Ethiopian children steal hearts at absorption center

By Deborah Moon Seldner

article created on:

Israel has brought more than 75,000 Ethiopians to Israel in the past three decades—the only time black Africans have been taken out of Africa for freedom, not for slavery, Micah Feldman told Portlanders visiting Israel last month.
Ethiopian Israelis revere Feldman as Abba Micah, father Micah, because he, like Moses, led them to the Promised Land. Feldman was one of the chief architects of Operation Solomon, which brought 14,310 Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa to Israel over just one weekend in May 1991.
"Absorption is the great challenge," Feldman said when he met the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland mission for dinner on their first night in Israel. "In order not to have a black underclass, we have to invest in education."
Feldman said he would like all Ethiopian children to be able to attend afternoon education programs to help them catch up to their native Israeli peers.
He said the government does provide funding for up to seven years of college for any Israeli born in Ethiopia. About 3,000 Ethiopian Israelis are now attending college, he said.

"I am proud of the students in college, the officers in the army, the lawyers ?" he said. "But I forget my pride when I see a girl in a tight skirt with a cigarette in her hand at the train station and I know why she is there. We are not allowed to forget about her too. They are our children as well."
Feldman said absorbing and integrating the Ethiopians is a very complex.
"We should do more," he said. "Maybe in 20 years I will say we have succeeded."
With Feldman's introduction to the problems faced by Ethiopians integrating into Israeli society, the group's visit to the country's largest absorption center a few days later was even more meaningful.
The 33 Oregonians visited Mevasseret Zion, one of 33 absorption centers in Israel run by the Jewish Agency for Israel, which receives significant funding from North American Jewish federations through United Jewish Communities. Mevasseret Zion houses about 1,500 of the approximately 10,000 Ethiopians currently living in Israeli absorption centers.
"This is where the magic, the miracle starts," said JAFI employee Daniel Tuksar, himself an immigrant from Croatia. "An absorption center is a soft landing spot in Israel."
Tuksar introduced the Americans to the absorption center as they sat in front of a Tukul, a traditional Ethiopian house built by the new olim at the center.
"This is a place to be proud of their Ethiopian culture," Tuksar said. "Israel is a mosaic of all cultures, not a melting pot. That makes Israel so beautiful."
The group then visited with children in the center's preschool program and seemed to quickly fall under the spell of the engaging children.
"The kids were beautiful," said Stan Marcus, one of the mission co-chairs. "I slapped hands and tickled tummies and had a great time."
"This is what I've done my entire adult life as a solicitor for federation—to be a small part of bringing people to Israel and to support Jewish life in Israel and around the world," said Marcus. "I'm a Zionist for other people. It's a pleasure for me to see what we have done to make a place for Jews to come to from Ethiopia, from Argentina, from the former Soviet Union ?"