He may be “quite out of the loop” now, but Mesfin Fanta, former Ethiopian health minister, remembers vividly what it was like to live in that country as a Jew.
“You could not move one kilometer without being noticed,” he said in an interview. “There were spies even in the farming community who would report on your whereabouts.”
Fanta, who has been living quietly in San Francisco for six years, gave an audience of some 40 African-Americans, expatriate Ethiopians and American Jews a history lesson Thursday of last week at Nyala Ethiopian Restaurant and Cafe.
The San Francisco speaking engagement was the first in this country for Fanta, who said he left Ethiopia in 1993 because life had become unendurable under the communist government. He now lives in a Chinatown retirement home.
The talk was part of a lecture-discussion sponsored by the Isaiah Project, a coalition of African-Americans and Jews dedicated to education and bridge-building between the two cultures.
“I was very happy” at the diverse mix that turned out, Fanta said after the talk, especially in light of the antagonism that he has observed between American blacks and Jews.
Cross-cultural gatherings “are normal for us, but not for Americans. It’s very sad, very sad, the antagonism. I don’t think people like Martin Luther King would have wanted it like this.”
Reflecting on the conditions that prompted him to leave his home country, Fanta said the government was suspicious of those Ethiopian Jews who were vocal about both their religion and their desire to go to Israel.
Although 50,000 Ethiopian Jews were brought to Israel during Operation Moses in 1984 and 1985, thousands who claim to be Jewish were left behind, most in Addis Ababa.
Had a vote been taken by those involved, “100 percent would have gone to Israel,” said Fanta, who visited the Jewish state himself in a 1969 tour led by Israeli government officials.
While the 2,000 to 3,000 Ethiopians who remain in the Kwara region are considered Jewish, there has been considerable debate over the Jewish roots of Ethiopia’s Falash Mura. Many claim a historical connection with Judaism. Although they may have abandoned its practice in the past, many of the Falash Mura, estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000, are rekindling their faith.
Fanta said one need only look to current religious and cultural practices to see clear Judaic origins of the Falash Mura, who are often called Falasha, a derogatory term that means “stranger” in the Ge’ez tongue.
“They practice Judaism totally,” Fanta said. “That has persisted since 380 C.E. They do not eat pork, they circumcise their sons, beef is koshered, women do not go into churches when they are in their monthly.”
Little is known about the origins of Ethiopian Jews, one of the oldest diaspora peoples. Called Beta Israel, they base their religion solely on the Torah, as they were never exposed to the commentaries.
Jewish organizations worldwide have provided support for the community and lobbied for their right to leave the country. The Israeli rabbinate recognized them as Jews in 1975, but it took another 10 years before Ethiopia’s Mengistu regime allowed Israelis to airlift emigres first to the Sudan, then to Israel, during Ethiopia’s civil war.
Since 1948, some 50,700 Ethiopian Jews have immigrated to Israel, according to the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.
When Fanta was growing up in Ethiopia, the country was still ruled by a monarch. He knows “absolutely nothing” about life there now.
“I am absolutely incommunicado,” he said. “They call themselves democratic, but there is nothing of democracy as we know it, no due process.”
“We are a very conservative people,” Fanta said of Ethiopian Jewry. “I miss my country very much, but I am also tired of communism.”
While he once lived in Ethiopia and read about Israel — “I used to get the Jerusalem Post” — he now lives in the United States and reads about Africa.
The Isaiah Project event provided him an opportunity to connect with others with whom he had crossed paths in his native country: “There was a doctor who has been inoculating people there,” he said. “And one gentleman who was involved in Operation Moses.”
Co-organizer Roland Washington said Fanta succeeded in “dispelling the myth that there is no connection between blacks and Jews.”