THE ETHIOPIAN ABSORPTION
`They Rejected Our Findings'
The notion of "the mistakes of the '50s"
ments in the Jewish Agency — Settle-
is not a remote, abstract concept for Prof.
ment, Youth Aliya and Project Renewal
Alex Weingrod, a social anthropologist at
— the Aliya Department has no applied
Ben-Gurion University. As head of the
research unit nor does it have outside
applied research department for the
evaluation built into its programs. Even
Jewish Agency Settlement Department
the far-reaching step of concentrating all
from 1959 to 1961, one of his tasks was
Ethiopian immigrants in special absorp-
to evaluate current settlement policies.
tion centers did not warrant any depar-
ture from this routine.
"The heads of the department didn't
• Thus the department can produce no
always listen to us," he recalls, "but we
research findings that contradict those of
did have some influence on major issues.
Weingrod and Ashkenazi. The head of
A big problem then was that the settlers
the Social Welfare Division, Ora Donyo,
were becoming overly dependent on the
still rejects their overall conclusions, but
bureaucracy. We had some impact in
admits that the training of staff was not
loosening up the system. But the fact
that we had six researchers in the field . as thorough as it should have been. She
also denies that she was unwilling to
looking around and occasionally making
discuss alternative policies.
noise created a built-in sensitivity to our
The department's relations with
work in the department."
academic experts during the Ethiopian
It was in this spirit that he and his
immigration was problematic. An expert
academic colleague, Michael Ashkenazi,
committee to advise on absorption
approached the Social Welfare Division
policies set up in 1980 ceased to function
of the Agency Aliya Department, which
in 1982. Researchers have been barred
is in charge of absorption policies for the
from absorption centers and occasional-
Ethiopians, to discuss the results of their
ly harassed, according to Ashkenazi.
research on the absorption centers for
Background information on Ethiopians
Ethiopians. "I didn't expect people to
that was prepared by scholars at the
agree with everything I said," Weingrod
department's request was not circulated
allows, "but I was shocked by the brick
to the staff in the field.
wall that we ran into. They rejected the
validity of our findings and would not
Donyo says that she and her staff
even consider discussing alternatives to received all the expert advice it needed
the rigid system created in the absorp- from veteran Ethiopians who were
tion centers."
employed by the department.
Unlike the other three main depart-
C.H.
Some 600 Ethiopian youths took part in a sports day in Tel Aviv, sponsored by the ministry of absorption, with sports events from basketball to this tug
of war. A different kind of tug of war has taken place between various government agencies over responsibility for Ethiopian absorption.
26
FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1987
Ethiopians are drawn from interviews with
former directors of such centers, Agency
documents and studies of these facilities
done by social scientists.
These centers controlled the Ethiopians'
contacts with the outside world, supplied
most of their daily needs and to a great ex-
tent controlled their lives. With a resident
population as disoriented and physically
enfeebled as the Ethiopians were, it would
have taken a highly trained and well organ-
ized staff to avoid the oppressive or
debilitating impact that such institutions
can have on otherwise normal adults.
But the Aliya and Absorption Depart-
ment consistently failed to provide proper
training for the staff charged with these
sensitive tasks, even though by all ac-
counts the staff was dedicated, sincere in
its desire to help and willing to work long
hours. Administrators, social workers,
Hebrew teachers and home-makers (non-
professional women hired to. help the im-
migrants with daily routines) were often
thrown into their tasks with little or no
orientation about Ethiopian Jews and
their way of life. And once on the job, they
had few opportunities to systematically
evaluate or improve their work. The
presence of veteran Ethiopians serving as
translators at the centers could not com-
pensate for the communication problems
that constantly cropped up between other
staff members and their charges.
Moreover, a conflict ran for five years
between two units of the department —the
Social Welfare Division and the Absorp-
tion Services Wing — over who should be
in charge of the centers. This dispute also
hampered the staff's ability to deal proper-
ly with the immigrants. Center directors
were appointed in some cases without
proper qualifications and had few if any
systematic guidelines for handling the
delicate problems that constantly arose
with the immigrants.
In the absence of proper training, in-
stinct took over, which often brought out
the ethnocentric and paternalistic at-
titudes that were inflicted on an earlier
generation of "primitive" immigrants.
"These people are totally ignorant, you
have to teach them everything," some
home-makers would say with a touch of
impatience and disdain. Thaching the
Ethiopians the "right way" to cook food,
handle childhood illnesses or do the shop-
ping meant insisting that they do it "the
Israeli way," which actually meant what-
ever practices the home-maker herself
might follow.
Interaction between the immigrants and
absorption center staff who had little
knowledge of Ethiopian culture would pro-
duce misunderstandings that sometimes
grew into mutual hostility and mistrust.
For example, absorption officials were
not aware that to an Ethiopian, a "maybe"
from a figure of authority is seen as a
promise, or that it is considered impolite