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September 28, 2001/Tishri 11, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 3
Israel beckons, even as peace falters
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
Jewish students in Kharkov greet American visitors in the city's synagogue which is currently undergoing a major renovation. The UJC visit is the first such mission in 10 years to the community.
Photo by Vicki Cabot
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"Od yavo shalom aleinu."
Peace will come with us.
The words reverberate in the hot, stuffy classroom in the Jewish Community Center of Kharkov, Ukraine, where some 40 Ukrainian Jews are struggling to master the basics of Hebrew in hopes of eventually emigrating to Israel.
It is a tune familiar to many of the 140 American Jews traveling on a United Jewish Communities Mission to the Ukraine and Israel this past summer, the song a staple in the musical repertoire of cantors and congregations across the United States.
"Salam, salam, salam," we sing, adding our voices to the fervent wish for peace many miles from home. My husband, Howard, and I, co-chairs of the Jewish Federation Annual Campaign, Ann Zinman, chair of the Women's Campaign, and Patti Becker, assistant Women's Department director, were part of the visiting group.
Just three days later, the same words, the same melody, ring out at another community center. We are guests of Kiryat Bialik, Israel, entertained by an energetic group of Israeli scouts reflecting the varied ethnic mix of the vibrant community. We sing along, clap our hands, and join in the showstopping finale of "Od yavo shalom aleinu."
The whole world is a narrow bridge, the rabbis teach. And in Israel, we are crossing it, linked by common heritage, buoyed by song.
Even as the world worries and watches the "situation" in Israel, complicated even more by the recent terrorist attack in the United States, new olim (immigrants) continue to stream into the Jewish state.
Eighteen such families traveled with us from Kharkov to Israel, receiving their airline tickets and keys to their new apartments at a moving ceremony, held just before boarding our plane to Israel, and marked by joyous singing and dancing.
According to the Jewish Agency for Israel, which oversees aliyah, almost three million immigrants have begun new lives in Israel since 1948 - one million of them in the last decade - helped by the Jewish Agency, funded in part by local federations. Since 1990, 900,000 Jews have made aliyah from the republics of the former Soviet Union, and the pace continues at a rate of some 5,000 a month, despite the rising violence and dimmed hopes for peace.
Too, reports the Jewish Agency, the past decade has seen the mass emigration of some 40,000 endangered Jews from Ethiopia, and a continued flow from a raft of other far-flung nations.
Most recently, there has been a major influx from South America, where a precipitous economy has gutted Argentina's Jewish middle class, spurring emigration. Kiryat Bialik has welcomed hundreds of the Argentinean Jews to its community.
According to the Jewish Agency, one of every six Israelis has lived in Israel for less than 10 years. They are symbols of Israel's abiding promise to be a Jewish homeland, open to all Jews, especially those in distress.
Following are some of their stories.
Kharkov, Ukraine
The average family income in Kharkov is $20 per month, unemployment is rampant, and the tiny, peeling walk-ups where families reside have the barest of essentials. Cramped kitchens, bathrooms no bigger than phone booths, sitting rooms that double as bedrooms - that is home.
There is little promise of a better life, and as one gentleman, who asked that his name not be used, confided over the course of our three-day visit, the fall of Communism in 1989 has done little to improve conditions for the average citizen. "They just change the names and the offices," he said of government officials. "Life is the same."
And for Jews, he tells us, the future is even more bleak. He makes his living as an interpreter, his English impeccable. He confides that he keeps his Jewish identity to himself, fearing recriminations if he openly acknowledges it. His son is in Kiev looking for work; his daughter, who has traveled to the United States in a high school exchange program, talks of making aliyah to Israel.
There is an active program for Kharkov's Jewish youth, recruiting the young people for study programs in Israel. In some cases, parents follow their children, if they choose to stay and continue their education.
Igor is one of them.
A bright, charming 16-year-old, he greets us in fluent English, giving our van driver directions to the apartment where he lives with his mother and five-year-old brother on the outskirts of the city limits.
He has a ready smile, sparkling eyes and obvious intelligence. He is currently studying in Israel in the Jewish Agency's Na'aleh program, but has returned home to Kharkov for six weeks to visit his family.
We sit around a carefully laid table sharing sweets and cold drinks to talk with Igor and his mother about his decision to go to Israel.
"It is a better life," says his mother, confessing she misses having her teenage son at home.
We ask about the dangers in Israel now. It is mid-July, just weeks after the awful bombing of the Dolphinarium disco that took the lives of 21 teen-agers out for a night of dancing with their friends. Many of the victims were olim from the former Soviet Union. Igor says he knew some of them.
His mother gets very quiet and looks down at her hands. It is just something that she has to accept, she says, quietly. Going to Israel is such a wonderful opportunity for her son. And he loves being there.
"But I worry," she says.
Kiryat Bialik, Israel
Ten years ago the Argentinean Jewish community was thriving.
But two terrorist attacks on Jewish sites, a spiral of business failures and the collapse of the banking industry sent the economy into a tailspin, hurting many in the then thriving Jewish middle class.
Four years ago, the community of Kiryat Bialik, a suburb of Haifa, decided to help. The city, named after Israeli poet Chaim Nachman Bialik and founded in 1934, has a population of 40,000 that includes many new immigrants.
Mauricio Balter, a charismatic Argentinean rabbi who made aliyah with his wife and four children and 30 other families in 1995, approached Kiryat Bialik Mayor Danny Zack and asked him to come with him to Buenos Aires and talk to the Jews there about aliyah.
"It's not politically correct to have a rabbi who is a dreamer," Balter, a member of the Conservative Masorti movement in Israel, jokes with his American visitors. "But I dreamed of the possibility of helping other South Americans decide to make aliyah."
Thanks to his efforts, the support of the Jewish Agency and the warm welcome from the residents of Kiryat Bialik, more than 110 Argentinean families have settled in the community since 1997.
"They are recovering their dignity," says the rabbi. "They know that they have a better future for their children."
Balter tells of the challenges facing the new olim.
"It is not easy," he says, explaining that they must overcome differences of language and customs. "But we get a lot of help from the city, from people who care for olim and help them to integrate."
Assistance includes a five-month Hebrew ulpan (language immersion classes) accompanied by a financial stipend; free tuition for college degree courses or other professional training; and government subsidized mortgages for the purchase of apartments. In addition, each new immigrant family is paired with a family that previously made aliyah to ease the transition.
According to the Jewish Agency, of the first two groups that came from Argentina to Kiryat Bialik, 95 percent are either employed or studying. Only five percent are unemployed, well below Israel's national average unemployment rate of 9 percent. Another 45 Argentinean families are expected to arrive in Kiryat Bialik soon, Balter tells us.
Sitting in on a continuing ulpan course, we are amazed at the vast cross section of participants. Most are from Argentina, with a few from Chile and Uruguay. Professions range from orthodontist to childcare worker to electrician to lawyer to housewife, ages from early 20s to late 60s.
At lunch, the diversity and harmony of the young people who entertain us - blondes, brunettes, red heads, dark skinned and light, from the former Soviet Union, Argentina, Ethiopia and a scattering of other places - provides evidence of what the proud mayor said has inspired the city's commitment and Israel's mission.
"We are all family."
Jerusalem, Israel
It's almost 20 years since Operation Moses, when the first major influx of Ethiopian Jews was airlifted out of Addis Ababa, and 10 years since another 14,000 boarded planes that would fly to Israel in Operation Solomon. They left behind all that was familiar, and were faced with making a difficult transition from rural village life to complex urban society.
"We knew nothing about the Ethiopian community," Danny Pins of the Joint Distribution Committee, the rescue and relief arm of the global Jewish community, tells the Americans during a briefing in Jerusalem.
There was little understanding of Ethiopian customs and traditions and little coordination of human services.
According to JDC, only 28 percent of the new emigres had any formal schooling; 70 percent were illiterate. Seventy percent had worked in agriculture.
And while most of the new olim attended ulpan, many, unaccustomed to Western education, did not succeed. Today only 45 percent of Ethiopian immigrants can hold a simple Hebrew conversation; 70 percent are unable to read or write a simple letter in Hebrew, according to JDC statistics.
With poor language skills and little or no applicable work experience, the group is plagued with widespread unemployment and economic hardship.
They are at risk of becoming Israel's black underclass, say those involved in absorption and resettlement efforts.
Israel is instituting a raft of new programs and measures to confront this daunting challenge.
Education initiatives targeting the specific needs of Ethiopian students, programs in community building and leadership development, assistance in job training and employment and programs aimed at improving the health and well being of the community have been spearheaded by JDC to reverse the downward cycle.
In Jerusalem, we meet with Ethiopians who are involved in the new community health care programs. Pins outlines the difficulties faced by a people who knew nothing about modern health care and a system that was ignorant of cultural mores and taboos. One new initiative is developing a cadre of health liaisons who bridge the cultural divide between those in need of medical treatment and those who provide it.
Rachel Seged, a soft spoken, self-assured young woman, pregnant with her third child, immigrated to Israel in 1983. She describes the arduous journey, the death of her mother en route, and the difficulty of her father to acculturate after the family arrived. He died in 1991.
She speaks fluent Hebrew, with a translator facilitating her conversation with her American visitors. She now lives and works in Beersheba, where she counsels Ethiopian patients at a medical clinic. She is also finishing her college degree in education.
Solomon Ayeyo tells how he helps older Ethiopians deal with the differences between traditional Ethiopian healing and modern medical care, allaying fears and dispelling misunderstanding. He, too, is quiet and soft-spoken, gentle in demeanor.
Pins says proudly that health care workers such as Seged and Ayeyo are helping to assure that their people get the medical care that they need.
But, he says, that is not enough.
Next, the community must develop its own cadre of doctors and nurses to provide it.
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