Ethiopian Jewish Festival of Sig’d Goes Mainstream
By Nathan Jeffay
Of the various immigrant groups in Israel, it’s clear that Ethiopians have it especially tough. There is widespread poverty in the Ethiopian community and the country has not overcome the fact that the educational level of immigrants on arrival was largely lower than that of immigrants from other backgrounds. Still today, the educational standard is often lower than among other Israelis leading to fewer opportunities.
The problem is recognized at the highest levels of the country’s leadership. “Ethiopian Jews’ feeling that they have been wronged is not detached from reality, a reality that we must change,” Ehud Olmert, then-Prime Minister, declared at the end of 2007. In 2008 the state comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, said in a report that pretty much every state body had failed the Ethiopians in some way — see a report on what he had to say here.
On a cultural level, Ethiopian traditions and practices have largely failed to interest or influence the Israeli mainstream. The community’s major festival has had a bittersweet feel since Ethiopian Jewry started arriving in Israel three decades ago. On the one hand Sig’d, which takes place 50 days after Yom Kippur (November 16 this year), acquired a new poignancy, as the day’s ritual involves calling for a Jewish return to Jerusalem. But while the majority of Ethiopian Jews made it to Jerusalem, or at least to Israel, it was largely ignored by the establishment and the general public.
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