The journey to reach the dream

BARRY DAVIS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

One could say that moving to Israel has brought out the writer in Abraham Edga, although he has paid a heavy price for his literary laurels. As a young Jew living in the town of Gonder in northern Ethiopia, Edga had two dreams – to visit Jerusalem and to become an engineer. Both came true, and now Edga has added the epithet "author" to his CV with his self-published The Journey to the Dream, which tells the story of his perilous journey from Ethiopia to Israel and his experiences in the Promised Land.

Thirty-seven year-old Edga, now a construction engineer working at the Technion in Haifa, says he had no premeditated intention of becoming a writer.

"The Journey to the Dream was born out of the necessity to expose the painful truth about the Ethiopian community's tortuous odyssey to Israel," Edga said. "Now that I have a second book at the editing stage, I suppose that makes me an author. There's a third book in the works too. Things are starting to get interesting." The Journey to the Dream, written in Hebrew and financed and distributed by Edga, is currently being translated into English.

Before the early-'80s, most people in Israel were unaware of the fact that there were Jews in Ethiopia who had maintained their dream of living in the Jewish homeland for thousands of years, despite having little or no contact with the rest of the global Jewish community. Events in the late-19th and first half of the 20th century were to put the issue of the Ethiopian community on a back burner as waves of immigrants to Palestine and, later, Israel flooded in, mostly from Europe, Russia and various Arab countries. It was only after Menahem Begin became prime minister in the late-'70s that things began to move and thousands of Jews were smuggled out of Ethiopia.

Edga made it to Israel as a fresh-faced but weary teenager in 1984, after experiencing almost intolerable hardship and several life-threatening situations. He made his way on foot from his home in Gonder to Sudan, over hundreds of kilometres of difficult terrain, traversing mountains and jungles, enduring severe blisters on his feet that almost incapacitated him, and near starvation.

But, despite the horrors of his two-month trek to Sudan, once there, he decided he couldn't continue on to Israel without his family. Edga remained in Sudan for another year and did his best to help his parents and siblings and other Ethiopians realize their own Zionist dream.

Although Edga tells his story in The Journey to the Dream with great passion, and describes his and others' hardships in graphic detail, he feels he is luckier than most.

"The book is not really about me," he said, modestly. "I only have a small role in the whole story. There were about 20,000 of us who made the trip from Ethiopia to Sudan, but only 16,000 made it to Israel."

Among the 4,000 who were either killed by robbers or just didn't have the strength to go on were relatives and friends of Edga although, happily, his own parents and siblings all eventually made it to Israel.

"I am one of the lucky ones. I have lots of friends who were periodically informed of the deaths of their parents or other members of their families."

Edga and his fellow Ethiopian Jews were warmly welcomed on their arrival and quickly began the process of absorption familiar to all new immigrants. However, there were some unforeseen hurdles to be navigated before they could begin to feel at home. Despite maintaining their Jewish practices and customs in cultural and religious isolation for thousands of years, questions were raised regarding their right to be called Jews. Much rabbinical and political wrangling ensued, and some of the newcomers were required to undergo a mikveh (ritual bath) ceremony in order to qualify for full Jewish status. Demonstrations were held and some became disillusioned and bitter over what they felt was unfair treatment by a country that they considered their natural homeland, and after having risked so much to reach it.

"The problem still exists today," said Edga. "People think it has been solved, but it hasn't. I address this issue in my second book. As long as the Jewish identity of the community is in question, it will be hard for us to complete our absorption into Israeli society. My ID card has me down as a Jew. That was the result of the demonstrations in 1986, but there are others who are still not considered fully Jewish."

However, Edga's own aliyah seems to have worked out in the end. Having left school in Ethiopia at the age of 16, he had to complete his high school graduation diploma in Israel. He subsequently served in the Israel Defence Forces and qualified as a construction engineer.

So, despite all the ongoing socio-ethnic problems, does Edga believe his fellow Ethiopian-born Israelis will, one day, feel fully at home in their spiritual homeland?

"My aliyah story is not typical," said Edga. "I have done well but we need more people from the community to raise their heads. In this country, trying to get things done generally involves achieving a position of influence within the political system, or finding supportive politicians to further your cause."

Edga's own absorption really only came to fruition after he published The Journey to the Dream. While the idea of putting his experiences down on paper for all to read had been brewing in his head for quite a while, he received the final push to do something about it in 1996, when he led a youth mission to Los Angeles to take part in Anti-Defamation League-sponsored activities.

"Members of the Jewish community there kept asking me questions about my aliyah, and how I felt in Israel," Edga recalled. "I gave them general answers but they wanted to know details of my own personal story."

It took Edga four years and a lot of heartache to complete the book but he says he has no regrets. "It wasn't easy for me to get the book out – I'm still funding it myself – but it became a sort of life project. I had to dredge up some very painful memories but, in the end, it was a kind of catharsis for me. I feel a lot lighter now that it's out there."

Barry Davis is a freelance writer with the Israel Press Service.

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