76 Friday, April 5, 1985 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS LOSE WEIGHT NOW FIND IT THE HEALTHY WAY L IN THE natural product with herbs 100• guaranteed Call HILDA RASKIN - 569-5288 outstanding business opportunities available training . . . sales . . . management NEWS Beta Yisrael: Mixed Blessing For Israel BY MURRAY ZUCKOFF PASSOVER cal HAPPY CANDLE LIMITING TINE 6:44 P.M. Special to The Jewish News "BECAUSE WE CARE" MEMORIAL TUMBLERS 4/99 Beta Yisrael children who made aliyah last year are taking tennis lessons at the Israel Tennis Center in Ashkelon. KOSHER FOODS AVAILABLE AT: • TELEGRAPH/LONG LAKE IN BLOOMFIELD TWP. • ORCHARD LAKE/13 MILE RD. IN FARMINGTON HILLS • TELEGRAPH & MAPLE RD. BLOOMFIELD PLAZA • 12 MILE/EVERGREEN IN SOUTHFIELD • ANN ARBOR RD. IN SHELDON PLYMOUTH TWP. [ 8 PRICES & ITEMS EFFECTIVE THRU APRIL 11, 1985. NO SALES TO DEALERS _. MOST STORES OPEN DAILY A.M. TO 10 P.M)" SUNDAY 9 A.M. TO 9 P.M._ • - No matter how you turn the globe The Jewish News • a keeps you posted on Jewish happenings everywhere! Call 354-6060 TODAY and order your subscription. If • I ' Jerusalem — Israelis, like Goethe's Faust, have two hearts beating in their attitude towards the Ethiopian Jewish immig- rants. Most Israelis are enamored of the newcomers, almost to a point of treating them as an exotic specie from a distant planet. But others, especially the ultra- Orthodox, view them with disdain and with suspicion regarding their authentic Jewishness. The Ethiopian Jews — or Beta Yisrael (the House of Israel) as they call themselves — are a re- markable people. They are eager to adjust to their new lives in Is- rael and show an amazing capacity to learn Hebrew and to acquire new skills in a short period of time. They also have an unquenchable thirst for anything Jewish and for studying the To- rah. On Purim eve, for example, a group of Ethiopian Jews who had recently arrived at the Kfar Saba absorption center near Tel Aviv watched intently as a group of Is- raeli primary school pupils per- formed a Purim play in Hebrew and explained the meaning of the holiday. The Ethiopians, who had not yet learned Hebrew, were given a running translation in Amharic, their native language, by an Ethiopian who had made aliyah earlier. Premier Shimon Peres, ad- dressing a meeting of the United Jewish Appeal Ambassadors' Mission, pointed out that Puritn "is not on the agenda of the Ethio- pian Jews. They are committed to the Torah, to the book of Moses, but whatever happened in Jewish life since then was unknown to them because they were isolated, cut off from the life of the Jewish people in the Diaspora. They know about Pesach because they participated in the exodus from Egypt. But they weren't present at the wedding of Esther and Ahasuarus." Time and again, Israeli officials involved in the absorption of the Beta Yisrael pointed out that de- Murray Zuckoff is editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. spite their isolation and living under conditions of the most cruel religious oppression, assassina- tion and discrimination in Ethiopia, they had retained their Jewishness and are passionately committed to it. "They are Jewish and remain Jewish," Peres as- serted. The absorption process is intri- cate and complex. The Ethiopian Jews have come to a country that is entering the 21st Century from a country that is, at best, still in the 19th Century. To ease the transition and to avoid frustration, disappoint- ments and social asphyxiation, the newcomers have been encouraged to retain their tradi- tion and culture. "Retaining their tradition and culture makes it easier and less tension-provoking for them to settle into their new society," said Chaim Arnon, head of the Jewish Agency's aliyah and absorption department. It is also necessary, said Arnon and Harry Rosen, secretary gen- eral of the Jewish Agency and the UJA in Israel, that they be given opportunities and encouraged to express their social and cultural, as well as their familial patterns, their pride and their indepen- dence, as well as their feeling of self-sufficiency. This is part of the dialectical process of their absorp- tion and integration. But there are challenges — and difficulties — to the absorption and integration of the Beta Yis- rael. Unlike immigrants from the West who do not know Hebrew but at least have marketable job skills and knowledge of the prac- tical every-day world, the Ethio- pians have neither. In addition, the language bar- rier is at times insurmountable. There are very few people in Is- rael who can speak Amharic and ulpans in Hebrew are fraught with difficulties. Volunteer trans- lators have to be found among either the few Israelis who can speak both languages or among Ethiopian Jews who made aliyah some time ago. The absorption of Ethiopian Jews also poses other unique