Rabbi promotes self-help among his fellow Ethiopians

Rabbi Yafet Alemu, the Ethiopian community's first Conservative rabbi in Israel, told about the "miracles" of his survival and aliya at Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston on Nov. 14. Photo by Johanna Ginsberg

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer
11.22.07

Rabbi Yafet Alemu tells a familiar but no less compelling story of his trek from Ethiopia to Israel in 1983. It includes the miracles that allowed him to escape the government's wrath at his departure and to elude a band of robbers at the border with Sudan.

But that is only the prologue to the story that Alemu told, in halting English, in a talk on Nov. 14 at Temple Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Livingston. Over 60 people attended.

After arriving in Israel in 1983, Alemu saw the vast poverty of his compatriots. He realized that many Ethiopians were having great difficulty adjusting to Israeli life.

“We came from the farthest country. It is far from modern. We come to Yisrael, and we have problems. It is very different. We have a lot of problems,” he said.

In 2004, he launched Equal Opportunity for Ethiopian Jews in Israel. “We can reach the community from within, and we can break the cycle of poverty,” he said.

Alemu is among the small percentage of educated Ethiopians. He attended school in his native country and was serving as a rabbi in the community, although he acknowledged he had not yet completed his studies. When he arrived in Israel, he learned Hebrew and then received a formal education, earning a nursing degree from Tel Aviv University. When he received rabbinic ordination from the Conservative movement's Schechter Institute in Israel in 2000, he became the Ethiopian community's first Conservative rabbi.

He then participated in the Mandel School for Educational Leadership.

Too many Ethiopians do not understand the importance of education, he said.

“Eighty percent have never been in school. Twenty percent have been in a school. This 20 percent is very successful in Israeli society today. That 80 percent is a problem,” he said.

When Ethiopians begin their schooling as teenagers, they are put with kids who have been in the education system their whole lives. The child with no prior education, he said, will have trouble.

“How can he manage? Sometimes he'll become disturbed. Why disturbed? Because he doesn't understand. It is not interesting for him,” Alemu said. “And the easy thing for this kid is to leave and be out of the school and easily go to drugs. And there are many things in the street that tempt the children.”

Alemu estimates that out of 120,000 Ethiopian children in Israel today, 40 percent drop out of school; 4,000 are now on the streets. “That's a catastrophe for us,” he said.

EOEJ's first project is the Family Education Initiative, which provides workshops for entire families that teach parents how to take responsibility and act on behalf of the children. The workshops focus not only on the importance of education, but also on how to manage the Israeli educational bureaucracy.

Instead of bringing in outside experts, EOEJ turns to the educated people within the Ethiopian community, training them to run the programs in their neighborhoods.

So far, EOEJ has launched four pilot workshops, two in Beit Shemesh and two in Jerusalem. Workshops are held once each week through the academic year. FEI is run with the assistance of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Israel Association of Community Centers.

“We empower the family to take responsibility for their children,” said Alemu.

He came to Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston not only to share his story, but also to seek financial support for EOEJ and FEI.

The synagogue has decided to respond to Alemu's request.

The synagogue “will be working closely with Rabbi Alemu to help him further develop his important programs,” Barry Wolfe, the temple's adult education chair, wrote in an e-mail following the event. “And we look forward to spearheading an initiative to assist Israel's Ethiopian community through fund-raising and other direct support.”

Looking forward, Alemu said education is just the first step. Using the same model of workshops offered by people within the community, EOEJ will teach people how to find a good job and connect them to Israeli history.

Alemu said he plans to tackle the many social issues within the community, one by one, until Ethiopian Jews are completely equal in Israeli society.

“We can do it,” he said.

A modern-day Exodus

IN 1982, with Ethiopia under communist rule, Yafet Alemu, then 21, decided he wanted to go to Israel. But after a first failed attempt, the government planned to throw him in prison. So he tried again. He kissed his daughter, sought his grandfather's blessing, and began a journey that would take him across the desert and out of the country.

The first step was going from Addis Ababa to Gondar, an 800-mile journey, on a series of busses. On one of those bus trips, a special unit of government soldiers got on, demanding that everyone show their papers.

“I felt they were sent to catch me,” Alemu said. “What could I do? I remembered the parasha in the Tanach and the story of Daniel” in the lions' den, he said. “I prayed.”

And then, inspiration hit. He stood up and started collecting ID cards and papers as if to help the special officer.

“I give them to him, and this guy forgets to check. He looks at the papers and gives them back to me and says, ‘Go in shalom.'”

Alemu, who had been sure he would die on that bus, believes his survival was a miracle. “It was the Kadosh Baruch Hu, God,” he said.

It was only the first of two miracles he believes God performed for him. After leaving Gondar, he began walking through the desert from village to village, a journey that took 27 days. On the last day, just before crossing the border into Sudan, he was attacked by a band of robbers.

“They took all that I had, even what I was wearing.” He said he cried to God, “The only thing I asked was to go to Yisrael that you promised to Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov. What I did in this world?”

Once again, inspiration hit. “Clothes they can take. Money they can take. But the words you put here, nobody can take,” he said pointing to his head. Again, he said, “Hakadosh Baruch Hu came and showed a miracle.” Ultimately it was the robbers themselves who took him across.

Once in Sudan, Alemu spent four months at a UN facility before immigrating to Israel. He recalled the moment he arrived. “I kneeled down and said, ‘God, you don't forget your promise. You bring me back here to the land you promised to Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov,' and I cried. When I cried, it was a cry of happiness.”

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