In an excerpt from his recently translated memoir, the Israeli journalist Danny Adeno Abebe describes his childhood in the Ethiopian village of Tilamado, the entire population of which set off on foot for Israel in 1983:
[U]ntil we made the journey to Israel, I had never left the confines of my village and its grazing lands. My friends and I knew nothing but life in the village. Our impression was that the world outside simply did not exist. Our village was the whole wide world, but its inhabitants had a single dream somewhere over the horizon—Yerusalem: Jerusalem.
We always knew that the moment the opportunity arose, we would drop everything to realize our dream to move to Jerusalem. But this was a wish we were forbidden from expressing out loud. We spoke about it in whispers, mainly on Shabbat and during the Jewish holidays.
The villagers never mentioned Israel. Everyone, including the children, spoke of Jerusalem. Of a faraway kingdom, a land of God and ancient stones, whose righteous people spoke the holy tongue. Every festival was dedicated to Jerusalem. Every prayer was directed toward Jerusalem. Every event recalled Jerusalem. On holidays and at family events, we used to sing a song called Ende Yerusalem, “Nothing Like Jerusalem.” In later years, even the Christians embraced this song, and they still sing it at weddings.
The Jews of the village were commonly labeled falashas: “foreigners.” The Ethiopian establishment, from top to bottom and throughout history, treated the Jews as aliens disloyal to the state and its government. Consequently, we were not entitled to land or the basic rights afforded to our Christian neighbors. There was an unfunny joke in Ethiopia: “Why don’t Jews get rich? So they won’t have to leave property behind when they run away.” For the same reason, nobody was prepared to lend money to Jews: they feared that they would run away without repaying their debts.
Read more at Tel Aviv Review of Books
More about: Anti-Semitism, Ethiopian Jews, Israeli history, Jerusalem, Judaism