Please join me at the Bet Shalom Social Hall for a free Israeli Literary Event with wine tasting and Hors d'œuvre.

10 wonderful Israeli books will be introduced.

Sunday, January 24th from 3:00 to 5:00 pm.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Noga Shavit, Minneapolis Community Schliha. 

Israel has joined the international aid effort to Haiti, dispatching a large medical and rescue team, which will set up a field hospital.

The team arrived in Haiti on Friday, Jan. 15, and the field hospital was set up and began treating patients immediately.

The Israeli medical and rescue team, led by the IDF Homefront Command, is comprised of 220 people, of which 120 are medical professionals including 40 doctors.

The field hospital will have a surgery room and will be able to treat up to 500 people daily, including 50 emergency care patients.

In recent years, Israel has sent medical and rescue teams following natural disasters to counties including Turkey, Kenya and India.

Noga Shavit

Minneapolis Community Shlicha

How one Ethiopian-Israeli Jew’s experience led her to help others.

By Noga Shavit
Minneapolis Community Shlicha

Miri Picado-Aharoni is an Ethiopian Jew who faced ridicule and hardship while growing up in Ethiopia. But her family’s strength and perseverance eventually led them to Israel where Miri found a happy ending.

Currently, Miri works as the Director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's PACT* program (Parents And Children Together) an initiative, funded in part by the Minneapolis Jewish Federation, that helps Ethiopian-Israeli preschoolers enter Israel’s educational framework on equal footing with their Israeli peers.  In her position, Miri is able to help other Ethiopian families adjust to life in Israel and she provides them with the tools they need to succeed.

Several months ago, Miri brought her remarkable Aliyah (Immigration to Israel) story to Minneapolis, where her experiences touched the hearts of many in our local community. I had the opportunity to catch up with Miri when I interviewed her over the phone a couple of weeks ago.  She was nursing her new baby boy, who recently joined his 1 1/2 year old brother.  Miri is married to Adam, a student of industrial design whose family is a third generation in Israel with origins in Ukraine and Hungary and has worked with immigrants from Argentina and the former USSR – an Israeli story indeed.

Miri and her family – her mother and seven siblings – arrived in Israel in 1980, four years before Operation Moses that airlifted some 8,000 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel and 11 years before Operation Solomon in 1991, that brought some 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel through non-stop flights of 34 Israeli aircrafts.  “We were practically the first black Jews in Israel,” she says, without laundering words, “and it was a very challenging experience.” Miri’s father was killed shortly before their exhausting on-foot journey from Ethiopia to Sudan, from where they were flown to Israel, forcing her mother to provide for the large family single-handedly. Yet, Miri observes, “she was so grateful and happy to finally be in Israel that she never complained.”

Up until 4^th grade she remembers a miserable childhood, being constantly insulted and bullied in school for her skin color, background and the traditions that she brought with her. It all changed when a teacher noticed her beautiful voice and invited her to join the choir. Although singing is no longer part of her life, she takes that memory with her, personally and professionally, as an example as to how one person can make a positive impact on the life of another person.

“Sometimes all it takes is one kind gesture, one little push,” she says. However, she has experienced many other offensive incidents where she was underappreciated because of her Ethiopian origin. It happened in the army, where she served for two years as a supply inventory manager, and later on as a university student, a professional and in many other settings. “It’s all about how you choose to respond to these insults,” she explains. “You can either take them to heart, become angry and bitter and completely lose your self esteem, or you can decide to ignore them and move on.” Not everyone is as strong as her, though, she admits.

As a social worker, she worked mostly with new immigrants. She remembers working with Russian teenagers who made Aliyah without their families as one of the most rewarding experiences of her life. “It took them a while to accept me,” she reminisces, “but once we crossed that bridge and they developed trust in me, it was wonderful.”

For the last three years, she has been in charge of the PACT program in Beersheva, a southern city with the largest community of Ethiopian-Israeli Jews in Israel. PACT aims to help minimize learning and social gaps between young Ethiopian-Israeli children and their veteran-Israeli peers, while at the same time working with the entire family and community.  She brings to her work not just memories of her own childhood, when she had no one to help her with her homework or encourage her to read books, but also the current difficulties she is facing as a student at Ben Gurion University. “I missed so much as a child in terms of literacy and learning skills, that it’s still hard for me to perform tasks that are quite simple for Israeli born students. This is why we have to start working with the kids as young as possible, while simultaneously helping their parents understand the importance of spending quality enriching time with their children,” she explains.

When I ask her about the future Miri says that there is still a lot to be done, especially in terms of education. In a country where higher education is such a key factor in social mobility, there are still a very small number of Ethiopian-Israeli university graduates.

Miri returned to Ethiopia a few years ago to visit the village in which she was born and her father’s grave. She said that in Ethiopia she could tell how strong her Jewish-Israeli identity was. “I felt no sense of belonging when I was there,” she says. “In fact, I was much more moved by my recent visit to Minneapolis. The way people responded to my story and the way the Minneapolis Jewish community has helped Ethiopian Jews in Israel, made me realize how united the Jewish people are as a nation.” With all the hardships she and her family have been through and the many struggles she faces on a daily basis, Miri says that she is very proud to be a citizen of Israel – the Jewish State.

*The Minneapolis Jewish Federation has been a longstanding partner of JDC's PACT program in Hadera and has been funding it since the year 2000.

Yair Lapid, a popular Israeli journalist, recently published his weekly column under the title “Two Countries." Reading the piece, I felt that it captured – accurately and with great love – the current spirit of Israel – which is, at times, very confusing. I thought it was worthwhile translating and hope that you will find it as engaging as I did.

Noga Shavit
Minneapolis Community Shlicha

There are two countries.

In one, on every national holiday, people stand in line for food. Their desperation is evident in the empty bags they carry. In the other, even the poor have cell phones and cable TV.

In one country, the army does horrible things. During its last operation, close to 300 children were killed and thousands of innocent civilians were wounded or lost their homes. In the other country, the army is the only one in the world that alerts the enemy before attacking so they have time to escape; officers are being court marshaled for harming the innocent; and self investigations are being pursued in an unprecedented manner.

In one country domestic violence is increasing dramatically. A man sits by the sea with his wife and daughter and a gang of young drunks beats him to death, just like that, for no particular reason. The other country is the only one in the western world where a kid can play outside after dark; a girl can walk home by herself at 2:00 am; 35.9% of the people volunteer for humanitarian organizations; and if an elderly lady trips and falls down on the street, somebody will always come to her rescue.

In one country corruption is a malignant cancer. Prime Ministers are brought down, senior ministers go to jail after being convicted with bribe felonies, “black economy” rolls over billions of dollars and the “grey market” businesses are  advertised all over the paper. The other country took it too far to the other extreme. Every minister is an immediate suspect; every civil servant keeps a personal lawyer; the legal system is the one calling the shots and the government is terrified of it. Nobody is able to promote anything, a new road, a new plant, a necessary reform. Legal counselors have taken over and they want you to sign your initials here and here.

One country is united around the fate of one kidnapped soldier and he is everybody’s child.
In the other, meanness prevails, talkbacks are poisonous and it has the most aggressive press in the western world.

One country is liberal, cheerful, cherishes freedom of expression and has a passionate and vivid democracy. It respects gay rights, cares about minorities, and embraces kids of refugees. It went so far with safeguarding its civil rights that some members of its parliament explicitly declared that they represent the enemy. The other is becoming more orthodox, conservative and dark every year. On buses, women are not allowed to sit next to men; 48% of the preschoolers study in institutions that offer only religious studies (Jewish or Muslim), while computers are not allowed. It has law that resemble the middle ages, like regulating what one may eat, when one might drive and on what days one is allowed to go to the cinema.

One country invites alien workers to come.
The other deports them.

One country received 5 Nobel prizes in the last 7 years; ranks 3rd in number of university degrees per capita, 1st in scientific publications, and is among the top 10 countries with the highest life expectancy (which attests to the quality of its health system). It is one of the 8 countries in the world capable of launching satellites to space and is able to produce 182 kilograms of dates from every palm tree (compare to 17 kilograms in any other country).

In the other state, education is crashing. 4^th grade math achievements are among the lowest in the
world – much below Iran or Cyprus. The gaps between students are wider than most countries in the world – ranks 49 out of the 53 counties that participated in the international test. Kids in this country can graduate without ever hearing of Shakespeare and the French Revolution, Mozart or Dostoyevsky. And the funny language they speak is not really Hebrew.

In one country cultural life is dynamic and vivid and the literary scene is fascinating.
In the other, all people watch is realty TV shows.

One country is heartily committed to peace. It is willing to return territories, some of which it perceives as sacred (and has done so in the past); welcomes external interference and acknowledges the fact that there is no known way to maintain its control over other people. It has already reached the brink of a civil war for the sake of peace, but it faced its citizens – with broken heart – and told them it was determined to pay the price. The other is doing everything in its power to jeopardize the chances to attain peace. It establishes settlements in places where there is a clear majority of hostile citizens; constantly back off its international commitments; controls other people and causes hatred to be passed on from generation to generation. It takes terrible risk of, one day, losing its national identity and becoming a state of all its citizens and is impotent in dealing with a small –actually marginal – group that is successful in dictating violent policy, contradictory to both law and common sense.

In one country young men volunteer, more than ever before, to serve as combat soldiers, youth movements have never been so popular, teenagers lead the campaigns to free Gilad Shalit, to support children of alien workers and to secure students’ rights. In the other country, teens drink vodka, wander around with knifes and turn night clubs into battlefields.

One country was founded as a response to the Holocaust.
The other lets Holocaust survivors die poor, forgotten from the heart.

In one country, the Minister of Foreign Affairs is an immigrant from Moldova who came with nothing; the IDF Chief of Staff is a “moshavnik”, and the Prime Minister has 3 deputies: one whose father was killed during an armed robbery, the second who is a “kibbutznik” and the third who grew up with nine siblings in a one bedroom apartment in an abandoned Arab house in Jerusalem. In the other, social-economic mobility is among the lowest in the western world. If your granddad was unemployed and spent most of his days in idleness, it is most likely that your father was the same and that you will be no different.

One country thrives on love, on good people who are willing to give without asking for anything in return; on dedicated volunteers; on young men and women who do national service before the army, on philanthropists; on reservists, who leave everything – their wife, children, business – to do their “miluim” duty. The other is composed of people who can’t stop complaining that the country “hasn’t done anything for them," of tax evaders, of those who “choose” not to enlist to the army, of self-haters, of those who throw stones at policemen, of those who call IDF soldiers “Nazis."

These are the two countries.

In which one would you like to live?

By Noga Shavit
Minneapolis Community Shlicha

Dr. Sarab Abu-Rabia-Queder is the first female Bedouin PhD recipient in Israel. She was always the first in her class. Her father, Dr. Yunes Abu Rabia was the first Bedouin Physician in Israel. Still, when I ask what she perceives as her greatest challenge she answers without hesitation: to raise my kids to be open-minded, liberal and confident and proud of their culture and heritage. 

 At 33-years-old, Abu-Radia-Queder is a mother of three young children (ages 6, 4, and a newborn, all boys), a full-time lecturer at the Department of Man in Desert at Ben-Gurion University, and a published author who recently published, Excluded and Loved: Educated Bedouin Women's Life Stories. To say she has her hands full is an understatement.

Her personal story is inspiring; the voice she became to other groundbreaking Bedouin women is fascinating.  These “tragic heroes”, as she calls them, are women who consciously decided to stay within the social structure of their tribe by marrying within it, to be able to pursue higher education and professional careers. Doing so, they allow more women to do the same and become more than wives and stay-at-home moms. The personal sacrifice can be very painful, as Abu-Rabia-Queder quotes one woman who told her that she had to “kill her feelings and give up the man she loved,” to gain her father’s trust.

While Abu-Rabia-Queder herself was defiant to the tribe rules and insisted on marrying outside of her tribe, a struggle which was extremely hard, the choices other Bedouin women make are described by her as “heroic.” “They act out of responsibility to their fellow women. This is true feminism. They give up something so they can gain something else, which helps not just themselves but others. By maintaining an ‘honored behavior’ they secure options for the next generation of Bedouin women.”

“Bedouins in Israel are an indigenous minority within the Arab-Muslim minority, and a very deprived one,” she says. Because her father wanted his daughters to thrive academically, she and her sisters studied in Jewish schools, a complicated experience that helped build her self esteem and confidence, but also made her more aware of her own national identity. She now lives in Be’er Sheva, a southern Jewish city populated by some 8,000 Arab families, lacking any Arab schools. For that reason and based on her own history, she was among the founders of a new privately funded bi-lingual school, currently serving 75 Arab and Jewish kids, ages 4 through 6. “My sons learn firsthand about the others while nurturing their language, culture and religion,” she proudly describes this unique educational environment. “I only wish more children in Israel had this opportunity.”

In her book, which is being translated to English, she describes a process in the Bedouin society which is very similar to what the Jewish ultra-orthodox sector is experiencing, with more and more women seeking higher education and “secular,” prestigious professions. “The Bedouin society respected the value of education and was never opposed to what might be perceived as ‘secular’ knowledge,” Abu-Rabia-Queder explains. “The fear was from whatever came with gaining higher education.” For that reason, Bedouin female students hardly ever enjoy student life to its fullest: they have to return home before dark, they can’t get too involved with the other students and some must be accompanied by a male family member.

Abu-Rabia-Queder is full of praise for Ben Gurion University for creating special opportunities and providing assistance, on many different levels, to encourage Bedouin women to obtain university degrees. When I ask her about the future, she tells me that she is pessimistic and optimistic at the same time (an observation not uncommon by many Israelis when asked the same question). “On the national level I’m very worried. I look around and things are mostly deteriorating. But when I think about the community I live in, about the fine people I work with, my partners in the bi-lingual school, my students and many others who share my concerns and hopes, then I feel encouraged. There is so much good out there, things just have to get better,” she says.