assimilation and division

assimilation

I was sitting at the table with three women at the Ethiopian Cultural Center here in Netivot at the end of a long day, the first warm day here in a long time. A 17-year-old chick from the Society of the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) wanted to invite the parents of her scouts from this center, so she could meet them, to help herself and their parents become more involved in their after-school activities. As she dictated the invitation in Hebrew, Orit, the 28-year-old assistant director of the community center, transcribed the letter into Amharic, and the girl and I became mesmerized by her script. Orit is one of the women I’ve been tutoring in English, so to see her writing in her third language, in her third alphabet (which is of course her first language and first alphabet) was pretty impressive.
Orit couldn’t remember the word for “nature.” The girl weeded through her own environmental vocabulary, but Orit couldn’t remember how to say “animals” either. She consulted with Ahuva, the center director and Amharic teacher, who was also sitting at the table with us, but Ahuva pshahed her, saying she was the one who actually attended school in Ethiopia and she should remember! After a few more consultations, they transliterated the Hebrew.
Ahuva came to Israel on Operation Shlomo (which I think was the 1993 airlift of Jews from Ethiopia to Israel) at the age of 14. Now she’s 26 and is the Amharic teacher here at Merkaz Orchani. But she said the kids aren’t that interested in learning, that she’s teaching the alphabet to all the age levels (Learning the alphabet doesn’t seem that easy; there’s a different character for every consonant + vowel combination--at least 115, I would guess). á la Hebrew school in America, assimilation breeds apathy.

division

At Bet Sefer Mamlachti (secular high school), we had a great discussion based on whether or not the group agreed with the following statement: I think there’s an unhealthy divide between religious people and secular people in Israel. Six of seven answered with a vehement affirmative.

They talked about the prejudices on both sides, the problem of growing up separated by school and neighborhood, and the problems of hypocrisy, disrespect, and violence, which surface time and time again, even in a small town like Netivot. One of the kids in our group said that when his uncle drove through the ultra-orthodox part of town on Shabbat, they stoned his car and broke a window. Even in Netivot!

Then it was time to begin our Telenovela Mamlachti project. I wanted the kids to write soap-opera-style scenes based on some scenarios I came up with. One scenario was that a guy and girl met in a chat room and wanted to meet for a date. Upon meeting, they realized that one was Jewish and one was an Arab Israeli. One student, the daughter of Russian immigrants, remarked, “Wow, that would make a good scene. It’s a really realistic situation. But I would never ever date an Arab. I wouldn’t even date a Moroccan.” She’s fair blonde maiden, and I guess for her, anyone dark is Other.

That same day there were 200+ casualties at the evacuation of Amona, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, near Jerusalem. Clashes between religious Zionists and soldiers lasted all day, and many were hospitalized. Some are still in Hadassah Hospital- Ein Kerem, the same facility where Sharon is being kept alive. I wonder if Sharon knows that his Pinui plan has come to blows. I’m glad that the intra-Israel conflicts don’t make the world news. Somehow I think the world somehow still sees Israel as united, and Israel needs that image to stay strong.