In Israel, there is no such thing as a simple story.

Every year for the last several years, there has been a communal seder for the Ethiopians in Beit Shemesh. During the past year, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of Ethiopians who have moved to Beit Shemesh. The Ethiopian population in Beit Shemesh now numbers 1,400. While some will travel to family outside of Beit Shemesh for the seder, most of the others look forward to the seder as a time when they can sit together with the larger Ethiopian community, celebrate their traditions, and, also important, save some of the high cost of preparing food for Pesach. The local Religious Council has been contributing to this seder but last year, there was no seder.

This year, activists in the community turned to Rabbi Yefet Alemu to organize the community seder. Rabbi Alemu became the first Ethiopian Conservative ordained rabbi this past December and has quite a story to tell. He was born in 1961 in a small village in Ethiopia. In 1980, he left his village seeking to go to Israel. He was arrested in Addis Ababa and escaped prison. He arrived in the Gondar region and then set out walking to Sudan. There he met a Jewish Red Cross director who arranged for him to fly on one of the Israeli organized secret flights to Israel. In Israel he studied and became a nurse. At the same time, while continuing to be a believing Jew, he became disillusioned with organized Judaism and with the Israeli religious establishment's insistence on a conversion ceremony for all Ethiopian Jews. Yefet helped organized an Ethiopian protest vigil opposite the Chief Rabbinate building in Jerusalem. At the vigil, he met students from the Schecter Institute of Jewish students who were studying to be conservative rabbis. He was confused and surprised to see that they were without beards, without long black coats. The students replied that there was more than one type of rabbi, more than one way of being Jewish. Yefet excitingly embraced this pluralistic approach to Judaism. He was accepted by the Schecter Institute and after 6 years of hard work, he received a BA, MA, and his rabbinical ordination.

During his days as a student, he was visiting relatives in Beit Shemesh, drinking the strong Ethiopian coffee, when he began to talk about Judaism to a group of children. The group grew larger and larger as he began to teach about Jewish identity and religion once a week. Yefet's message of pluralistic Judaism has been welcome amongst the mostly Jewishly alienated young Jews. He has won a reputation as a skilled and interesting teacher amongst young people and their parents. It was natural that the Beit Shemesh activists would turn to Yefet to lead the seder. Meanwhile, the Religious Council was supporting only a seder organized for 200 Ethiopians being organized by an Ethiopian rabbi who was very connected to Shas and was much more strict in his observance than the vast majority of Ethiopian Jews. This Shas rabbi was very opposed to a seder being led by a Conservative rabbi. Here is where the Washington federation entered the picture. The Masorati (Conservative) Movement in Israel had no funds for a seder of 600 participants. Other agencies and federations were approached but it was Washington with its strong Partnership 2000 connection, strong desire to help Ethiopian Jews, and strong Conservative community that agreed to raise $8,000 to cover all of the expenses of the communal seder.

However, the story does not end here. An attempt was made to unite the entire Ethiopian community but the Shas rabbi refused to participate if Rabbi Yefet Alemu would have any official role at the seder. The leadership of the Ethiopian community in Beit Shemesh - 30 activists and elders met on Sunday evening to decide what to do. The Shas rabbi still opposed the inclusion of Rabbi Alemu and a few of his followers were adamant in their position. One of the most respected Ethiopian religious leaders, Kes Adana, today a resident of Beit Shemesh, spoke up declaring that Rabbi Yefet Alemu was indeed a religious man and was entitled to lead the seder. The Shas rabbi could attend or not but the seder was going to proceed with the Conservative rabbi.

The outcome of this decision was attendance by 900 Ethiopians at the communal seder on march 27th. Since there is no hall for so many, 3 locations were used. Most attended the seder at the Meyerhoff Community Center in Givat Sharett. This seder was led by Rabbi Alemu. Another seder was located at a nearby religious school and the third seder took place in yet another religious school in old Beit Shemesh. Rabbi Alemu visited all of them. In addition to all the lessons of Pesach, he delivered two additional messages. He made the participants aware of the generosity of the Washington Jewish community and helped them understand how the whole community benefits with a framework of pluralism and mutual respect.

The seder in Beit Shemesh was different than the seder in Ethiopia. "There", Rabbi Alemu explained, "we followed the commands of the Torah to slaughter a lamb and to put its blood on the lintels of our doors. We don't do that in Israel but in addition to recounting the miracles G-d performed for us in leaving Egypt, we add the miracles G-d performed for each of us. Our miserable condition in Ethiopian, our leaving Ethiopian with almost nothing, crossing the desert, risking our lives from marauding bands and hostile armies, sitting in camps under poor conditions, and finally arriving to Israel - these are all miracles, somewhat similar to the miracles of the exodus from Egypt. At our seder, all of those who were born in Ethiopian stand and share the story of the miracle that G-d performed for him or her in arriving to Israel." Following their personal and moving accounts, Rabbi Alemu added "I want to thank the Jewish community of Washington for helping make this happen."

Tammuz 5762 - June 2002