CLOSE-UP
COL,
Sollethin
Spending their first
Rosh Hashanah in Israel,
thousands of Jews who
Behold, I will bring them from the north
country and gather them from the ends of
the earth, among them will be the blind and
the lame, pregnant and birthing mothers
together; a great congregation shall return
here. (Jeremiah 31:7 Haftorah for Second -
Day of Rosh Hashanah).
clung fiercely to their
religion in Ethiopia are
learning a "new" form
DIANE WOLKOW SCHAEFER
Special to The Jewish News
24
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1991
erusalem —
Israelis, it is
sometimes
said, don't just
expect mira-
cles to happen;
they take them for granted.
Yet in a Jewish year already
filled with miracles — the
mass influx of immigrants
from the Soviet Union and
events here during the Gulf
War that ended on Purim —
the atmosphere throughout
Israel four months ago was
palpably electric. During a
24-hour period on Shabbat,
12 Sivan, 5751, (May 25-26)
Diane Schaefer is a freelance
writer in Jerusalem.
yet another miracle had
happened: In a modern-day
Exodus from Egypt dubbed
"Operation Solomon," some
14,400 Jews from Ethiopia
were transported in a
massive airlift from Addis
Ababa to Israel.
Now the initial euphoria
of that moment has waned,
and those concerned with
the absorption of the new-
comers are involved in the
day-to-day task of preparing
them to become full part-
ners in Israeli society.
For the immigrants from
Ethiopia who came on
Operation Solomon, and
those who arrived in the
preceding months — some
during the height of the
Gulf War — the challenge of
absorbing into Israeli socie-
ty is a double one. Not only
must they master the usual
tools a new immigrant
needs to get by: the lan-
guage, the culture, where
and how to shop and bank,
how to use the system.
These ohm, who clung
fiercely to their religion in
Ethiopia, also must learn a
"new" form of Judaism.
Yitzhak Zagai came to
Israel in 1983 via the Sudan
and is one of 13 immigrants
from Ethiopia learning in a
special rabbinics program at
Machon Meir Yeshiva in
Jerusalem. Mr. Zagai says