Ethiopian Wedding in Israel

Last week, I had the honour and pleasure of attending Yaffa Tegegne’s Ethiopian wedding with Benjamin, a young man from Montreal. They are going to repeat the ritual in Montreal in December. The event took place in the Israeli city of Rechovot at the “Baruch Tegegne Ethiopian Cultural Center”. It’s a modest structure, but its existence is a miracle.

I first met Yaffa’s late father, Baruch (z”l) at a conference in Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel in 1979. At the time, I was a graduate student. Baruch was charismatic, intelligent, very Israeli and black. He stood out among the 3,000 North American Jewish delegates. With passion and intelligence he told us the story of his people – the Jews of Ethiopia. He told us how they had been separated from the majority of the Jewish people for millennia. How they once ruled Ethiopia. How they had been reduced to second class status and how, after the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie – “the lion of Judah” – in 1974, they were caught in the crossfire of a civil war. They were being sold as slaves, raped and murdered. He pleaded with the delegates to do something. He told them that the issue had fallen between the political cracks because the Ethiopian Jews were Jews among blacks and blacks among Jews. They fit no one’s stereotype. He said that if something wasn’t done this – the oldest Diaspora Jewish community in the world – was going to disappear in our lifetimes. His affect on the audience was electric. My life changed at that moment. As a son of Holocaust survivors, I wasn’t going to watch in silence while a Jewish community disappeared. “Never again!” is not an empty slogan for my family.

I got to know Baruch. I learned that this modest man was a hero of epic proportions. He was born in 1944 in Ethiopia, but he was a member of a small group of youths that were brought to Israel in 1955 by then President Ben-Zvi. When these youths grew up, they were sent back to Ethiopia – often against their will – to become community leaders. After the revolution that deposed Selassie, the Marxist military regime arrested these “Israeli Ethiopians”, often tortured and killed them in jail. Baruch escaped Ethiopia into Sudan. He literally marched across a desert. He stowed away on a ship. He made it to Europe and presented himself to Israeli officials there. Upon his return to Israel, he tried to convince government after government to act. When nothing helped, he went to America, raised money from individuals associated with the American and Canadian Associations for Ethiopian Jews, and led a rescue group in the Sudan. Only when he proved that smuggling worked, did Israel’s secret service kick into action. For the next decade, he worked tirelessly to help his people. Because of him, I was able to make my first documentary in 1981, “Falasha: Exile of the Black Jews”. Because of his rescue, relief and advocacy efforts – because of the people that he was able to inspire into action – mountains were moved. Finally, governments kicked into action. Beginning in late 1984, Israel conducted three dramatic airlifts that brought tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews to their ancient homeland. In a few weeks, on August 28, the last of the “Falash Mura” – a group of Christianized Ethiopian Jews who have returned to Judaism – will be arriving at Ben Gurion airport outside Tel Aviv. They will be met there by the Prime Minister of Israel. A circle will be closed.

Baruch always dreamt that one day there would be a cultural center in Rechovot, where many Ethiopians live, celebrating the rich heritage that the Ethiopians brought with them. His vision hasn’t quite materialized but today there is a plot of land that has been put aside by the municipality for the center and there is a simple building where the community can have meetings and celebrate weddings. Outside, there is a memorial dedicated to Baruch.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this story. With my wife and kids, I was able to dance at Yaffa Tegegne’s wedding in a center named for her dad – my friend – and we were surrounded by hundreds of proud and free Afro-Israelis of Ethiopian descent (soon Yaffa and Benjamin Ahdoot are going to re-tie the knot for their “official” wedding in Montreal, where I first met Baruch).

When I met Baruch in 1979 there were 400 Ethiopian Jews living in Israel. Today, there are over 120,000. They are artists, soldiers, members of knesset (parliament), ambassadors (to Ethiopia), doctors, nurses and even beauty queens. Miss Israel – as President Obama learned during his visit to Jerusalem – is Ethiopian.

The Prophet Isaiah prophesied that the Jews would return to Zion from the four corners of the earth. He explicitly mentions the Biblical “Cush”, modern day Ethiopia (Isaiah 11:11-12). Miracles are happening everywhere. We just have to open our eyes to see them.

Click here to see my recent article “Palestine: History of a Name” on The Times of Israel.