Ethiopian Jewish Immigrants In Israel

This is an ethnographic study of Ethiopian Jews, or Beta Israel, a few years after their migration from rural Ethiopia to urban Israel. For the Beta Israel, the most significant issue is not, as is commonly assumed, adaptation to modern society, but rather 'belonging' in their new homeland, and the loss of control they are experiencing over their lives and those of their children. Ethiopian Jewish immigrants resist those aspects of the dominant society which they dislike: they reject normative Jewish practices and uphold Beta Israel religious and cultural ones, ideologically counteract disparaging Israeli attitudes, develop strong ethnic bonds and engage in overt forms of resistance. The difficulties of the present are also overcome by creating a perfect past and an ideal future: in what the author calls 'the homeland postponed', all Jews will be united in a colour-blind world of material plenty and purity.

Between 1977 and 1992, practically all Ethiopian Jews migrated to Israel. This mass move followed the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia and its ensuing economic and political upheavals, compounded by the brutality of the military regime and the willingness—after years of refusal—of the Israeli government to receive them as bona fide Jews entitled to immigrate to that country. As the sole Jewish community from sub-Sahara Africa in Israel, the Ethiopian Jews have met with unique difficulties. Based on fieldwork conducted over several years, For Our Soul describes the ongoing process of adjustment and absorption that the Ethiopian Jewish immigrants, also known as Falasha or Beta Israel, experienced in Israel.

Ethiopian Jews have been immigrating to Israel in ever increasing numbers since 1979. This volume describes the phenomenon and explains the issues related to the Ethiopians' absorption by Israeli society. The authors explore the immigrant's lives as Ethiopians, the experience of other waves of immigrants to Israel, and applicability of theoretical issues deriving mass immigration in the experience of other societies. They examine the effects of immigration on the immigrants as well as on the host itself. The volume addresses a broad range of themes deriving from the very real problems inherent in this immigration. It will be of value to all those interested in Middle Eastern and immigration studies. Michael Ashkenazi is the senior instructor of anthropology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He is the author, with Alex Weingrod, of Ethiopian Immigrants in Beersheva: An Anthropological Study. Alex Weingrod is the Chilewich Professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He is the author of After the Ingathering: Studies in Israeli Ethnicity; Israel: A Study in Group Relations; and Reluctant Pioneers.

This text seeks to describe the transitions endured by Jews living in Ethiopia who made their way to Israel. It looks at the historical background and the range of issues which have affected this group of people.

Between 1977 and 1985, some 20,000 Ethiopian Jews left their homes in Ethiopia and embarked on a secret and highly traumatic exodus to Israel. Due to various political circumstances they had to leave their homes in haste, go a long way on foot through unknown country, and stay for a period of one or two years in refugee camps, until they were brought to Israel. The difficult conditions of the journey included racial tensions, attacks by bandits, night travel over mountains, incarceration, illness, and death. A fifth of the group did not survive the journey. This interdisciplinary, ground-breaking book focuses on the experience of this journey, its meaning for the people who made it, and its relation to the initial encounter with Israeli society. The author argues that powerful processes occur on such journeys that affect the individual and community in life-changing ways, including their initial encounter with and adaptation to their new society. Analyzing the psychosocial impact of the journey, he examines the relations between coping and meaning, trauma and culture, and discusses personal development and growth. "His beautifully written bookof great importancebrings the reader close to a community whose miraculous destiny serves as an inspiration."--Elie Wiesel Gadi BenEzer is a senior lecturer of psychology and anthropology at the Department of Behavioral Sciences in the College of Management in Tel Aviv. In the last two decades, he has worked as a psychotherapist and organizational psychologist with the Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Israel. He has written extensively on Ethiopian Jews, trauma and life stories, and cross-cultural psychotherapy. His book on the immigration and integration of the Ethiopian Jews has become the main text on the subject in Israel.

For decade the Falashas - the Black Jews of Ethiopia - have fascinated scholars. Are they really Jews and in what sense? How can their origins be explained? Since the Falashas' transfer to Israel in the much publicised Israeli air lifts the fascination has continued and and new factors are now being discussed. Written by the leading scholars in the field the essays in this collection examine the history, music, art, anthropology and current situations of the Ethopian Jews. Issues examined include their integration into Middle Eastern society, contacts between the Falasha and the State of Israel how the Falasha became Jews in the first place.

"In 1977 there were about one hundred Ethiopian Jews in Israel; now there are more than one hundred thousand. Their exodus from their native land and their mass immigration to Israel is a unique historical event." "This book is the first one to recount in photographs and candid interviews the challenging and inspiring accomplishments of Ethiopian Jews struggling to become Ethiopian Israelis. Featuring more than fifty men and women - religious leaders, soldiers, lawyers, students, actors, musicians, a member of the Knesset, and more - this book reveals their personal stories. A historical narrative that traces how some Ethiopians became Jewish and how they got to Israel. Then, in their own words, they reveal how they experience Israel as a part of its most impoverished and culturally different minority." "Their dream is to become accepted and integrated without losing their own character, identity and values. They declare their devotion to their religious homeland and to overcoming the illiteracy, unemployment, crime and alienation that have plagued their community."--BOOK JACKET.

Systems of state education are a crucial means for realizing the state’s focal aspiration of guaranteeing solidarity and civil loyalty (Van Kemenade, 1985 pp. 854ff. ). The means at hand include the state’s structuring and organization of schooling, determination of what education is compulsory, examinations that decide admittance to institutions of secondary and tertiary education, the design of educational aids, curricula, textbooks, didactic methods, and the general distribution of resources to schools. A further apparatus is that of teacher education and the regulations for appointment to the schools and remuneration (van Kemenade, 1985, p. 850). There are indications that the issue of equality and equity for all in education is a dilemma prevalent in systems of state education, among others, because the advancement of equity is liable to interfere with the state’s main goal. It is highly likely that the failing does not derive from contingent misund- standings, but rather from systemic contradictions. With this in mind, this book suggests a broad-spectrum approach to understanding how state education gets done, so to speak, and what in the process seems to obstruct impartiality. The case that I will examine is that of the state system of education in Israel. Underlying the study is the sociological assumption that an analysis of how one state system works is likely to bear a message that can be generalized.