Posts Tagged ‘Israel’
NGO works to empower Ethiopian Israeli community
| By FRANCES KRAFT, Staff Reporter Thursday, 23 April 2009 http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16720&Itemid=86 ![Yuvi Tashome [Frances Kraft photo]](http://tseday.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/tashome-yuvi.jpeg?w=201&h=235) Yuvi Tashome TORONTO — Yuvi Tashome can’t say with absolute certainty that the organization she co-founded to help the Ethiopian community is solely responsible, but she has been told that four years ago Magen David Adom used to receive two calls a day to send ambulances to Gedera because of violence, including stabbings – and today that number is down to zero. “We were amazed,” Tashome told The CJN in a Passover interview, when she was here at the invitation of the New Israel Fund of Canada (NIFC), which funds her organization, to speak to 125 people at a “liberation seder” at Beth Tzedec Congregation (co-sponsored by NIFC) about her journey to Israel and the work she does today. The 32-year-old director of Friends by Nature – a non-governmental organization she started with eight people – left Ethiopia at age 6 and immigrated to Israel with her family as part of Operation Moses after walking through the Sudanese desert. Friends by Nature is committed to long-term work that empowers Ethiopian youth at risk and their families in Gedera, which has an Ethiopian Jewish population of 1,700. “We wanted to do deep work with the Ethiopian community,” said Tashome, who has a degree in education and Israeli studies from Ashkelon College, a satellite of Bar-Ilan University. “We knew something was wrong with the way the [existing] programs were helping them. We thought that one of the problems was that everything is a project for one, two or three years, and then it’s over.” As well, she added, programs she was familiar with had originated outside the Ethiopian community and had no Ethiopians in managerial positions. Before co-founding the new group four years ago, Tashome ran a program that facilitated hikes for young people from grades 7 through 12, and opened dialogue about Ethiopia and Israel. “It was good, but not good enough,” she said. Among the issues facing the Ethiopian Israeli community are poor school attendance, drug and alcohol abuse, and run-ins with police among youth, who make up more than half the Ethiopian population in Gedera. Tashome believes a major problem is that many Ethiopian Israeli young people “haven’t found themselves” as Ethiopians or Israelis. “They don’t belong anywhere.” Those born in Israel “don’t know anything about their parents being powerful. They only know the weakness of their parents.” Tashome’s story is different. Her mother, who was widowed in Ethiopia and remarried another Ethiopian in Israel, “did a lot of things that were the exception,” Tashome said. She ran an NGO for children in Ashkelon, told Ethiopian stories to kindergarten students as a volunteer, and is now studying for a degree. As a child growing up in Ashkelon and other cities, Tashome did her homework at programs that were run for Ethiopian youth. “Nothing really happened in the house, and the message of that was that your family is not good enough,” she said. But when youngsters feel comfortable bringing their friends home, it keeps them off the streets, she explained. One of the programs she runs now is called Homework at Home. “It’s a funny name, because homework is supposed to be at home,” Tashome said. “Other programs take them out of the house.” Ethiopian youngsters may find it difficult to do homework at home because of the number of siblings in the house, lack of quiet, and lack of a computer and proper table, Tashome said. As part of the program, teachers visit the home on a weekly basis to work with small groups of children. “After a while you see the mother and father have their motivation. They turn off the TV, take the [younger] kids to another room.” Some families, after time in the program, have decided to buy computers or change the lighting to make it more conducive to doing homework. Friends by Nature has also run hiking programs for young people and their parents. “During the trip, [young people] see that the parents know so much about things that grow in Israel and what you can do with them. It’s the first time they know that their parents know something that is relevant to Israeli life.” Often it is a springboard for further parent-child discussion, she explained. As well, Friends by Nature has a volunteer program for young adults who have finished their army service. Participants identify needs in the community, plan and implement solutions, and are also taken to tour Israeli universities with an eye to their own future plans. They become role models for younger Ethiopians, Tashome said. “It’s about empowerment.” The changes Tashome’s group is working toward seem to help Ethiopian youth integrate better into the larger Israeli society, she notes. “We noticed that if you know more about your Ethiopian culture, Ethiopian masoret [tradition], and have experience of your parents with knowledge and power, then… that gives the kids self-confidence to have friends who are not Ethiopian.” For Tashome – whose husband, a seventh-generation Israeli, is also a co-founder of Friends by Nature – her work has become even more personally motivated in the last few years. As the mother of a three-year-old, who is expecting her second child in September, Tashome said, “What we’re trying to do is to live in the neighbourhood for a lifetime, raising our kids there. The motivation is very personal. It’s for my kids, so I’m working hard.”
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Concerns grow over Netanyahu’s rise
Benyamin Netanyahu has been asked to form a government in Israel.
He lists Iran as the biggest threat to Israel. His tough stand on Hamas might also complicate peace negotiations with Palestinians.
Al Jazeera’s Clayton Swisher reports on why the US may find it difficult brokering Middle East peace with Netanyahu as the Israeli PM.
An Ethiopian Easter in Jerusalem
Contrary to romantic perceptions, the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City by night are typically sinister and ghostly due to a combination of bad lighting and poor rubbish collection services, together with the cadres of patrolling Israeli police and soldiers armed with rifles and batons, and the scores of CCTV cameras that punctuate the walls of each winding alley.
But this weekend, the city’s streets took on a festive hue as thousands of orthodox pilgrims converged on the city’s Christian holy sites to celebrate the most important event in the Christian liturgical calendar: Easter.
A willing pilgrim poses for the many photographers present at the Holy Saturday ceremony. Photo: José M. Ruibérriz
One of the most lively and joyful of these celebrations is the Holy Saturday festival held at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which Christians believe to be built on the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection.
The Holy Saturday festival commemorates the time that Jesus is said to have lain in the tomb and descended into hell, defying death and releasing those held captive there, including Adam and Eve.
According to orthodox tradition, at exactly 2pm on this day, a sun beam is said to shine on Jesus’ tomb, lighting 33 candles held by the Patriarch of the Greek Church who waits inside the tomb. The Patriarch then emerges carrying the Holy Fire to light the candles of thousands of worshippers that crowd into the Church for the ceremony.
But because of the strict guidelines defining which part of the Church belongs to which of the six churches based there, Jerusalem’s tiny Ethiopian community conducts its own Holy Fire ceremony later on Saturday evening in the courtyard of the Deir Al-Sultan monastery, which sits on the rooftop of the Church.
Deir Al-Sultan has been home to a community of Ethiopian monks since 1808. The monastery lies above the Chapel of the Finding of the Cross, where Queen Helena is believed to have discovered the three crosses used to crucify Jesus and the two thieves, Dismas and Gestas. It consists of several small chapels, including the Chapel of the Archangel Michael, and a courtyard with a dome in the centre which gives light to the Chapel of Saint Helena below.
During the Holy Saturday festival, the Archbishop of the Ethiopian Church, dressed in an elaborate golden garment, wearing a jewelled crown and sporting a candle carrying the Holy Fire, lights candles carried by monks, nuns and pilgrims wearing simple white cotton robes. Led by the Archbishop, the worshippers proceed to dance around the dome of the Chapel of Saint Helena to the sound of drums and to the smell of incense, chanting and singing as they go. The Archbishop then retreats to a tent erected outside the Chapel of the Archangel Michael especially for the occasion, where prayers continue.
Ethiopian pilgrims dress in white cotton robes for the Holy Saturday ceremony. Photo: José M. Ruibérriz
The Ethiopian Holy Fire ceremony attracts a great deal of attention, and today the courtyard is filled with Israelis, Palestinians, Germans, Italians and a multitude of other nationalities vying for the best view of the festivities.
A spirit of joy prevails over the celebrations, fuelled by the infectious smiles of the Ethiopian pilgrims. While some of the younger worshippers pose with their candles for the many camera-toting media and tourists, some of the older members frown on, decidedly unimpressed by this outside attention.
A nun frowns at the touristic and media attention generated by the ceremony. Photo: José M. Ruibérriz
Yet outside of the Easter festivities, the area is the site of a lengthy and sometimes violent turf war between the Ethiopian and Coptic churches, exacerbating and exacerbated by other disputes between the six churches competing for control over the Church: the Latins (Roman Catholics), Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Copts, and Ethiopians.
Since its dedication around 335, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has undergone many cycles of destruction and rebuilding often strongly linked to political upheavals that have persisted in the region throughout history. And since the accession to power of the Ottoman Turks in 1517, many political machinations among Christians trying to gain control over all or parts of the edifice have followed.
On Palm Sunday in 1767, a squabble broke out between the Greeks and Franciscans over rights to the Church. In order to put what they thought was a decisive end to the bickering, the Ottoman authorities passed a firman (imperial decree) splitting the Church and other holy sites in Palestine between the various Western and Eastern churches. This eventually came to be known as the Status Quo, basically a legal regime restating the different rights and powers enjoyed by the various Christian denominations over holy places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, including the monastery of Deir Al-Sultan in Jerusalem.
Successive regimes promised to uphold the Status Quo throughout the 20th century, including the British, the Jordanian, and the Israelis. But neither the Jordanians nor the Israelis kept their Status Quo promises when it came to Deir Al-Sultan. In what some say was a jibe at the Egyptian authorities at the time, the Jordanians passed a ministerial decree in 1960 ordering the Coptic Church to hand over the monastery’s keys to the Ethiopians. When the Copts refused, the Jordanian police forcefully broke open the monastery’s locks and handed the new keys over to the Ethiopians. The Jordanian king personally intervened and ordered that the monastery be restored to the Coptic Church.
But the Jordanians lost East Jerusalem and the Old City when they were occupied by the Israelis in June 1967, and the dispute erupted yet again. On Coptic Easter in 1970, while the Copts were busy at midnight prayers in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Israeli police forcefully changed the locks at Deir Al-Sultan and handed over the monastery’s new keys to the Ethiopians. Despite a ruling by Israel’s High Court in 1971 that the monastery be returned to the Copts, no action was taken and the situation remains unresolved to this day.
For their part, the Ethiopians accuse the Copts of having taken over the monastery in 1838 when plague struck Jerusalem and all the Ethiopian monks died. According to the Ethiopians, the Copts burned down the library containing the documents which validated the Ethiopians’ claim to Deir Al-Sultan.
An elderly pilgrim reads his bible by candlelight. Photo: José M. Ruibérriz
Today, a tense coexistence prevails between the Copts and the Ethiopians, one where even the most seemingly insignificant actions can spark off fierce internecine fighting. In 2002, an unholy brawl broke out when an Egyptian Coptic monk stationed on the roof decided to move his chair from its agreed spot into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile move by the Ethiopians, violating an agreement that defines ownership over every nook and cranny in the Church. Rivals hurled stones, iron bars and chairs at each other in the resulting fracas, and seven Ethiopian Orthodox monks and four Egyptian Coptic monks were hospitalised as a result.
This tragi-comic incident is just a small example of the wider battle raging within and over Jerusalem, one that is not only religious, but deeply political. While this Easter passed without incident at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Palestinian struggle for East Jerusalem as a Palestinian city is being severely undermined day by day.
The building of Israel’s Apartheid Wall is isolating the city from its Palestinian hinterland in Ramallah and Bethlehem, while the construction of thousands of new illegal settlement homes for Jewish Israelis on confiscated Palestinian land are fragmenting Palestinian neighbourhoods and severely impeding their development.
Worshippers carry candles light by the Holy Fire. Photo: José M. Ruibérriz
While pilgrims from all over the world come to Jerusalem to pray at its holy sites, local Palestinian worshippers, Christians and Muslims alike, are denied free access to the city and depend on permits arbitrarily granted by the Israeli authorities. While Israel puts on a show of beneficent religious tolerance for the outside world, it quietly enforces a relentless system of Apartheid against Palestinians.
Third death in West Bank clashes
BBC News – October 16 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7673335.stm
Relatives of the first fatality denied he was involved in petrol-bombing settlers
Palestinian medical workers say Israeli troops have shot dead a Palestinian man in a confrontation near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The army said he was in a group of three people in Kufr Malik village, one of whom was carrying a firebomb.
Another Palestinian man died overnight after being critically wounded in a clash near a Jewish settlement.
The shooting happened during a protest about another killing on Tuesday of a teenager – also an alleged firebomber.
In the latest incident, Aziz Beerat, 20, was killed when Israeli soldiers in a jeep opened fire in Kufr Malik village, north-east of Ramallah, Palestinian emergency services said.
Another man was in a serious condition in hospital after being shot in the back.
The Israeli military said troops saw the silhouettes of three Palestinians preparing to throw petrol bombs and that the men ignored an order to surrender.
The three deaths were the first from Israeli military action in the West Bank for several weeks, prompting a Palestinian official to protest against what he described as an escalation.
“It looks as if the Israeli army has received instructions to carry out an escalation in the Palestinian territories,” said negotiator Saeb Erekat, in comments reported by AFP news agency.
The army says there has been wave of firebombings around the Ramallah area and it has been stepping up efforts to stop them.
Firebomb denial
On Wednesday, 21-year-old Muhammad Rahami was fatally wounded during a protest near Jalazun refugee camp. Israeli police said Palestinians had thrown rocks at an army post.
The protest followed the funeral of Abdul Qadir Zeit, 17, killed by troops late on Tuesday near the Beit-El settlement, which is adjacent to Jalazun, deep in the West Bank beyond the barrier Israel is building in and around the territory. The army said he had been carrying a petrol bomb.
A BBC correspondent who visited Jalazun reported that local residents said the teenager was killed while walking alone on a road that passes the settlement on the way to the camp.
They said youths do sometimes throw rocks at passing cars belonging to Israeli settlers, but Abdul Qadir Zeit had never participated. They also denied that any firebombs had been thrown in recent days.
Correspondents say tension between Israeli settlers and local Palestinians have peaked in recent days, with each side complaining of violent attacks by the other.
Israel has settled about 450,000 of its citizens in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since it occupied the areas in 1967.
Settlements, which are heavily guarded by the Israeli army, are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
Israel’s own religious fanatics
Seth Freedman – October 10 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/10/israelandthepalestinians-judaism
The problem with any country fashioned along religious lines is that moderates get buried under rocks and a stream of abuse.
During Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the port city of Akko erupted into race riots, after a clash between Jewish and Arab residents escalated into a battle involving hundreds of willing participants. The initial incident was sparked by a handful of Jews hurling rocks at an Arab man, after they took umbrage at his decision to drive through the Jewish side of town on Yom Kippur, an act that apparently offended their religious sensitivities.
When word of their attack spread around the Arab community, the response was swift, and as utterly unacceptable as the initial violence meted out by the Jewish attackers. Mobs of Arab locals went on a rampage, smashing cars and vandalising shops belonging to Jews, until police took control of the streets and forced them to a halt. As soon as the Israeli press got back to work after the Yom Kippur hiatus, the reaction was fast and furious, with both sides rushing to condemn the other via the media.
When I likened the wanton destruction I witnessed in Nil’in to a pogrom, I was hauled over the coals by my detractors for the language I employed. A few months on, and it appears that the word is enjoying something of a renaissance: Ehud Olmert using it to describe a wave of settler attacks on Arab villages, and – last night – at least three MKs calling the Yom Kippur war in Akko a pogrom, albeit from polar opposite sides of the spectrum.
Yuval Steinitz, a firebrand Likud politician took the view that “Israel has become the only country in the world where pogroms against Jews are taking place”; hot on his heels came Estherina Tartman’s racist outburst, in which she claimed “The pogrom in Akko is another proof that the Arabs of Israel are the real threat to the state”. Countering these claims was Ahmed Tibi, one of Israel’s few Arab parliamentarians, who called the events a “Jewish pogrom”, accusing the police of discriminating against Arab residents of the city during the disturbances.
Last night, a second round of clashes brought heavy police intervention, with the mixed city seemingly unwilling or unable to return to its pre-Yom Kippur state of calm and tolerance. While there is little doubt that what took place during the disturbances definitely walked and quacked like a pogrom, focusing on the symptoms rather than the disease is an unhelpful way of addressing the situation.
That anyone should feel so affronted by a non-Jewish citizen driving his car on Yom Kippur that they hurl rocks in response is as absurd a reaction as the recently-exposed ultra-orthodox vigilantes in Jerusalem, who take the law into their own hands to uphold religious law. For a country so determined to criticise – rightly – the Taliban-style behaviour of many Arab states, it is incredible that such practices are not clamped down upon when they occur closer to home.
Religious fervour has an alarming way of dragging its followers, and their unfortunate victims, back to Bible times. Stoning women in Iran is matched by stoning Arabs – or anyone else – daring to contravene Jewish law in Israel; the violators apparently deserving to be injured or killed for simply exercising the free will that the modern world extends to them.
I spent the entirety of Yom Kippur in synagogue, paying no attention whatsoever to what others might or might not be doing while I was fasting and praying. The only way I could have been offended by others’ actions would have been if it directly impeded on my ability to carry out my religious obligations: if anyone had played music beneath the synagogue’s windows, for example. However, catching sight of the hundreds of cyclists who come out of the woodwork every Yom Kippur wasn’t offensive in the slightest; their violations of the day being their look-out, and no one else’s.
The inherent problem with any country fashioned along religious lines is that the moderates get buried under a pile of rocks and a stream of abuse; a state of affairs to which both Israel and Gaza can attest. Jews attack other Jews for daring to contravene the seating arrangements on “modesty buses”; Palestinians do likewise to their non-believing brethren in similar acts of fundamentalist rage.
Sceptics will say that Akko was a tinderbox waiting to explode, and that religious sensibilities played little part in the initial outburst of violence, in the same way that Sharon’s infamous tour of al-Aqsa was dismissed by rightwingers as incidental to the outbreak of the second intifada. However, the fact remains that politicians and commentators alike have been only too quick to jump on the religious bandwagon, claiming to be mortally hurt by the Arab driver’s actions, as though Israel’s otherwise untainted religious purity was irredeemably stained by his decision to – quite legally – drive on Yom Kippur.
The local police chief described the incident as a “deliberate provocation” by the driver, while saying precious little about the decision by his assailants to resort to hurling rocks and bottles to express their displeasure. But in that case, why don’t the police end the nationwide tradition of bike-riding on Yom Kippur, if such acts are deemed to be a provocation to those adhering to religious law? The answer’s pretty clear, and gives the lie to any claim that Israel is any more tolerant than its peers in the Arab world.
There is much to be said for respecting others’ religions and customs, but at the same time “your freedom ends where my nose begins” cannot – and must not – be allowed to extend to a national scale. When that happens, and when the state apparatus fails to condemn such behaviour, then the game is well and truly up. And all the screams of “pogrom” in the world won’t cover up who the true Cossacks are in such a case.
