-second in a series–
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – – Even as a program is pending to complete massive immigration to Israel from Ethiopia, Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, is pondering how Israel will react if other communities around the world that were forced to convert from Judaism to Christianity – Marranos for example – should decide that they want to make mass aliyah.
Sharansky discussed this issue during an interview with San Diego Jewish World prior to his appearance on Thursday, Oct. 28, at the 75th annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of San Diego.
As leader of the agency that promotes immigration to Israel, Sharansky expressed pleasure over a break-through agreement between Israel and various American Jewish groups that have been lobbying in behalf of more than 7,000 Ethiopians who want to rejoin the Jewish community even though their ancestors converted to Christianity.
These Ethiopians—called the Falasha Mura—have been living in resettlement camps in Gondar province, a traditional home for Ethiopian Jews, and in the national capital of Addis Ababa awaiting the opportunity to move to Israel.
Because they are Christians, these Ethiopians didn’t qualify for automatic acceptance to Israel under the “Law of Return” which extends Israeli citizenship to any Jew who wants to claim it. On the other hand, Sharansky said, they presented a unique case. “The Ethiopian (Jewish) community existed for almost three thousand years. Some 50 years ago, they forced Christianization, so it was relatively easy to trace.”
Under the agreement awaiting approval by the Knesset, Sharansky said, the Ethiopians will formally convert to Judaism after they arrive in Israel. The American agencies that have been supporting them in camps in Ethiopia will shut down their Ethiopian operations, perhaps relocating with the Ethiopians to Israel to help in absorption. And thereafter, group immigration from Ethiopia will be considered completed, with anyone who subsequently desires to immigrate to Israel doing it as it is done in other countries, through individual applications at the Israeli consulate.
Sharansky said the absorption of these Ethiopians—involving their housing, language training, orientation to Israeli society and helping to find them jobs—will require an expenditure of $150 million by the Israeli government. The Jewish Agency, independently, will also have to raise millions of dollars for its part of the operations.
Although the Ethiopian aliyah may come to a close, groups like the Marranos – people descended from ancestors who converted to Christianity under duress from the Spanish Inquisition – potentially could be the next large group of people who want to come to Israel.
Already there is discussion about this, particularly in Latin America, Sharansky said.
As with the Ethiopians, such an aliyah is fraught with controversy. Are the people from impoverished countries really interested in uniting their future with that of the Jewish people, or are they simply looking to improve their economic circumstances by moving to a westernized country with a modern economy?
Across the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana, there is a Jewish congregation – Congregacion Hebrea de Baja California – made up primarily of people who say that their grandparents had followed such Jewish traditions as lighting candles on Friday night, but that they never publicly discussed their Judaism. Under the leadership of their teacher, Carlos Salas-Diaz, some of these families have been studying Judaism and formally converting at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in Los Angeles. Others, however, have not taken this step.
Told of this, Sharansky said those that have gone through the conversion ceremony would be eligible to make aliyah under the right of return. What to do about the others, however, and people like them in other Latin American countries, is a matter that he anticipates the Jewish Agency will be giving deeper consideration in the future.
In partnership with the organization Nefesh b’ Nefesh, the Jewish Agency has been promoting aliyah from the United States and from Canada. Sharansky said that previously when Israeli representatives promoted aliyah, it caused discomfort in North American Jewish communities. Israeli representatives would be asked to discuss educational cooperation, cultural exchange, visits to Israel, but to refrain from talking about aliyah. It caused a certain amount of tension.
When Nefesh b’ Nefesh was begun, it solved this problem to a certain extent, Sharansky said, because Nefesh b’ Nefesh is an American organization. There is no objection to Americans suggesting that perhaps fellow American Jews should move to Israel, whereas when Israelis make the same suggestion, it makes people at various Jewish Federations somewhat squeamish, Sharansky said.
In the past year, aliyah to Israel from different parts of the world increased 10 percent over the previous year. Surveying the new arrivals, the Jewish Agency ascertained that the motivations are different. In places like the former Soviet Union – from which Sharansky, once a famous Refusenik in the Ukraine, emigrated – typically there are economic reasons for people wanting to move to Israel. In the former Soviet Union, he noted, the feeling of worldwide Jewish identity is not strong because many people have not been exposed to their ancestors’ religious beliefs or culture.
In contrast, the people who came from the United States and from Canada primarily came out of a sense of Jewish identity. They wanted to live among people who were Jews like themselves. It is an interesting phenomenon, Sharansky said, many North American parents are opposed to their children moving away to Israel – and resist programs promoting aliyah—but at the same time, they want their children to have a strong sense of Jewish identity because they want their grandchildren to be raised in the Jewish religion.
One of the best ways to promote that Jewish identity and also to promote aliyah, he said, is exposure to the land and people of Israel. Operation Birthright, which was created in North America by the Bronfman family, provides one Israel experience, a trip of about 10-days duration. “MASA” provides a year-long experience for people who want to spend even more time. Now, he said, an intermediate program is being developed – a two month internship for people who can’t spend an entire year in Israel—to increase the range of options.
Sharansky said he was quite familiar with the partnership between the Jewish Federation of San Diego and Sha’ar Hanegev, the municipality that includes a moshav and ten kibbutzim in the vicinity of Israel’s border with Gaza.
Recently, he said, he went to Kibbutz Aza in Sha’ar Hanegev to study the security situation, and while there was exposed to the nearby cooperative project between San Diego and Sha’ar Hanegev to build a rocket-proof educational village. What was particularly interesting to him, he said, was the fact that as a result of Sha’ar Hanegev’s exposure to the San Diego Jewish Academy, a synagogue is being built at the Sha’ar Hanegev educational village. The idea of a secular Israeli community building a synagogue is a matter of considerable novelty in Israel. Typically Israelis are either Orthodox or secular, with only a relative handful of Israelis affiliating with Reform, Conservative or other liberal congregations.
Sharansky said he considered the exchange between San Diego and Sha’ar Hanegev to be an important model for Israeli-Diaspora cooperation, with Americans strengthening their Jewish identity through exposure to Israel, and Israelis likewise drawing closer to Judaism.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. Here is a link to the first part of the series