Refugees Transplanted in Time

By JON D. HULL/ASHDOD

Shoshana Nadou plummeted into the modern world in 1984, when she and 7,500 other Jews from remote villages in Ethiopia were secretly airlifted to Israel. "Everything looked so new and scary," she says. "One old woman smashed a television with a broom when she saw a picture of a fire." Now Nadou, 21, is firmly entrenched in the Israeli middle class. She and her husband Eyal, a construction worker, own a three-room apartment in the coastal city of Ashdod. Two of her brothers are in the Israeli army, and another recently graduated from college. "We've been transformed into Israelis," she says in fluent Hebrew. "Ethiopia seems very far away."

Last month, 14,000 more Falashas -- the Ethiopian pejorative means strangers in Amharic -- were airlifted to safety in another Israeli rescue operation. By plane, the trip from Addis Ababa to Tel Aviv takes just under four hours. But for these rural and deeply religious Jews, who believe they are descendants of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the journey spans centuries. Descending from C-130 transports and commercial jets, they discover that their new home is not the least bit familiar. Says Rachamim Elazar, an Ethiopian activist who arrived in Israel in 1971: "It's the distance of 2,500 years."

Housed in hotels and shelters throughout the country, the bewildered immigrants are pondering flush toilets, pay phones and a pace of life that seems breathtaking. "We must learn everything," says Kasfi Sheto, 28, who reacts to the sensory overload with a fixed smile. For now he seems content with the multicolored and ill-fitting outfit he plucked from a huge pile of donated clothing. "All we want is to be Israeli."

Judging by the experiences of their predecessors, most of the immigrants will manage the adjustment. Mandatory service in the army -- Israel's ethnic blender -- quickly induces a new sense of identity in the young, who account for two-thirds of the latest immigrants. But tanks and tear gas are easier to master than modern culture, especially for a people who revere silence and modesty. Says Addisu Messele, chairman of the United Ethiopian Jewish Organization: "I love Israel, but Israelis are very aggressive and loud and impatient." Says Leora Samuel, who emigrated from Ethiopia in 1984 and now counsels newcomers: "Basically, we have to learn how to use our elbows."

Israel's warm embrace and a remarkable lack of discrimination between blacks and whites help ease the trauma. Until the mid-1980s rabbinic authorities questioned the Ethiopians' Jewishness. But the debate has subsided, and their Jewish credentials are now widely accepted. At least 400 Ethiopians have attended universities and 25 are officers in the army. Says Sergeant Shalom Sebate, who immigrated in 1985: "No one questions my authority. We're all Jews." Although the massive influx of Soviet Jews has overwhelmed the nation's resources, unemployment among the Ethiopians is lower than the national average, largely because of their willingness to take menial jobs. "We don't have doctors or lawyers," says Elazar. "We just need time to adjust."

The lack of professional skills accounts for the Ethiopians' comparatively lower income levels, but careful government planning has prevented the creation of ghettos. Instead, small clusters of Ethiopians live in dozens of towns, easing the process of integration. Even so, the leap from subsistence farming to suburbia can be wrenching, especially for the elderly. "The old ones pay the price," says Gad Ben-Ari, spokesman for the quasi-official Jewish Agency. "We can support them but I doubt they'll become Israelis." Eager to conform, the young reject traditional customs and cuisine while the village religious leaders, known as kessim, become increasingly irrelevant. "It's very hard to preserve our culture," says Messele. "How will we teach the next generation to be silent and respectful?"

Since 1985 almost 50 Ethiopians have committed suicide, depressed by both family separations and culture shock. The Ethiopians' ingrained reluctance to complain may also be to blame. Says Samuel: "They hold everything inside, sitting and brooding, until one day they explode." Israeli officials say slightly higher suicide rates are endemic among new immigrants worldwide and expect the problem to decline now that most families have been reunited. Says Louis Rapoport, author of two books on the Ethiopian Jews: "You can always find some bitter cases but I think most of them have integrated extremely well."

Israel's Ethiopian community now numbers 36,000, and veterans have been employed by the government to ease the transition for newcomers. The little things can make all the difference. Because making coffee is part of the daily Ethiopian ritual, the arrivals are allowed to boil their own brew in their hotel rooms, where some may live for up to a year while taking language classes. Other problems are more insidious. The sudden switch to a high-fat and high-sugar diet is likely to increase the incidence of heart disease and cavities, which until now have been unusually rare among Ethiopians.

Yafa Bogalay, 28, is happy with the trade-off. Her first life ended in 1981, when she fled to Israel after Ethiopian government troops raided her village school in the Gondar province, hauling away suspected rebels. "I cried and cried when I first got here," she says. Now she works at a child-care center in Ashdod and refuses to teach her three children her native language. "I don't want to even think about Ethiopia," she says. "There was too much suffering." Her sole indulgence in the past is listening to Ethiopian music on her tape player, which offers the only safe passage back to the thatched hut of her childhood.