From Immigration to Integration

Once at the bottom rung of society, Ethiopian Israelis are showing signs of a breakthrough

Few immigrants to Israel since World War II have endured as grueling a journey to Israel as the Ethiopians. Nearly all Ethiopian Israelis have experienced months-long treks through deserts, time spent in refugee camps, losing family members and then the woes of being absorbed into a competitive economy and modern culture.

Coming from a third-world country where electricity and technology were luxuries, many Ethiopians didn’t even know what a refrigerator was and used it as a shoe cabinet when they first got to Israel. But they had followed their faith and a life-long desire to live in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).

Most Ethiopian Jews arrived in Israel on two spectacular airlifts: Operation Moses brought 8,000 in 1984 and Operation Solomon brought 14,000 in 1991.

Integration has been challenging. The stereotype of Ethiopian Israelis in their relatively short three-decade existence here has been that of cleaners and security guards—the lowest paying jobs with no need for education. But now first- and second-generation immigrants are tenaciously delving into society and reaching new levels of success.

Bat-El Ananya is one example. She knew that if she was going to succeed in Israel it was going to be by relentlessly pursuing a degree—she did not want to be a cleaner. But she was off to a late start having immigrated at the age of 9. She spent two to three years in an intensive Hebrew course, had to make new friends, deal with culture shock, go to a new school and acclimatize to new challenges.

“All this to deal with as a child is huge,” she said. “But I very much wanted to advance and become a full member of Israeli society and learn a good profession.”

Now she’s a lawyer and works at Tebeka, an organization that represents Ethiopian Israelis, many of whom are unaware of their rights. Because many of the older generation haven’t fully learned Hebrew, they are easily taken advantage of when it comes to getting fired or being compensated. Anaya learned that in Israel, it takes more than just education to succeed. The biggest hurdle of mild-mannered Ethiopians is sometimes in modifying their behavior.

“It’s hard to act with Israeli chutzpah, but you have to,” she said. “I grew up with both cultures, a very fantastic mixture. I learned both, but for the older Ethiopians, it’s hard to deal with.”

A recent government report confirmed that the 110,000-strong Ethiopian community has had trouble assimilating. Ethiopians tend to live in the suburbs where housing is cheaper, but jobs are sparser. Many men, in fact, live in the cities during the week two or more hours away from home.

About a third of all spousal killings in Israel in 2006 involved Ethiopians, more than 20 percent of children do not go to school and about a quarter of teenagers use drugs, according to reports from the National Ethiopian Project. Even Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted mistakes in absorption: “The [Ethiopian] immigrants sought to feel like a drop that returned to the ocean; however, they were not received with open arms, but with alienation and sometimes racism.”

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein heads the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), an organization that has sponsored programs to help young Ethiopians succeed in Israel. He fears that racism may creep into Israeli society based on misconceptions and stereotypes of jobs and education.

“We won’t be able to integrate the Ethiopians here fully until we feel, we understand, we know the path and history they went through to get here,” said Eckstein, who speaks some Amharic and has visited Ethiopia.

The IFCJ sponsors a program to train Ethiopian university graduates as journalists and another program with the Tebeka Center to place Ethiopians with higher education in solid jobs. The programs help do what any first-generation immigrant cannot: network.

“We don’t have fathers who have connections—we need help to achieve our dream,” said Tal Chekol, now an attorney. He recalled how he closed the gap after arriving in Israel at age 8 and only starting school at 11. Chekol passed the bar exam and eventually landed a job, also at Tebeka.

“Ethiopians often don’t know how to access services in Israel and are embarrassed to ask for help,” said Jennifer Kaplan, founder of Project Sheba, which also seeks to make connections where none may exist. “They live at such a grassroots level that they do not think about basic things.”

Project Sheba helps families in attaining basic services and tutoring students because their parents can’t help. Later, it eases the transition for parents when the children become their teachers because they know more Hebrew and dove more quickly into the new culture.

“The quiet, refined respectful child of Ethiopia becomes the talkative, outgoing sabra [native-born Israeli] who knows more about Israeli society than his parents,” Kaplan told Israel Today.

Enuue Shimrit Kassa walked through Sudan for a month, spent a year in a refugee camp and lost part of her family trying to get to Israel. But now she appears to have fully integrated. She is assertive, strong and publicly disagrees with her elders—a far cry from the docile culture of the north African nation. She didn’t get to this point, however, without a massive identity crisis.

“When I was 16-17 years old, I rejected my own culture,” she recalled. “I didn’t want to be Ethiopian, just Israeli. I was ashamed of my parents—they couldn’t come to my school, couldn’t speak the language. I felt I’m the parents of my parents.”

Kassa is a radio news presenter now and, like her, these success stories are finally becoming more commonplace among the Ethiopian community.

“The Former Soviet Union immigrants come educated mostly,” Micha Feldman, one of the driving forces behind Ethiopian immigration, explained. “Ethiopian adults are illiterate in their own language. Kids came disadvantaged into the school system. Therefore the accomplishment on their side is so big.”