B4GX
Thoughts from the Heart
March 19, 2012
By: Joseph (Joseplus) Smith
1750 hrs:

Part III
"FINDING MY PLACE"

My cousin began to tear up. Not taking her feelings into consideration I took her in my arms and told her I was sorry if I hurt her, I didn't mean to. We held one another and then our Ethiopian host took both our hands and said:

'Sit, I will tell you my story; Imagine you are me. You are a little Ethiopian Jewish girl. Every morning drinking fresh goat's milk and food every morning, made out of the garden you tend. But the real food in your life as you grow up is the dream of Jerusalem. This dream is in everything you do – the way you pray, the blessing, all the Jewish ceremonies. In every sentence the word "Jerusalem" comes up. Then, one day, at the age of sixteen, your father says to you, "We're going to Jerusalem." Imagine your surprise. You didn't know it was a real place. You thought it was a dream. Your father has sold everything but the donkey to carry the food. You begin walking with everyone else from your village. You're doing what Moses did to get to Israel. There will be sacrifice, somebody was going to die along the way. The government regime did not allow emigration. They arrested us along the way and sent us back to the village. So war began again. We walked at night and hid in the day. My sister and I were arrested five times along with my mother and father. But we still walked. Imagine you are walking, you walk from Ethiopia to Sudan, the weak and old don't make it – you stop to burn the dead – then you start walking again. You live in a refugee camp and it's "HELL". Israel finally hears about you, but they don't think you're a Jew because you are black. You yourself didn't know there were white Jews. You have never seen a whiter person before. America is putting pressure on "Israel" to save you. A big truck comes for you one day, puts you and your family on a big plane along with those who made it. When you touch down you're in the world which flows with milk and honey, you're in the land of your dreams. You step off the plane and everyone is bestowed a Hebrew name. My family and I were put in harm's way for the dream. I don't need permission from anyone to prove I'm Jewish. No one needs to give me a name, I don't need permission, I was Jewish before I was born. Israel doesn't need to, or feel the need to, turn me into an orthodox Jew.'

She went on with tears in her eyes, Addisa Messele was the long Ethiopian born member of the one hundred and twenty who made up the knesset. Coming here on Aliyah (The Law of Return), this promised, and being physically here; fulfilled half of the dream, the intolerance towards our language, culture and color, which we have encountered in every aspect of life since our arrival here, has buried the other half of Ethiopian Jewry's dream. But be it as such, this place is home. The promised land that God gave to His people. Our color may not be the color of their's, but we are one nation under God; "Jews" who God has brought home," So never let anyone define you because of the color of your skin. Not here, nor in the United States, not even your family. There is no real word in the Hebrew language for home. Yet she has chosen to expatriate and make this place hers; as problematic as that choice was, no matter at what expense, she had found her place. Home. And under The Law of Return! Maybe I'll find my place in this world, among the "Falashas" "Beta 'Israel'" the "Ethiopian Jews"...