My second day at the ENP Youth Outreach Center in Beit Shemesh

In addition to my internship at The Ethiopian National Project, I am also taking a course on The Ethiopian Immigration to Israel but I find the best way to learn about anything is actually through hands on experiences. I arrived in Israel on January 18th and since I have been in Israel I feel like I have learned more about the world, life and myself than I have thus far in college. Experience is the top method of learning and the sharing of stores is a part of that.

Yesterday, I had my second day at the ENP Youth Outreach Center in Beit Shemesh, which I will be traveling to once a week. The past two weeks we have predominately been working with Hailu, the center’s director, on his English. It is an extremely interesting experience to be teaching a language to someone whose language you are currently studying yourself. Hailu is very good in English but wants to gain more confidence in his speaking skills. We, meaning Danielle (another ENP volunteer) and I decided this last session that by simply talking about something common between us such as family would be a fantastic way for Heilu to practice his English.

Hailu begins to tell us his story about his family and a bit about his immigration to Israel. Hailu said that one day he came home from school and his family had all of their belongings packed and told him they were leaving that day for Israel. Heilu touched on the struggle of Ethiopian-Israelis of being fully accepted into Israeli society as Jews. The Ethiopian community’s status as Jews is constantly questioned which causes much understandable frustration. Hailu explained there are a variety of different responses to this discrimination; he explained many individuals become very patriotic but some also become turned off by Israeli patriotism because of the feeling of not being accepted. Heilu and all of his siblings served in the IDF. Hailu appears to be very proud to be an Ethiopian-Israeli but also can acknowledge many of the ways that the Ethiopian-Israeli community is disadvantaged in the state of Israel. One example is that next to the Youth Center there is an apartment complex of predominately Ethiopian-Israelis and Hailu pointed out to us a fallen tree that had been previously complained about for a long period of time as being dangerous but nothing had been done about it and one day the tree fell, ruining one of the apartments. However, Hailu remains positive and is obviously so committed to the youth that attend the Youth Center and committed to finding a balance between not throwing away his Ethiopian culture but also adjusting to mainstream Jewish society in Israel.

Immigration is an extremely complicated process; a difficult balance is necessary between retaining your home culture, integrating into the dominant culture and acceptance by the dominant culture. I look forward to meeting with Hailu on a weekly basis and learning more about his story.

- Sarah Brammer-Shlay

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