•-■111.i THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS "Just Like Downtown" SP A Wataiac LUGGAGE structed stucco and glass apart- ment blocks where foreign em- bassies are situated and high government officials live. Elsewhere in the city, cor- rugated tin-roofed huts and shanties predominate, crowding each other and overflowing with peop le What looks like a row of wooden cages broders the road- way. Inside are newly planted young trees, their pens protec- ting them from hungry animals and people. A few very young children, almost naked, crouch along the grassy median dividing the roadway. They are gathering tinder in sacks, not very energetically. Some just gaze listlesly at traffic. The famine has been a boon to the capital's hotels. Every media representative, every relief official, every foreign diplomat must come through Addis Ababa to inspect the star- vation or confer with the government. Every hotel is overbooked. Our National Tourist Office (NTO) guide tells us we've been bumped from the luxury class Hilton and put in- to the much shabbier Ghion. Most of my fellow travelers fell into an exhausted sleep after our 8,000 mile journey despite the hotel's sagging mattresses, dingy walls and dim lighting. Forgoing sleep, I joined a small group taking a first look at the city. Our van drove past Revolu- tion Square with its massive murals of Marx, Engels and Lenin — Ethiopia's new holy trinity — and another of Col. Mengistu portrayed leading Ethiopian workers. We drove past the government buildings, the sports arena, the university, the ubiquitous red and gold hammers, sickles and stars adorning every official building. Then we were driven partway up a mountain and directed to walk to the crest for a dramatic pano- ramic view of the city. Enroute we got an equally vivid view of the quality of Ethiopian life. Trudging up the trail beside us was a long, ragged cortege of barefoot women and children. The same procession wound its way down the mountain, each woman and child burdened by a load of wood. Here and there, a woman or child stopped ex- hausted, breathing hard and leaning against a rock for support. Wood is found now only high up near the top of the mountains around Addis Ababa. Each load weighs 20 kilograms; 44 pounds. Children begin this labor at age seven. Ethiopian men, tradition- ally warriors, eschew such tasks -- women's work, our NTO guide explained. Workers are paid by the load. They are for- tunate people, we're told, because they can earn a regular income while their strength holds out. Why not employ animals for such backbreaking labor? It's cheaper to pay a human being than feed an animal. Per capital income in Ethiopia is about $140 a year. From the hilltop we saw the sprawling shantytown that is Addis Ababa, hardly resembling its name, which means "new flower" in Amharic, a language which, we learned is rich in sym- bolic implications and allusions. Now in Southfield 29181 Northwestern at 12 Mile, Franklin Plaza 352-1760 101 Cadillac Square Downtown Detroit 962-7518 SN3S Friday, January 11, 1985 19 Susan Weingarden 851-0552 Personalized poems for all occasions. There's no end to my creations. candle lighting recitations birthday celebrations Bar Mitzvahs and consecrations wedding congratulations anniversary elaborations get well inspirations_ birth annunciations words of appreciation official installations high school graduation creative invitations Mother's Day communications holiday jubilations Father's Day narrations The Villages of Gondar Falasha means "stranger" or "foreigner" in Amharic. It is a pejorative term for an outcast people, a despised minority that 'was conquered, enslaved and dispersed centuries ago by the dominant Christian Amhara tribe after having sustained an autonomous Jewish kingdom in the north of Ethiopia. Jews of Ethiopia practice literal, biblical Judaism. They know only Torah and had no idea until recently of rabbinic Judaism, which is contained in the Talmud and Mishnah. Until this century, they were also in- nocent of Hebrew. Their Torah scrolls and other holy books are written in Ge'ez, the Ethiopian liturgical language, which only their priests, called kes of kahan, could read. Outsiders in Ethiopia find it virtually impossible to distinguish a Jew from a non- Jew without the help of another Ethiopian Jew. The skin colors of Jews, common with the other 30-odd Ethiopian subgroups, vary from pale brown to almost black. Like the otherS, some Jews have Negroid features, but most have markedly Semitic features, including "Jewish" noses. Non-Jewish Ethiopians say they can recognize Jews by the smell of water on them. The Jews ritually bathe in a river before each sabbath, called San- bat, as well as before holidays and rites of passage. Another disparaging Ethiopian term for Jew means "people who stink of water." A third epithet — because Ethiopian Jews tradi- tionally worked as blacksmith and potters — trades employing the mysterious powers of fire — means "possessor of the evil eye" or "devil." Understandably, Ethiopian Jews do not call themselves Falashas, as much of the world does. In Ethiopia they refer to themselves as Beta Israel, the House of Israel". Those now liv- ing in Israel wish to be called Ethiopian Jews — not Falashas, not Abyssinians, not Kushites. They are a proud people who have clwig to their Judaism and to the dream of returning to Zion. They have resisted forcible conversion by the dominant Christian majority. The late Emperor Haile Selassie (whose name means "Holy Trinity") considered himself the chief mis- sionary of his nation. Despite his mostly good relations with Israel before his overthrow in 1973, the emperor never understood why all "his" people refused to embrace his faith. He Continued on next page Here's something else you've been waiting for. 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