JULY 25, 2023 10:33 AM
By Kim Salzman
Dignitaries, including Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog (center-right) and Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata (center), welcome new Ethiopian immigrants at Ben-Gurion Airport on March 11, 2021. Photo: Government Press Office/Jewish Agency.
When I landed at Ben-Gurion Airport as a new immigrant to Israel some 17 years ago, I was handed a temporary Israeli passport, the sight of which left chills up and down my spine. I had been waiting for this day — the day I would make aliyah and finally become Israeli — ever since I was 18-years-old on my first trip to Israel.
Throughout my late teens and twenties, I lived and breathed Israel and Zionism. It was the only true ideological movement that I ever identified with, and I found myself putting Israel and Israelis on a pedestal. I revered the founders and defenders of the Jewish state so deeply that in some ways, I felt the need to reject all that I was leaving behind, including my Jewish-American culture that had played a formative role in my life for 28 years.
But the longer I’ve been in Israel, I have come to terms with the fact that I will never be able to take the “me” out of me, nor should I want to. This country is so fascinating and unique to me, in fact, because it is a kibbutz galuyot, or ingathering of the exiles, filled with immigrants just like me from all different backgrounds and cultures. That is the essence of Zionism: Jews returning to their ancestral homeland after thousands of years of exile, and exercising the right to self-determination in the Jewish state.
No immigration story to Israel intrigued me more than that of Ethiopian Jews.
JULY 25, 2023 10:46 AM
The BDS-supporting, Israel-hating Middle East Studies Association (MESA), which since 2019 has been headquartered at the Washington, D.C., campus of…
Soon after making aliyah, I started working for a non-profit organization advocating for the rights of Ethiopian-Israelis. There, for the first time, I became immersed in the immigration stories of my Ethiopian colleagues, many of whom made aliyah during Operation Moses. I quickly realized how little I knew about their treacherous journey to Sudan, the people that they lost along the way, and the horrific conditions from which they suffered in the refugee camps in Sudan where they awaited aliyah. Suddenly, the “sacrifices” I made in leaving behind my family, culture, and language, were all dwarfed in comparison to theirs. And yet, I also felt those exact sacrifices formed a common bond between all immigrants to Israel. Each one of us will forever hold in our hearts a piece of our former homes, while striving to build a new one here in the Land of Israel. And each one of us had embarked on the long and never-ending process of integrating into Israeli society.
My curiosity to learn more about Ethiopian Jewry led me to traveling there for my honeymoon. While not your standard honeymoon, it was life changing. My husband, Oren, and I traveled in Gondar, the northern region in Ethiopia, from which most of the Jewish community hailed. We delighted in the splendid views of the Simien Mountains, we ate injera (a sour fermented pancake-like flatbread with a slightly spongy texture) daily, and traveled to the former Jewish village of Wolleka where we visited the mud-hut synagogue with Stars of David adorning its walls.
I returned from Ethiopia inspired to share the story of Ethiopian aliyah with the rest of the world. Here was an immigration story that was both heroic and tragic all at the same time, and so few people, neither Israelis nor American Jews, were well informed about it. And so, I started writing. And researching. And the more I researched, the more I realized how the story of Ethiopian aliyah to Israel, particularly Operations Moses and Solomon, has not been captured in an English-language novel.
As I wrote, I struggled with whether I had the right to tell this story, given that it wasn’t my own. At the same time, this story is such an important chapter in the history of the Jewish people that I concluded that someone needed to illuminate it. If that person is me, and if my writing can give their story the true justice it deserves, it doesn’t matter what color my skin is or where I came from. I believe that my novel, “Straddling Black and White,” does just that.
These are difficult days in the State of Israel. While we just celebrated 75 years of independence and have so much to be proud of, we are experiencing terrible internal divisions tearing our country apart. When my publisher and I chose the release date for my book, I couldn’t have predicted that the country would be going through the tremendous turmoil that it is today.
But some things in life are b’shert, or meant to be. “Straddling Black and White” doesn’t only tell the story of Ethiopian aliyah, it also serves as a source of pride in the State of Israel and a much-needed reminder of the strength, and unity, of the Jewish people. Am Yisrael Chai (the Nation of Israel Lives)!
Kim Salzman is the author of “Straddling Black and White,” which is about the Ethiopian aliyah experience. She is currently the Director of Israel and Overseas Operations for the Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh, and lives in Israel with her family.
The opinions presented by Algemeiner bloggers are solely theirs and do not represent those of The Algemeiner, its publishers or editors. If you would like to share your views with a blog post on The Algemeiner, please be in touch through our Contact page.