Integrating Ethiopian-Born Youth into
Israel
by Wendy Elliman
In the fall of 1998, 50 Ethiopian-born Israelis became Boy
and Girl Scouts – the spearhead of an imaginative new program known as
Project Sheba
Eight years after the spectacular rescue of Ethiopia’s
Jews known as Operation
Solomon, and 14 years since its no-less-dramatic predecessor, Operation
Moses, Israel’s 60,000 Jews from Ethiopia are not yet fully integrated
into Israeli society.
"Ethiopians in Israel see themselves – and are seen
by many others – as a community unequipped to climb Israel’s social
pyramid," says Anat Penso, regional head of the Education Division For
Immigrant Youth of the Joint Distribution Committee-Israel and a member of the
Coalition for the Advancement of Ethiopian Education.
With 60 percent of Israel’s Ethiopian-born community aged
18 and under, Penso knew that the most effective help would focus on these
youngsters.
"As a teenager, I was an ardent Scout," she says.
"My youth movement experience has molded my life. It came to me that this
is an ideal way to help Israel’s youngsters born in Ethiopia. Growing up
together in a movement, youngsters acquire similar social codes and cultural
values. They share experiences, involve themselves in issues that concern them
and their peers, and develop a sense of belonging to their nation and their
people."
As Penso quickly discovered, no more than a handful of
young Israelis from an Ethiopian background had joined Israel’s youth
movements. The reason was not hard to find. "Ethiopian-Israelis are very
anxious to succeed, and they know that education is the way up," explains
Ethiopian-born Tsabi Mangasha. "Our concept of education, however, is the
formal kind. That concept has been reinforced by the help the government
offers Ethiopian schoolchildren – extra lessons taught at school in the
afternoons. The community sees informal education, like youth movements, as
frivolous and a waste of valuable time."
Convinced that the best way to prove her point was to get a
program going, Penso recruited partners: the Coalition for the Advancement of
Ethiopian Education, the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jewry and the Israel
Scout Federation (Tzofim). According to her, Tzofim was chosen
because it is "creative, experienced and non-political, it caters to both
religiously observant and secular youngsters and, with over 35,000 members, is
one of Israel’s largest youth movements."
Together, they created Project Sheba, a program designed
both to bring Ethiopian- born Jewish teenagers into Israel’s Scout
Federation, and to assure a meaningful experience for them. The program was
launched last summer, with the appointment of two national coordinators –
Ethiopian-born Tsabi Mangasha, 26, and Israeli-born Tami Gelkob, 23, a former
scout.
"We recruited 27 Ethiopian 9th-graders," says
Gelkob, "and ran a camp for them, together with Israelis. We were clear
about one thing from the start: the camp was not solely to ‘instruct’
Ethiopians about Israel, but also for young Israelis to gain knowledge of the
Ethiopian community."
Rahel is an Ethiopian-born youngster who participated in
the summer camp. "We had a lot of fun – even though we spent the first
day in shock!" she says. "We hadn’t realized that camping meant
sleeping bags on the ground! More important, though, was that we were there as
people, as fellow scouts, and not as Ethiopians. That’s not to say our
Ethiopian-ness was brushed over. Ethiopian families hosted us all, and spoke
to us about life in Ethiopia and how they made it to Israel. After these
talks, Israeli-born kids at the camp started asking me about my family and our
own journey to Israel. I think it’s the first time anyone outside our
community has ever been interested."
Sheli, who was born in Israel and comes from a prosperous
community near Kfar Saba, was one of those Israelis. "That summer camp
was the first time I’d had anything to do with Ethiopians, other than read
about them in the newspaper," she says. "We talked and visited one
another’s homes. To my shame, I didn’t know that people in Israel lived
like that. But I got to know the Ethiopians as individuals, and to understand
that their community has huge differences within it, as does ours."
Recruiting youngsters from an Ethiopian background for the
summer camp was relatively easy, says coordinator Mangasha. Getting them to
join year-round Scout troops was far harder, but 10 suitable candidates from
each of the first five pilot areas (Ramle, Beersheba, Netanya, Afula and
Kiryat Yam) were eventually convinced.
"Project Sheba is a tiered program," explains
Gelkob. "During its first year, these 50 youngsters will become active
members of their local Scout troops, and at the same time do leadership
training, each group of 10 guided by two veteran Scout leaders. Next year,
these first 50 ‘graduates’ will recruit 11- and 12-year-olds from their
communities to join local Scout troops, which they’ll now be leading. And
meanwhile, another 50 Ethiopian 15- to 16-year-olds will be recruited in
another five localities (Hadera, Hatzerot Yosef, Rehovot, Kiryat Gat and
Kiryat Malachi) to begin their first year of membership and leadership
training. The plan is that in each locality, the program will run for the six
years it takes for the first 11- and 12-year-olds recruited and led by older
Ethiopians to reach leadership age." Sheba is expected to be an effective
program, achieving results rapidly and at a low cost, says Penso.
"We’re very optimistic," she says, "that,
through the Scout Federation, Israel’s young Ethiopian Jews will find their
place in the mainstream."
Sources: Israel Magazine-On-Web, June 1999,: Israeli
Foreign Ministry |