Interview with Roni Akale

Roni Akale is the first to share his story in our breathtaking project, #ENPeople documenting

the lives and stories of different members of the ENP community. This project was created by our

amazing intern Noa, a very talented photographer and storyteller. Noa photographs her subjects

proceeding an interview about the subject's life and experiences. Over the next couple of months,

Noa will be interviewingand photographing a variety of members in the ENP community including students, parents, and

administrators in the organization. Noa hopes to amplify the voices of the Ethiopian Israeli

community through a platform that highlights the strength and resilience of her interviewees.

She hopes readers are inspired become mindful about their actions and resources so they can do

more to help Ethiopians in Israeli society feel welcomed, supported, and heard. Read Roni's story below:

“I was born in a Jewish village called Woinya. I was a shepherd.

When I was six, my parents decided to send me to school.

Elementary school in Ethiopia isn’t the same as an elementary school in America.

There is no train. There is no bus. There is not even a bicycle.

You go to school on foot. You walk 4 kilometers one way to arriveIt was a Jewish school called Ambober and after that I went to Gondar City to continue my education. 

When I left my village, I was thirteen. It’s very hard to leave your parents, friends, and family at this age. To go from a village where you know everything to a town is very difficult, but I took this as an opportunity to continue to educate myself. I completed twelfth grade in Gondar City. After school, I found a job as a bookkeeper for two years in the Ethiopian government office. 

At the time, my best friend told me that it was time to go to Jerusalem. Every day, every night, every place, you hear about Jerusalem. When you’re a young child and you hear that people are talking about Jerusalem and praying about Jerusalem, you have a different feeling. So when he told me he wanted to go, I didn’t ask a lot of questions, I just agreed. But, he told me the only way to get to Jerusalem was to go through Sudan. Sudan is an enemy of Israel, and it’s also far from our village. Who can take us? How can we trust people? But, we are young so we decided to take this opportunity and go to Sudan. 

When you start a journey, you don’t know what kind of obstacles you’ll meet. Even if you know the way, you won’t know if there will be dangerous animals or not. But, we decide to trust the leader and we pay for him to take us to the border of Ethiopia and Sudan. In the middle of the journey, the person told us, ‘Sudan isn’t far from here. You can go from here,’ and he gave us his donkey and his son. But, in the middle of the journey, the son didn’t know the way, and we were in the jungle! We were lucky people, though, because the donkey knew the way. The donkey became our GPS and we followed him to the border. 

When we arrive, I see my younger brother! I say to him, ‘what are you doing here?’ and he tells me he left Ethiopia before me and he didn’t tell our parents. I didn’t tell them either because if we told them we were going to Jerusalem, maybe the government would find out and they would jail them and torture them. 

After that, we entered Sudan. The situation in Sudan is bad, very dangerous. The people are dead, so we bury them at night. If the government knew we were burying the people in their land, they wouldn’t agree and they would come to kill us. And many young Ethiopian Jewish people are dead in Sudan. 

I was lucky so I left Sudan and I went to Paris and from Paris, I came to Israel. When I came to Israel, I came with nothing but my mind. I said to myself, ‘this is the time to do a lot, to change my status. If I study, I can help myself and I can help my parents. If I get a job, I can get a salary.’ So I went to Ulpan and university and graduated with my first degree in social work. After that, I went to the army. I was a mental health officer in the Israeli defense force. At the time also, there was Operation Solomon that I participated in. I was in Israel for eight years and then I helped the newcomers to Israel. That’s a different feeling. You come to Israel, you’re there for eight years, and you help other people to rejoin the Jewish people in Israel. 

After that, I go to study for my second degree at Ben Gurion University. Now, I’m the director-general of the Ethiopian National Project. This project is a very important project because it is unique and successful and helps Ethiopian Jewish people be able to advocate for themselves and compete in society. Now we make the decisions. Before the Ethiopian National Project was established, other people decided for us what to do. Today, we know the language and the culture so we are the decision-makers for our community and we know the needs of the community, so we are very happy. We are doing the right thing to educate the young generation of Ethiopians to be in a good place and good status in Israeli society. To see the younger generation educate themselves and compete in Israeli society in different high job placements, universities, and in high rankings in the army, that feeling is different. Everything that we expand or put the money towards has a good result. This kind of project must continue because Aaliyah of the Ethiopians doesn’t stop and the young generation is living in poor neighborhoods. The young Ethiopians have a dream, and this dream becomes real if we give them the right thing and the right direction. We show them that if you have the motivation, you can get it."