Memorial unveiled for Ethiopian Jews who perished on their way to the Land of Zion.
By DEBORAH RUBIN FIELDSEthiopian memorial 311(photo credit: Associated Press)
After 27 years, they finally have some peace. The Israeli Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, in cooperation with the World Zionist Organization and the Israeli Defense Ministry, recently unveiled a memorial to over 4,000 Ethiopian Jews who died attempting to reach Israel. Located on Mt. Herzl, this stirring monument gives official recognition to the community’s largely unknown suffering.Starting at the end of 1979 and continuing for some four years, the Ethiopian Jewish community uprooted itself en masse to fulfill its dream of coming to Israel. It was both a physically exhausting and mentally terrifying journey. In Ethiopia’s forests and Sudan’s deserts, thousands were robbed, beaten, raped and even murdered. If there are graves for the fallen, they are far from Eretz Yisrael.Until 2007, the only existing monument stood in southern Jerusalem, at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel. ow there is a centrally located, heartrending commemorative to the deceased. The stone design reminds visitors not just of the agrarian Ethiopian villages, but of an entire life left behind.Explanations are in Ge’ez, Hebrew and English. In Hebrew, eight panels dramatically narrate 1) the exodus from Ethiopia from a boy’s perspective 2) the events along the way, as explained by the group’s head 3) life in Sudanese refugee camps, from a mother’s recollections and 4) the actual departure for Israel, as related by the kes or religious head of the community.Ethiopian Jews and the Knesset recognize the 28th of Iyar as the community’s memorial day.To learn more about the struggle to reach Israel:Book for Adults: Baruch’s Odyssey: An Ethiopian Jew’s Struggle to Save His People by Tegegne, Baruch and Pinchuk Schwartzman, Phyllis.Book for Children: The Storyteller’s Beads by Kurtz, JaneMovie: Yiftach’s Daughter by Kapach, Einat
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