"Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph..."
Where's Waldo?
On the afternoon of Monday July 5, 1993, one week after signing a waiver for the North American Conference On Ethiopian Jewry I boarded a Lufthansa plane. We stopped in Saudi Arabia and Germany on the way. At 10 PM on Tuesday July 7th we landed in Addis Ababa. After acclimating and preparing a bit we began teaching full time on Friday. We taught through Wednesday July 24th when we were removed from our place of residence and deported from the country. Our passports were stamped with Amharic words which meant roughly (according to a plane-mate), "You are never welcome back in our country."
There's a lot more to the story. While the scanner seems to be working I picked one photo from the album to post. I thought I'd introduce it a bit.
I wrote this poem on the plane out:
Goodbye Ferris Mora
A sudden
blast off
carries me
away from
Ethiopia
Its quiet
buzzing
humming
tunes of songs
I'll sing
no more
Forever
I'll remember
your sweet smile
Ethiopia
Forever
I'll remember
I was happy
for a time
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 8:44 PM
7 Comments:
That must have been quite an experience. Why the sudden deportation?
Look at you, all young in that pic! Wonderful.
Wow, some story. Amazing experience. I'm glad you made it home safely. Ethiopia was a dangerous place.
Thanks Anne and Kishke.
The community we were teaching had converted from Judaism over time to survive. We were teaching them with the end goal of conversion just in case. The officials that took us away said that their country was poor but proud and they didn't want a trend starting of people converting to Judaism as a ticket out...
There is more to the story...
It was scary. Probably the only time in my life I feared for my life through the hands of others. It's the only time I've experienced gallows humor first hand. We were making jokes to cope...
It feels like a few seconds ago.
These pictures and accompanying writing have been so poignant. I feel like it is a way of connecting with your past, way before I knew you. I am overcome by emotion.
did you keep in touch with any of the people you taught/met there? how many teachers were you? What was the "waiver" to which you refer?
Wow, thanks Pesach.
Soon after there were some messages back and forth but in time there wasn't really keeping in touch. There were 8 teachers, all single. One guy and girl from the group got married to each-other. I'm close with one member from the group who was a main encouragement behind my starting this blog. Was in touch with some of the others, mostly lost touch. The waiver was scary at the time, I don't remember the details now. I took that wording out of my diary/album - something about the organization taking no responsibility for us/our lives.
Thanks for reading and commenting LG, the previous comment was answers to you.
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