeli government to work toward a partition of the land,
they continue to “increase settlements” in territory that would be turned over to the Palestinians
in a peace deal, Sasson noted. On this contradiction between the rhetoric and the deeds of the
Israeli government, Sasson suggested that we keep an eye on “what is happening on the ground”
— the actions that make an eventual settlement of the conflict more difficult.
As a lawyer who has mediated many thorny cases, Sasson said that an equitable settlement of the
long-running struggle requires that each party “see the other side” — both Israelis and
Palestinians have to acknowledge the needs of the other side, and make concessions to reach an
agreement.
The bottom line, according to Sasson, is that “both people need peace.”
We have come to Israel as the nation observes the yahrzeit of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin; it is
13 years since a Jewish Israeli assassination took the life of warrior turned peacemaker. And as I
write, residents of Jerusalem are voting for a new mayor; municipal elections are taking place
across Israel. In a kind of historical overlay to the present batch of problems in Israel, there have
been commemorations this week of the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom that
led to the destruction of six million European Jews. (Members of our group toured the new
museum at Yad Vashem yesterday, and returned to the bus teary and red-eyed, emotionally
overwhelmed.)
I’ve touched on some pressing issues in Israel, in my first dispatch from this ever-fascinating
country; there are other heartening things happening here, and I will be writing a series of
articles upon my return. For now there are more words about Israel, and some great photos (if I
do say so myself), that can be viewed at: ajwnews.com.
Now I’m going to shut down the MacBook and enjoy the balmy afternoon in Jerusalem. I’ll see
you next week
— Mordecai Specktor
editor@ajwnews.com