ISRAEL: Israeli students recreate an Ethiopian village to learn about their heritage

Record ID: 395890

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israeli students recreate an Ethiopian village to learn about their heritage
  • Date: 23rd February 2009
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) SHWANESH MAHNEYOF, VOLUNTEER WORKER AT THE VILLAGE, SAYING: "I think this place somehow creates the connection and shows you can be both. You have to be both. You have to be Ethiopian. You have to know your own culture, and you have to be Israeli in order to survive here, in order to be part of the Israeli society. So it's very important, and very hel
  • Embargoed: 10th March 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: History,Education
  • Reuters ID: LVA2DC5W6NQJ9BK8Q0YFB6X2YB4U
  • Story Text: Israeli students build an imitation Ethiopian village to learn and educate others about life and culture in Ethiopia.
    Students of Ethiopian descent have recreated an Ethiopian village near Zichron Taacov, Israel, as part of an exercise to learn about their own culture and share it with others.
    Fifty-five of the students at an Israeli boarding school, with ages of 13 to 18, are of Ethiopian descent. Many of them have grown up in Israel, and never lived in Ethiopia.
    By recreating an Ethiopian village, they said they were able to learn about the lifestyle of Jews in Ethiopia.
    "It was very difficult to build this place. It was very difficult, but we managed to overcome it. And this village is showing me how my parents grew up, when they were kids. Since I was born here, I don't really know," Shlomo Disporroh, one of the students explained.
    Fisseha Asghedom, the Ethiopian ambassador to Israel said the recreation of the village wasn't perfect, but he was impressed by the students' effort.
    "It is beautiful. For these kids who are, by and large born in this country, to construct such villages to remind themselves about the rich culture that they come from - even though it's just the beginning. They need to do more. I appreciate them very much. It's beautiful," Asghedom said.
    Shwanesh Mahneyof, a volunteer worker at the village said it's a challenge to keep in touch with her Ethiopian heritage, while living in Israel. But she added that exercises such as this one were helpful.
    "I think this place somehow creates the connection and shows you can be both. You have to be both. You have to be Ethiopian. You have to know your own culture, and you have to be Israeli in order to survive here, in order to be part of the Israeli society. So it's very important, and very helpful," Mahneyof said.
    There are over 100,000 Israelis of Ethiopian descent living in Israel.
    Tens of thousands of practising Ethiopian Jews or Falashas -- which means "outsiders" in Ethiopia's Amharic language -- were airlifted to Israel in dramatic, top-secret operations in the 1980s and 1990s after a rabbinical ruling that they were direct descendants of the biblical Jewish Dan tribe.
    By 1998, Israel said it had brought all of Ethiopia's Jews to the Jewish state but another rabbinical ruling that year complicated matters by also recognising as Jews those Falashas Mura -- converted outsiders -- who reverted to Judaism.
    That spawned a special law in Israel allowing Falashas Mura with immediate relatives in Israel to immigrate, stopping short of recognising them under the 'law of return' which gives Israeli citizenship to any Jew from anywhere in the world.
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