Plastic Shmastic

It is not difficult, not difficult at all, to identify the low point of my mission to Ethiopia last week. We arrived in Addis Ababa on Monday and took a commuter plane to Gondar, the regional airport closest to where the historic – and now last – remnant of the Ethiopian Jewish community lives. The plan was to spend two days in Gondar, bear witness to the efforts of the Jewish Agency and the JDC to bring relief, resources and education to the community, and then on Wednesday night fly from Addis Ababa to Tel Aviv accompanying a group of Falash Mura immigrants making aliyah. Everything was going more or less smoothly until we arrived at Gondar airport for the return flight to Addis Ababa on Wednesday morning. There was no plane on the tarmac and word quickly spread that a sandstorm from Sudan had shut down every regional airport, a sandstorm that – who knows? – could last for days. At this point our trip leader made the snap decision to commandeer a bus and a van to drive our group back to Addis in order to make the evening flight back to Israel. Within half an hour we were en route for what would be perhaps the most ridiculous day of my life – a thirteen-and-a-half-hour bus ride through rural Ethiopia. This was no Hampton Jitney. With no air-conditioning, on dirt roads with livestock crossings, we were one flat tire or overheated engine away from absolute and total disaster. A light narcotic trade began among the participants, and I wondered whether my contract contains a provision for being medevaced from foreign soil. At nightfall we were still a few hours from Addis. Word arrived to our vehicle that the bus behind us had some trouble, we should pull over and wait for further instructions. We pulled over and got out to stretch in the pitch dark under an African sky. At which point, out of the darkness emerged a group of men, rifles over their shoulders. We had, it seemed, stopped our vehicle on someone’s front yard.

It is not difficult, not difficult at all, to identify the low point of our trip.

What is difficult, what is very difficult – now that I am safe and sound back home – is to identify the high point of the trip. This mission under the auspices of UJA-Federation of NY, an institution that our synagogue celebrates today, was absolutely filled with eye-opening, transformative and once-in-a-lifetime encounters.

Imagine what an absolute privilege it was to visit Gondar accompanied by Asher Seyum. Asher was born in one of these very villages. Last Tuesday he took us to an outlook from which we could see the Sudan and he described how as a young boy of 12 he trekked for weeks (moving only at night) towards the Sudanese border with little more in hand than a shovel – to bury those who would die along the way. Asher described how he somehow survived the treacherous journey and decrepit conditions of the Sudanese refugee camp, long enough to be saved in Operation Moses in 1984. We visited the cemetery with a monument for those who died en route, including members of Asher’s family, and recited an el maleh for them. Asher Seyum – decades later an Israeli through and through – is the consul overseeing the Jewish Agency’s efforts to bring the final group of immigrants to Israel. How powerful and poetic that the close of this chapter of our people’s history should happen at the hands of an individual who knew and knows that story in such a personal way.

And there was the morning that we spent with Dr. Rick Hodes, the Medical Director of Ethiopia for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). I don’t know if I will ever meet another lamed vavnik in this world – one of the 36 tzadikim, righteous individuals, upon whom the world depends – but in meeting Dr. Hodes, I know I have met at least one. His service to the Jewish community, his service to humanity – providing medical care to those afflicted with the most debilitating conditions in the most resource poor corner of the globe – make every day of his life a kiddush hashem. In his presence, I was filled with pride at being born into the same faith tradition as he was and to witness firsthand what the JDC does, not only in Ethiopia, but all around the world.

I hope both Rick and Asher visit our community one day, but I am especially anxious to welcome the man who accompanied our entire trip, an individual of whom it can be said that he was not only a witness to history, but actually responsible for making history: Micah Feldman. Micah, affectionately referred to as Abba Micah, oversaw the modern-day exodus of over 14,000 Jews in Operation Solomon in 1991 . Micah shared story after story with us. The fall of the government, the approaching rebels, the secret money transfers, the life-saving work of the Mossad, the overflowing C-130s taking off and landing, one of them actually landing with one more passenger than when it took off – a baby born in flight. Micah described the complex process by which they would identify and keep track of the thousands of would-be new olim, each one given a plastic ID card. My favorite story from Micah described the momentous scene as the final Israel-bound plane of Ethiopian Jews took off. Micah told of the hugs and cheers of relief shared among the IDF soldiers and Mossad Agents as they began to board the final staff plane home. At exactly that moment two taxis screeched onto the tarmac, carrying multiple generations of a single family. They explained that for whatever reason they had missed the other planes but were desperate to leave. Micah examined their plastic cards only to discover that not all of them were complete or correct. Do they come or do they not? Does one split up the family? How do you choose? The plane was leaving and the tumult was growing. The IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak approached Micah to find out what was the cause of the delay and commotion. Micah explained that these latecomers didn’t have the proper plastic ID cards. To which General Shahak barked out, “Plastic, shmastic – get them on the plane.” Imagine what it means for Micah Feldman, himself the son of Holocaust survivors, to have been part of this story of the Jewish state making sure that a selection of who will live and who will die would not happen again. To hear him tell that story – that was definitely a highlight.

One thing about UJA is that they know how to inspire you on their missions. But truth be told, the things I will really never forget were the quiet unchoreographed moments. For example, last Tuesday morning I had the honor of sitting in minyan among the Falash Mura in the JAFI facility in Gondar. The Falash Mura are the Ethiopian equivalent of Marranos. Having converted or been converted a generation or more ago, they now seek to reclaim their submerged Jewish identity. We wrapped tefillin together, we took three steps back and three forward as we recited the amidah together. One of them fixed my tangled tefillin strap just as I would do for a newcomer at our own minyan. At the conclusion of davening, this group of would-be Jews and soon-to-be Israelis concluded minyan by singing Am Yisrael Chai, the people of Israel live – an experience that gives me chills just thinking about it.

Maybe the high point was landing in Israel with 70 new immigrants at the absorption center in the old Ben Gurion terminal. As the new olim sat waiting for their paperwork to processed, they were given an assortment of those cheap Israeli sandwiches in vacuum packed plastic that we’ve all had. After the long trip, we couldn’t understand why none of them ate, until we realized that these new immigrants had never seen plastic wrap before. We walked over to demonstrate how to pull open the wrap and then had to explain with our hands and mouth how one eats a sandwich. They had no concept of this strange construction of sliced vegetables surrounded by bread on both sides. As emotionally charged as that moment may have been, even more overwhelming was the crushing thought of just how daunting the hurdles will be for these third world immigrants now living in the “Start-up Nation.”

When we visited an absorption center in Mevasseret Tzion outside of Jerusalem, we were able to witness the continuing power of global Jewish peoplehood. If the miraculous rescue of Ethiopian Jewry happened only by way of a partnership between the State of Israel and Diaspora Jewry, so too the absorption and integration of the Ethiopian community into Israeli society will only happen by way of this joint venture of world Jewry continuing in earnest.

For Ethiopian Jews, their absorption into Israeli society is fraught with countless seen and unseen hurdles: the shock of going from a third world to a first world country overnight and the complex moral dimensions of facilitating that jarring transition; the inevitable and sometimes insurmountable linguistic, educational and cultural barriers impeding successful integration into Israel. There are so many questions surrounding the Falash Mura themselves – questions regarding their Jewishness and whether or not so much should be allocated for their absorption. The resistance within Israel – not only unseemly prejudices within Israeli society, but the explicit and not-so explicit animosity between the Beta Israel immigrants of the 80’s and 90’s and the Falash Mura. What a curious and troubling people we Jews are! We forget our history so quickly as we throw up hurdles for the next generation.

The story of Ethiopian Jewry is one of the great dramas of our people’s history. It is a complex narrative that doesn’t tie up neatly in a bow and that leaves us with many questions. And the story is still going on. It will have a happy ending if and only if Ethiopian Jewry successfully integrates into Israel in the years to come. But even with these questions, concerns and maybe even some cynicism, it really all boils down to two words, two critical words: “plastic shmastic.” When Jewish lives are at stake, we dare not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

What an incredible honor it is to live in a time when one Jew can participate in securing the safety, security and wellbeing of another. In times of crisis, in times of joy, again and again the Jewish people have proven that the whole is greater than the sum of our parts. By supporting the work of UJA we can make wondrous miracles take place. In Ethiopia with the Jewish Agency, in the FSU, in Chile – where the JDC stepped in to rebuild synagogues destroyed by an earthquake a few years ago – or right here in New York when Sandy struck and community after community has received assistance. That is assistance that – if you gave to UJA – came from you. You can be part of the unfolding saga of our people’s history or not; the choice is yours. Today is not only “UJA Shabbat,” but Shabbat Sh’kalim, the one shabbat a year where we are reminded of the mitzvah of contributing to the community, no matter who you are, rich or poor – one hundred percent participation – every member of Israel sharing in the wellbeing of our people. A mitzvah that is the reason why when Debbie and I sit down to write checks, outside of this synagogue, the largest check we write is to UJA-Federation NY. It is not an “ask,” it is an honor to be part of writing our people’s story. I am personally and professionally grateful for the opportunity to do so.

I have more highlights than I can recount and yes, they more than make up for that one lowlight. But there is one moment I will never forget to the end of my days. As the sun broke last Thursday morning on the plane filled with soon-to-be-Israeli immigrants, as I do every morning, I took out my tefillin and began to daven shaharit. I lifted my head and saw the flight map on the screen. We were following a flight path up the Red Sea, across the Sinai desert and then crossing into the land of Israel. As I faced towards the front of the plane, in the direction of Israel, I mouthed the words of the tenth paragraph of the amidah: t’ka b’shofar gadol l’heruteinu v’sah nes l’kabetz galuyoteinu v’kabtzeinu yahad mei’arbah kanfot ha-aretz, “Sound the great horn of freedom, raise the banner to gather our exiles and gather us from the four corners of the earth.” I looked at the frightened faces of those who only a few hours before had never been on an airplane before, never mind what awaited them in the years to come. And I knew then, and still know now, that at that moment I was as close as I would get to understanding why the Exodus is described as having happened on the wings of eagles. I am grateful that given the gifts of my life and this moment of Jewish history, I have the opportunity to be a partner in doing the work of God’s hands and helping make that aspirational blessing a daily reality.