On the Ground in Israel A personal view of our efforts in Israel from Amir Shacham, UJC MetroWest Director of Israel Operations May 12, 2008

Atzmaut – 60, 'Atzmaut' – 6

At our collective age of 60, we Israelis are mature enough to understand that not all of our dreams are going to be fulfilled, and we are immature enough to insist on continuing to dream. We are old enough to laugh at ourselves but young enough to insultingly criticize anyone who laughs at us. This is a good age for Heshbon Nefesh (self-criticism) and therefore the media here prepared many lists during the last few days: the best achievements, the most frustrating failures, the next decade's challenges, the funniest moments, the national embarrassments, and much more. If an alien would make the terrible mistake of landing here during our Yom Ha'atzmaut week, he (or she?) would easily go crazy from the large number of conflicts in our lives and probably call home screaming: "take me out of this craziness." However, for us who were born into it and for many of you, Israel's "craziness" is the essence of its existence. For better and for worse, we are not a normal country.

We are the Jewish/democratic state that, in a miraculous way, was born and developed from the ashes of the Holocaust, on our ancient homeland.

Symbolizing our abnormal situation is one Hebrew word that appears in nearly all of the above-mentioned lists, whether they are summarizing the achievements, the challenges, or the embarrassments. It is a unique word to our people and our religion, does not have a translation in any other language, and is used all over the world. It reflects the uniqueness of our nation's renewal here and demonstrates the value of Jewish unity – it is: Aliyah.

In six decades, while building the country and defending it, we absorbed three million olim from some 70 countries, five times more than what our population was in 1948. This phenomenon by itself is unprecedented, crazy, and miraculous enough to make our alien run away. The saga of the Aliyah from Ethiopia is something that even we Israelis and Diaspora Jews, who helped make it happen, can't always understand.

This year, while celebrating the 60th anniversary of the state's Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day), we are also celebrating the 6th anniversary of our "Operation Atzmaut" program, a concept that UJC MetroWest initiated and developed together with its partners in order to help integrate Ethiopian olim better into Israeli society.

Through a number of serious brainstorming sessions that MetroWest held in 2001-2002 with the municipal leadership of our partner community of Rishon LeZion, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), and the local Ethiopian community, we came up with the concept of "Atzmaut." The idea was to work on three main aspects that are the key for successful integration: education, employment, and family management. We were taking into consideration the tremendous cultural differences and were hoping to help this beautiful and proud community to become less dependent.

Indeed, we came up with the concept, but we didn't have a name for the project. I was playing around with different ideas and suddenly realized that the most appropriate name should reflect the essence of the idea: Independence, Atzmaut. I proposed: "Operation Atzmaut" to emphasize that this is not just a program or a project but a larger operation. Like Operations Moses and Solomon, in which we brought the Ethiopian community here, now our role was to help integrate them into our society through Operation Atzmaut.

I was very happy with the name and with my own copywriting skills until the following week, when a distinguished leadership delegation of Ethiopian Israelis from Rishon LeZion wanted to see me urgently. In a very charged meeting they said that they didn't like this name at all. They accused us of not being sensitive enough to their ancient culture. They said that the name "Atzmaut" is an insult to the community and that we were patronizing them. They explained to me that they had been a proud, strong community for generations. They insisted that they were economically, socially, and culturally independent in their villages back in Ethiopia, and that their dependence here is perceived only through our prejudiced eyes.

I didn't know exactly how to respond to that, after all they were "the clients" and they knew better. I tried to explain that independence in Rishon LeZion means different things than in their old African villages, that we want to help them feel proud, strong, and secure using modern tools, that we respect their heritage but care about the next generation, etc. It didn't help much. I almost gave up and went back to our steering committee with a name change suggestion when I decided to try my last secret weapon, the Hebrew language:

"Atzmaut" in Hebrew, I told them proudly, does not mean only independence in the narrow sense. The term includes in it much more: "power," "strength," "confidence," "ability to cope," "individualism," and more. I gave them some examples that all come from the same root: "Otzma" means strength, "Ha'atzama" means empowerment, "Kavod Atzmi" means pride, and "Bitachon Atzmi" means self-confidence.

"We are here with you to 'empower' your community, to 'strengthen' it, while developing 'self-confidence' and 'pride' in order to regain 'independence'," I declared in a somewhat pompous way, using the Hebrew vocabulary that I had just taught them.

In retrospect, I don't think they understood much from what I just told them. After all, they had been disconnected from the Hebrew language for generations. However, surprisingly enough, I saw something in their eyes that made them reconsider. Perhaps it was the unique sound of our revived, common, ancient biblical, and modern language, or maybe they were just tired of me. In any event, after a short consultation they said that they accept the name "Operation Atzmaut," and the rest is history.

Today, after six years of operation, "Atzmaut" in Rishon LeZion has become a recognized and successful national model. The Ethiopian community is proud of it, the results are well known, and 12 other similar projects were initiated all over the country. The government of Israel adopted this concept, and our own community, together with its partners, received a lot of credit for initiating it. Recently, a new endowment was established through UJC MetroWest's efforts: "The Paul Nadler Ethiopian Renewal Endowment" that for the long run will secure our continuous support for integrating the Ethiopian community into Israeli society in Rishon and nationwide.

During the celebrations for Israel's 60th Yom Ha'atzmaut in the MetroWest community, a delegation from "Operation Atzmaut" in Rishon LeZion visited our community in New Jersey. What a nice symbolic way to demonstrate the connection between the Atzmauts. One of the members in the group was originally in attendance at the above-mentioned urgent meeting of the Ethiopian leadership with me, some six years ago, when we had discussed the name. I remember this person as being quite vocal against using the name "Atzmaut" back then. To my satisfaction, through the delegation's preparations and during the visit itself, this individual is now proudly using the name "Atzmaut" and advocates for it as an example of success. I see this anecdote as one of our best achievements. Empowerment, self-confidence, pride, and independence are indeed all woven together in this name and this operation, "Atzmaut."

Drishat Shalom,

Amir

---

to receive "On the Ground in Israel" via e-mail.

On the Ground archive

• April 28, 2008
• April 14, 2008
• March 31, 2008
• March 17, 2008
• March 3, 2008
• February 13, 2008