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July 6, 2007
Learning a new culture
Sharon Shalom fosters acceptance of community.
BATSHEVA POMERANTZ ISRAEL PRESS SERVICE
Rabbi Sharon Shalom (formerly Zaude Taspei), a university lecturer
and leader in Israel's Ethiopian community, experienced a strong
connection to Jerusalem as a child.
"Everything was about Jerusalem," he said. "A stork
flying in the sky was obviously flying there. As a seven-year-old,
I asked my grandfather to show me where Jerusalem was. He pointed
in the general direction. I set out in that direction and was lost
for three days.
"As a boy, I thought that Jerusalem was lined with gold. I
pictured a country flowing with milk and honey, where everyone is
Jewish," continued the 33-year-old, whose lectures about the
history and tradition of the Beta Israel (Jews of Ethiopian origin),
their yearning for Jerusalem and the challenges they face in Israel
fascinate audiences in the country and abroad.
In early 1980, with famine, disease and oppression rampant in Ethiopia,
the clandestine rescue of Ethiopian Jews was high on Israel's agenda.
"I remember a Jewish Agency emissary coming to our village,"
said Shalom. "We called him faranji, stranger, but we
wanted to meet with him since he was a Jew from Jerusalem."
In 1981, Shalom and his family left their village in the Tigre region
of Ethiopia for Israel. They trekked for more than two months to
Sudan. Exposed to bandits, hunger and disease, they thought they
would shortly reach Jerusalem. Some Beta Israel, however, remained
in the Sudanese refugee camps for up to six years.
With the child mortality rate in the camps extremely high, a number
of parents made the heartrending decision to send their children
alone to Israel. In 1982, eight-year-old Shalom, his family's firstborn,
arrived in Israel on his own as part of the Bat Galim operation
of the Israeli navy's commando unit. "We kissed the ground
of the land of Israel with great excitement," said Shalom.
"We felt we had come home. This was the realization of a dream,
because we had felt like strangers in Ethiopia."
The authorities changed his name from Zaude to Sharon, and he was
sent to a children's home in Afula. Shortly afterwards, he received
word that his parents had died. For two years, he believed he was
an orphan, until one day, the dormitory director informed him that
his parents were alive and well in Israel. "When I met my parents
and brothers after their aliyah," Shalom recalled, "I
felt as if they had returned from the dead!"
His parents moved to Kiryat Gat in the south, where they live today,
not far from Shalom and his family.
Since very few Ethiopians lived in Israel at the time, Shalom felt
as if people were always looking at him. "I felt different,"
he said, "just as I had in Ethiopia."
Over the years, however, he learned to take onlookers' curious stares
in his stride. "One must flow with the current and deal with
it in a positive way," he observed. "It is a given in
Israel that the veterans feel superior to the newcomers in every
wave of immigration. Although it was hard to bridge the gap between
the dream of Jerusalem and the reality, it was still easier for
me than for the older people."
Shalom studied at the yeshivah high school in Merkaz Shapira, and
eventually became a regular guest at the home of Israeli-born dormitory
director Rabbi Aryeh Shalom.
"By being allowed into his home, my perspective changed,"
he said. "Ethiopian youth worry about doing things wrongly
compared to Israelis. They think their homes are very different.
But once you go into Israeli homes, you realize this isn't true."
Rabbi Sharon Shalom served as an officer in an elite army unit (among
the first Ethiopian officers in the IDF), combining his army service
with yeshivah studies. He later studied education and counselling
at various colleges and Talmud at Bar Ilan University, becoming
the first Israeli of Ethiopian descent to teach at the university
and one of the first Ethiopian-Israelis to be ordained by the chief
rabbinate of the state of Israel.
He and his wife, Avital, a social worker who made aliyah as a child
from Switzerland, have two sons. Shalom has lectured abroad for
the advocacy organization Israel at Heart in Jewish communities,
synagogues, schools and colleges. He also lectures for organizations
that helped him as a youth, like Emunah Women (which ran the children's
home in Afula where he spent his first years in Israel) and World
Mizrachi.
His lectures and courses at Bar Ilan University and at various colleges
in Jerusalem aim to shatter the stereotype of Ethiopian immigrants.
"Their image is often negative, especially on an emotional
level," he said. "They're presented as negative and needy.
I try to throw light on the community and highlight its positive
aspects."
It was, for example, the only Jewish community since the destruction
of the Second Temple to have its own Jewish monarch. In addition,
since it was isolated from the Jewish world for many centuries,
it is the only community with customs that date back to pre-talmudic
times. Shalom researched the circumcision customs of the community
for his MA thesis. He is now embarking on his doctoral thesis, which
will research additional ancient customs.
In rural Ethiopia, the kes or spiritual leader was prominent. In
Israel, however, this role has somewhat diminished, especially among
younger Ethiopians. Shalom feels strongly that a rabbinical or spiritual
leadership needs to be developed for the community. To this end,
he counsels students learning at the Or M'Ofir program at Yeshivah
Or Etzion in Merkaz Shapira, which enables young Ethiopians to participate
in a pre-army preparatory program, followed by military service
and then yeshivah study towards certification as teachers and rabbis
in the Ethiopian community.
"These young leaders will help Ethiopians integrate into Israeli
society, while preserving their traditional customs, which they
have either lost or abandoned," he said. "After all, the
traditions of the Beta Israel can only enrich the Jewish people."
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