Arlene Kushner
14 July '19
With all there is to write about, I have decided first to do a follow-up to my posting about the Ethiopian riots sent out last Monday:
After I wrote, the issue lingered with me: I could not stop turning it over in my mind, in part because of having worked with this community. I was reaching for some of the complexities of the situation.
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Last Thursday, something came to my attention that provided a focus for this posting: Five blog entries on the Times of Israel site, all written by young Ethiopian Israeli women: Accomplished young women, on their way to substantial academic achievement.
All five have been or are currently associated with Nishmat, an institute of advanced Torah study for women, in Jerusalem, which also features programs for developing leadership and social responsibility.
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Four of them are associated with Nishmat’s Maayan program, which, along with Jewish studies, offers participants full financial support and provides them “with tools for their personal and professional advancement, enabling them to succeed in academic studies.”
Ninety percent of the graduates of the Mayan program “continue on to higher education and academic professional training (for example, teachers, lawyers, social workers and occupational therapists).”
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What the women wrote in their Times of Israel blogs shocked me, and left me deeply, deeply sad. For their perception of what is going on – their subjective reality – has become so negative.
It’s the old story of the glass which might be seen either as half full or half empty. In what they wrote, there seemed to be either a reluctance or inability on their part – I cannot say which – to also embrace the good, even as there are significant problems.
In some instances (I will cite just a few examples) it seemed as if they had internalized a litany of grievances, and would not let go, even in cases in which those grievances have been rectified – as if these grievances are part of a running narrative. (Let’s not forget the bad stuff that happened to us.) This is painful twice over. It is, of course, a bad place for them to be; if they feel themselves defeated and alienated, it inevitably will inhibit their success in life. Additionally, and significantly, the picture they paint is one that does an injustice to Israel.
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