To Getu… HUNGER Right Now!!!! There Are Many Health Problems If Few Days Ago, I Sent an E-Mail Someone Doesn’T Get Food

SPRING 2009 A Few Days Ago Here is what Getu Replied: To Barbara at NACOEJ: I Sent an E-mail In answer – The BIGGEST PROBLEM in the community is to Getu… HUNGER right now!!!! There are many health problems if few days ago, I sent an e-mail someone doesn’t get food. We can see to Getu Zemene, the wonderful big difference between kids getting A Beta Israel man who manages our our school lunches and those not programs in Ethiopia. (I say I sent getting. Kids getting look healthier. it, which really means I wrote it and There are 920 in the school but not someone else e-mailed it for me. I all can come all the time. There are still use a typewriter because I’m some children kept out of school to very inarticulate on a computer.) shine shoes and to work as a daily What I asked Getu was to send me an e-mail (he does laborer. There are some girls working as maids in peoples’ e-mail very well!) about the general conditions in the homes in Gondar City. community of 8700 Jews Israel has still not checked for About malaria: 500 families got the mosquito nets. We eligibility for aliyah. have given the nets for those who have got many kids. I asked a bunch of questions that were worrying me (Note from Barbara: two very special Bar Mitzvah most. Getu, as usual, replied immediately. But there boys donated and raised money for mosquito nets was something unusual about the reply. for Gondar.) Some people still get malaria but not so Getu’s responses to questions are always factual. His exaggerated. Thank you. English isn’t perfect, but way better than my Amharic, Some people who have got close relatives in Israel gets which is non-existent. The tone in which he writes is money from them. Most men and women who can find sometimes very proud (when he has good news to any jobs are working in the construction field as being report), sometimes anxious (when trouble is looming daily laborer. or upon us) – but this was different. CONDITIONS ARE VERY BAD. PLEASE COME This time what came across was despair. HERE AND BE SEEN FOR THE PEOPLE AND TALK Getu is – with no exaggeration – the bravest man I TO THEM IN SUCH BAD CONDITIONS. know. He has faced physical, social, and legal attacks With great respecting, because of his work for the Beta Israel. He has been Getu arrested (always released because the charges were never true), he has had a gun put to his head. His home From Barbara: has been assaulted, his reputation attacked, his life I have never known Getu to use exclamation marks, threatened more times than I can count. or to demand so strongly that we come to Ethiopia and And Getu has always courageously faced down these see for ourselves. I think we must go. We must bring threats. But this is the first time I have heard him sound hope and whatever help we can, in person. desperate. We will schedule a mission to Gondar and Israel in Not for himself. Not even for his family. But for the May. We have enclosed information. The community community he serves. needs us. Please help. Please come with us. “Let all who are hungry, come and eat!” Enclosed with this newsletter is a wonderful through Passover and the weeks that to exclaim, with a shout of joy, the great description of last year’s matzah-making in follow? In a year when the community’s Passover invitation: “Let all who are Gondar. This year, will we have enough most desperate problem is hunger, will hungry, come and eat!” It’s up to us. funds for grain to carry the community the Jewish families of Gondar be able NACOEJ • 132 NASSAU ST. • NY, NY 10038 • 212-233-5200 • FAX: 212-233-5243 • E-MAIL: [email protected] • WEBSITE: WWW.NACOEJ.ORG PAGE 2 PAGE 3 LIFELINE My heart breaks for all the worthy causes that are MARCH 2009 Yes, Now We Have War (and Peace?): A Story from Gedera Lifeline is published suffering this year. I too am making hard choices, three times annually. Some Bananas… and trying to base my decisions on whether some uring the Gaza War, everyone It wasn’t easy -- teachers risked NACOEJ excellent charities have a broader base of support 132 Nassau Street hanks to you wonderful, wonderful, incredible Dheard about Sderot, the Israeli their safety traveling to different New York, NY 10038 than others. town which was (and had been for locations, some homes were naturally Issue No: 64 Tpeople, we now have enough money to give the children in the NACOEJ Beta Israel Community In the case of NACOEJ, you, our NACOEJ years) a prime target of Hamas missiles. more crowded and noisier than elementary school bananas again – at least once family, are our base, and have been ever since But even at the height of the crisis, an ideal classroom, some older or a week. we opened our doors (actually my living room only a few Americans heard about younger children of the households door) back in 1982. We’re starting out slow, keeping a wary eye Gedera, a nearby small town with a were distracting -- but none of that on inflation, which has affected everything on Thank heavens, our NACOEJ family still does largely middle-class population – and mattered. the school lunch menu so dreadfully for the last include some federations, some foundations, some a growing Ethiopian community. The little groups of Limudiah children year. I recently saw a report on Ethiopia that said organizations for whose generosity we are always At NACOEJ, we knew about Gedera eagerly went to work on reading and a good crop was now coming in. Could it possibly, tremendously grateful, but without the loyalty of because we had 95 Ethiopian-Israeli discussing stories (especially those eventually, bring food prices down? That would individuals, families, synagogues and schools, we children in our Limudiah classes there. that related to their situation), getting be a blessing indeed. could never have started, and certainly could not That is, we had them until the missiles homework done, drawing pictures and continue, to help the most ancient, least known, started falling too heavily and the Meanwhile, how can I express how moved all of acting out skits that not only improved and usually most vulnerable Jews in the world. schools closed. Our Limudiah after- us at NACOEJ are when we open envelopes and their school skills, but helped them school education classes, which took take out checks that come with a note saying, “My I have no way to say thank you except to say it. deal with their feelings of fear and place in the schools, had to close, too. wife and I have both lost our jobs, but the Ethiopian Thank you with all my heart. Come to Ethiopia confusion. Jews are much worse off…” – or “I have had to give up with us in May, and hear it from a thousand Jewish If you read a recent letter from We had a wonderful break when a other charities, but I will continue to support NACOEJ children. You will feel as blessed as they do. NACOEJ, you know that we were very group of American rabbis who were as long as I can.” concerned not only about the safety, going to Israel agreed to take an but also about the education, of our emergency delivery of school supplies Ethiopian children in Gedera. for Gedera. They not only took what Tribute to a Hero several years locating Jews tirelessly. As the anthropological Daily lessons were being sent over we had in the NACOEJ office in New who had reached Sudan advisor to one of his projects, I the internet to school children in York, they collected more in their own BY SHOSHANA BEN-DOR, and organizing them for again met Ferede, still intense and Gedera, but very few of the Ethiopian congregations. The cease-fire started DIRECTOR NACOEJ-IsRAEL aliyah. Immediately after dedicated, still thin and aged beyond children had access to the internet. just before the supplies got to Gedera, ne of the privileges of the response from the his years. We exchanged memories of They were falling further and further but the children were thrilled to get Oworking with the Ethiopian Mossad, Ferede wrote to “the old days”. behind every day. them in their re-opened classrooms. Jewish community over the last his family, who thought According to his brother Amram, So we decided that if the children As we write, the cease-fire seems 30 years has been the possibility him dead, and asked Ferede always carried with him couldn’t come to Limudiah, we would to be in danger of breaking down, of meeting real heroes. One such hero, two of his brothers to join him in this not only satisfaction for what he find a way to make the Limudiah come as more Hamas missiles have been Ferede Aklum, died last January at dangerous, life-saving work with the accomplished, but also memories of to them. Our small Jerusalem staff fired at Israeli towns, and Israel is the age of 62. Mossad. the horrors of the refugee camps in worked it all out. In a few days, Limudiah responding. Whatever happens next, Without Ferede, the aliyah of Ferede’s actions opened the way for Sudan and the painful knowledge that teachers began arriving at buildings we will continue to do our best for the n Ethiopian Jews by way of Sudan might thousands of Ethiopian Jews to leave the path to Israel by way of Sudan led where Ethiopian families were willing children who are in our care.

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