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"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

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Tag: Ethiopian-Israelis

In Jerusalem for Sigd

In Jerusalem for Sigd

Standing on the Haas Promenade in southern Jerusalem overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem, the Ethiopian priests wore traditional clothing and carried parasols. (photo by Gil Zohar)

Approximately one-third of Israel’s 125,000-strong Ethiopian Jewish community came from across the country on Nov. 27, the 29th of Cheshvan in Judaism’s lunar calendar, for the festival Sigd. The mass clan gathering takes place 50 days after Yom Kippur, just as the holiday of Shavuot is celebrated 50 days after Passover.

Sigd, derived from the Hebrew word for prostration sgida, celebrates the renewal of the covenant between God and the Jewish people that followed the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel from the Babylonian exile 2,600 years ago, as described in the biblical book Nehemiah.

Symbolizing the Ethiopians’ rapid acculturation from rural Ethiopia to Israel’s high-tech start-up nation, many elders wore traditional clothing while teenagers preferred skin-tight jeans and Israel Defence Forces (IDF) khaki. Many celebrants were chatting on their cellphones.

The central event of the Sigd celebration was the priestly blessing by the kessim (spiritual leaders) in Geez, the sacred language used by Ethiopian Jews in their liturgy. Amharic, their traditional language today, has been widely displaced by Hebrew. Standing on the Haas Promenade in southern Jerusalem overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem, the priests wore traditional clothing and carried parasols.

Prior to being rescued from persecution and poverty in Africa in a series of military and espionage operations, including Operation Solomon in 1991 and continuing until today, Ethiopian Jews would ascend mountain tops above their villages in Gondar province for a mass Sigd prayer expressing their yearning for Zion. In Israel, the holiday has morphed into a day of thanksgiving for their rescue, as well their gratitude for the Torah and their cultural heritage, and most Ethiopian Jews under the age of 40 living in Israel only know those stories from their parents’ recounting. Children were not included in the Sigd observances in Ethiopia, both because of the difficulties of making a three-day trek up a mountain and to preserve the solemnity of the day.

photo - Among Ethiopian-Israelis, Sigd has morphed into a day of thanksgiving for their rescue, as well their gratitude for the Torah and their cultural heritage
Among Ethiopian-Israelis, Sigd has morphed into a day of thanksgiving for their rescue, as well their gratitude for the Torah and their cultural heritage. (photo by Gil Zohar)

Mingling with the colourful costumes and umbrellas of the older generation are the uniforms of the hundreds of Ethiopian men and women serving in the IDF. With the autumn temperature still summer-like, many youth are wearing skin-tight clothing that would have scandalized their elders in Ethiopia.

Among the elders is Rabbi David Yosef, a silver-bearded kes wearing a crocheted kippah, who explained how Sigd fits into the life of Ethiopian Jews.

The ancient community, which may date back to King Solomon and his dalliance with the Queen of Sheba 3,000 years ago, became cut off from mainstream Jewry, he says. More historically, Jews lived in Ethiopia from before the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE when the Babylonian conquerors of the Holy Land arrived. Driven into exile, these Jews considered themselves to stem from the tribe of Dan, one of the 10 lost tribes. Many were compelled to convert to Christianity in the 19th and 20th centuries but the community continued to dream and pray for a return to Jerusalem.

Starting in 1973, Ethiopian Jews suffered terribly under the dictator Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam. When Israel became aware of their plight, significant investigation and research was done, leading to a rabbinic ruling that accepts the Ethiopian Jews as part of the Jewish nation, entitling them to immigrate to Israel under the Jewish state’s Law of Return. That paved the way for 8,000 Ethiopian Jews to move to Israel. But then Mengistu forbade Jews to leave the country, and that led to the decision to covertly bring them to Israel. The 2019 Netflix movie The Red Sea Diving Resort recounts one of the Mossad’s rescue operations.

Nevertheless, some Israelis disputed the Ethiopians’ status as Jews. Rav Yosef carefully explained the Ethiopian Jewish engagement and wedding ceremonies and asserts that their practice conforms to the mishnaic description in Tractate Kiddushin (part of the Oral Law) of what constitutes proper Jewish betrothal. The community has always preserved its ritual status as Jews, he insisted.

“We missed Jerusalem for thousands of years,” he said. “Today, in Jerusalem, we celebrate … but, just as we say ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ at the Passover seder, so, too, at Sigd, we pray for a rebuilt Jerusalem.”

For Ziva, a 20-year-old from Ashkelon with braided hair, the Sigd celebration is a significant milestone. “I feel like it’s a day of unity for us,” she said.

For the young woman, who arrived in Israel with her parents 12 years ago, the observance of the ancient holiday reminds her that “there’s so much to remember.”

Giving the celebration the government’s seal of approval, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev both spoke, while President Reuven Rivlin delivered a video message.

The Ethiopian chief rabbi in Israel, Reuven Wabshat, said that, after the mass immigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, the decision had been taken by the community to continue celebrating the holiday, even though its essence is about the yearning to return to Jerusalem. He said the decision was made so that the community would not forget the “powerful heritage of Ethiopian Jewry,” and to help Israeli society understand the travails experienced by the Ethiopian Jewish community throughout their history.

photo - A large part of the Sigd celebration in Jerusalem is teaching about the Ethiopian community’s “ancient heritage, which every child should be proud of and pass on to the next generation”
A large part of the Sigd celebration in Jerusalem is teaching about the Ethiopian community’s “ancient heritage, which every child should be proud of and pass on to the next generation.” (photo by Gil Zohar)

The rabbi asserted that it was crucial for broader Israeli society to understand the Ethiopian Jewish community’s heritage and that it is an integral part of the Jewish people because of the “difficulties” the community has experienced in Israel.

The Ethiopian community has frequently complained of discrimination and racism against it and, in particular, has suffered from over-policing and a disproportionate number of arrests and indictments relative to its size. The recent death of Solomon Tekah, killed by a ricochet following an altercation between a group of youths and a police officer, led to renewed claims of police brutality, as well as protests and riots by members of the Ethiopian community. A previous bout of protests was sparked when video footage emerged of police officers beating an IDF soldier from the Ethiopian Jewish community.

“As you know, in recent years, the Ethiopian Jewish community has had difficult experiences, because people do not know and do not appreciate what Ethiopian Jews went through, and looked at things which are not relevant, such as differences in place of origin, but not the internal aspects of Ethiopian Jewry,” said Wabshat. “The Sigd holiday can bring people to the understanding and recognition that Ethiopian Jews are of the same flesh as all Jews around the world and, when the state recognizes Sigd, as it has, it means that we can all be one people.”

Among the kessim who participated in the prayers was Kes Mentasnut Govze from Beersheba. He explained how, in Ethiopia on Sigd, the Jewish community would travel to and ascend a mountain to “pray to God as one people with one heart that we would reach Jerusalem the next year and that the Temple would be rebuilt.”

Govze noted that, although the community has now reached Israel and Jerusalem, the Jewish people’s mission is not yet finished. “We still have not built the Temple and we must be clean,” he said. “If we go on the correct path, the path of the Torah, God will help us, we will build the Temple and bring the sacrifices.”

Member of Knesset Pnina Tamano-Shata described the holiday as “a big gift for Israeli society” since, she said, it could help unite the Jewish people. “It is so wonderful to see so many people here who are not from the Ethiopian community, and this holiday has become a holiday for all the Jewish people,” she said. “It is celebrated in kindergartens, schools, in the army, in local authorities, and the message is that this story is your story, it’s my story, and the story of all Jews, whether from Europe or from Arab countries.”

The MK said the identity of the Ethiopian Jewish community was strong, but noted the problems it has faced, including “difficulties which are connected to Israeli society, such as police violence, discrimination and racism,” but said the community has remained positive.

“We are positive and fully open to Israeli society, we are not in a place of antagonism, even though we have had a very hard, challenging and intensive year, and we are far from getting justice; nevertheless, everything has its time and period,” she said.

Michal Avera Samuel, director of the nongovernmental organization Fidel (Association for Education and Social Integration of Ethiopian Jews in Israel), said the thousands of people who came to the celebrations in Jerusalem came “to learn and understand the heritage of Ethiopian Jews, which is an ancient heritage, which every child should be proud of and pass on to the next generation.”

She added, “The goal is that, through studying in school and youth groups, we can teach the heritage of Ethiopian Jews, and build a courageous identity together with a sense of belonging within Israeli society.”

Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem, Israel.

 

Format ImagePosted on December 13, 2019December 12, 2019Author Gil ZoharCategories Celebrating the HolidaysTags culture, Ethiopian-Israelis, Judaism, Sigd

Racism must be curbed

In a world where Israel is accused of being an “apartheid state” and Zionism is equated with racism, it is understandable that we would recoil from accusations of actual racism in Israel, but we can’t afford to do so.

On June 30, 18-year-old Solomon Tekah was shot and killed by a police officer in Haifa. He is one of at least four Ethiopian-Israelis killed by police in recent years, while another seven deaths were cited as suicide or as being the result of uncertain causes after police encounters, according to community leaders. Reports of police brutality against the black community are alarming and suggest a systemic problem.

Supporters of Israel on social media like to celebrate Muslims, Druze and other minorities who reach the pinnacles of Israeli society, and so we should. But we should not restrain our criticism of serious racial injustice in that country just because of what outsiders might think. There have been struggles in Israel not only between Jews and Arabs, but around the treatment of and inequalities experienced by Sephardim and Mizrahim, Bedouins, Ethiopians and others. There are also legitimate concerns around the treatment of African asylum-seekers, concentrated in south Tel Aviv, who have been neglected and used as political footballs by politicians.

The New York Times Sunday compared the growing awareness of police brutality, as well as more casual racism, to the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. In addition to the most visible cases – police killings – the article also includes examples of pervasive prejudices, such as the Ethiopian-born head of a social services agency who was offered housecleaning work by strangers on the street, as but one example. Interestingly, even though one arm of the Israeli government coordinated the airlift of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews in 1991, another arm insisted on second, symbolic circumcisions for the men, whose Judaism was apparently legitimate enough for the Law of Return but somehow not legitimate enough for the state-sanctioned arbiters of religious identity.

It is particularly disheartening when one compares the racism experienced by Ethiopian-Israelis with the hopefulness this community carried with them to Israel. One individual said that arriving in Israel after journeying for two months was “like touching the moon.”

“Is this the Israel we dreamed of?” Zion Getahun remarked. “It’s a question I ask.”

In light of recent events, the minister for internal security, Gilad Erdan, is setting up a new unit “to fight expressions of racism wherever they exist,” to ensure that force is used by police responsibly and that “over-policing” – in which Ethiopian-Israelis say they feel like they are treated like automatic suspects – is brought to heel.

The parallels are notable with the situation in the United States, where African-Americans experience disproportionate brutality and deaths at the hands of police officers. Also similar are the fears of parents, like the mother who worries about the coming time when her now-11-year-old son will want to go out by himself.

What is notable in the Times article, which seems well presented and fair, is that, unlike African-Americans in the United States, Ethiopian-Israelis do not have nearly the same level of community leadership or representation in government and other places of power. They are a small minority of 150,000, lacking the established community organizations that African-Americans have built over generations.

This means that, more even than in the United States, and more than in Canada, where non-indigenous Canadians have begun to speak up on behalf of the rights of indigenous peoples here and to address the wrongs that have been perpetrated, the moral obligation falls even more heavily on people who do not belong to the affected communities to right these wrongs.

In Israel, there is a need to encourage and support communal leadership among Ethiopian-Israelis while simultaneously speaking out on their behalf when they experience discrimination. As supporters of Israel and as people who are proud of the many achievements of the Jewish state in creating an enviable society nearly from scratch in an historical blink of an eye, we, too, have a voice.

Express concerns to Israeli family and friends, send support to the myriad organizations that build connections across Israel’s many divides and, while we’re at it, consider whether we can improve our own attitudes about and treatment of people who are different from us.

Posted on July 19, 2019July 18, 2019Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags Ethiopian-Israelis, Israel, politics, racism
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