47 Days of the Omer. That is 6 Weeks and 5 Days.
Samira and Farede
(I apologize, now I can’t remember or figure out where I found this photo of them or who to credit it to.)
Hod shebe Malchut
Humility/Gratitude within Nobility/Sovereignty
Saturday evening June 8 and Sunday June 9
Shavua Tov
I’m walking with real people tonight, and all of the historical information is factual. Farede and Dani - the Mossad agent - really did work together. Some of the things Dani and Farede ‘say’ in this exchange are from their interviews in articles, however the dialogue itself is entirely fiction.
“I love this walk,” he says. “It’s so good every year. Farede Aklum,” the man walking near me introduces himself. He is wearing a light blue button down shirt.
“Samira,” says the woman in a red flowered dress.
“You know,” says Farede, “I read the bit you wrote about Judith. Did you know there is another Judith in our story? A queen.”
“Queen Judith?” I ask, unfamiliar.
“Oh, yes,” nods Samira. “She is also known as Gudit and Yodit and Isato. Isato means fire. She was a very powerful female ruler for forty years. She lived in the 10th century of the common era, at a time of Christian conquest of Ethiopia. The church cut off one of her breasts and sold her into slavery.”
“Why would the church . . .” I begin, but it doesn’t specifically matter. Conquest is like that. “How did she become queen?” I ask.
“Well,” says Farede, “the story is that she was responsible for laying waste to the Kingdom of Aksum and its countryside, destroying the churches and monuments in revenge.”
“She was Jewish?” I ask.
Samira nods. “Either she was a princess of Gideon IV, the King of the Jewish Kingdom of Beta Israel and inherited his throne after he was killed in battle with the Aksumite Empire . . .”
Farede continues, “. . . or she was a banished woman of Aksum who married Zenobis, who was Jewish, and converted to Judaism, eventually conquering Aksum with her husband and the people of Hahayle, her mother’s homeland.”
“Either way she was an Ethiopian Jewish queen in the 10th century,” I say.
“Yes, either way,” Farede smiles.
“Queen Judith,” says Samira. She is smiling, too.
This man, Farede Aklum, was a Beta Israel community leader in the 1970s. I was expecting to walk with Queen Judith and surprised that instead I’m actually walking with him and his wife. Everything about the missions to bring the Ethiopian community to Israel is hidden in mystery and secrecy. That is particularly true about the work of Beta Israel community leaders and activists. In 1977, Farede was one of the most prominent Zionist activists in Ethiopia. After the Ethiopian government ended its relationship with Israel and proclaimed Zionists in Ethiopia to be traitors, Aklum escaped to Sudan. Ethiopia was in the midst of civil war and Jews in Ethiopia were experiencing persecution.
“May I ask you about how you brought your community to Israel?” I ask.
“Ask!” says Farede.
“Okay,” I say, “I’m asking.”
“First you have to know,” says Samira, “in 1948 when Ethiopian Jews heard that the State of Israel had been declared we danced in the streets, and when we learned it had been attacked we fasted, but it wasn’t until 1975 that the State of Israel recognized us as halachically Jewish, allowing us to return to Israel under the Law of Return.”
I nod. I do know this.
She continues, “we weren’t encouraged to immigrate, though. And anyway, the dictatorship in Ethiopia would not allow us to leave.”
“But in 1977,” interjects Farede, “in 1977 Priminister Menachem Begin instructed the Mossad to do whatever it took to bring us to the Jewish state. Getting us out of Ethiopia was the challenge. The conflicts and the topography meant airlifts were out of the question. They had no idea what to do.”
“Until you contacted them,” says Samira pointedly.
“Until I contacted them,” agrees Farede.
“What did you say?” I ask.
“I had escaped to Sudan, the authorities were after me for being too Jewish, and sold my wedding ring to contact them. I sent a letter asking for an airline ticket so I could come home,” he says. “This Mossad agent actually found me and we made a plan to get more Ethiopian Jews to come to Sudan so the Mossad could smuggle them out to Israel. We were able to tell our people back in the Highlands. My brothers made the journey without hesitating and more followed.”
I notice another man walking nearby. Samira and Farede see him, too.
“Achi!” Farede calls out. “My brother, join us!” He turns to me, “This is Dani.” Turning back to Dani he says, “she has questions about those times.”
“It was like two big wheels, two strong wheels, actually met - one was the old Ethiopian Jews’ dream to go back to Zion and Jerusalem, and the other one was the Israeli Jews that came to help them fulfill this - it was the fusion of wheels that was the strength of the operation,” says Dani. “We found this abandoned resort village in Arous in Sudan’s east coast. It had no running water or electricity, and the Sudanese government had abandoned the project. Mossad posed as a Swiss-based tourism company and convinced the government that we could renovate the resort and bring in tourists again.”
“By some miracle it worked,” says Farede. “The diving resort had 15 chalets and a kitchen and a restaurant that opened out onto the beach and the Red Sea.”
“We renovated it, recruited local staff - although none of them knew it was fake,” says Dani. “The diving storeroom was closed to guests, that’s where we kept the tech and radios that agents used to keep in touch with headquarters in Israel.”
“Wait,” I interrupt. “You had guests?”
“Of course,” shrugs Dani. “Arous was really beautiful. At first Jews in Sudanese refugee camps were given 24 hours notice that they were going to be taken out - they were not told where to but understood it was Jerusalem - but eventually we could not give them any notice at all because of the risk it would leak out. They were just quietly woken up and told it was time to leave.”
“At the coast, Navy commandos took over and got them to Israel,” says Farede.
“We had to abandon the . . . resort . . . in 1985 because a new military junta came to power,” says Dani.
“After we’d gotten over 7,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel,” smiles Farede.
From November 1984 - January 1985 about 8,000 more Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel and in 1991 15,000 Jews left Ethiopia in 22.5 hours during Operation Solomon. There was another operation in 2021 to bring those who were left behind.
“Over 4,000 people died on their way from Ethiopia, before finally arriving in Israel,” says Samira. “We remember those times every year on the 28th of Iyar.”
Farede adds, “It’s known as Memorial Day for Ethiopian Jews who Perished on Their Way to Israel, and it’s held on Mount Herzl.”
“The 28th of Iyar,” I say. “That was just four days ago.” Samira nods. “What does your story have to do with Queen Judith?” I ask.
Farede shrugs. “Maybe nothing,” he says. “Or maybe something. When you are being treated like nothing, it can help to remember your people have also been rulers.”
“Queens,” Samira nods. She links her arm in Dani’s and the three of them walk on together.
I think about my question and the answer I imagine, and then think again about Malchut being less about royalty as we tend to think of it and all about actualizing ideas and ideals.
I think about how the story of Ethiopian Jews escaping to Sudan and then to Israel is typically framed as a rescue. I think of Dani’s words, his real words quoted by the BBC: “It was like two big wheels, two strong wheels, actually met - one was the old Ethiopian Jews’ dream to go back to Zion and Jerusalem, and the other one was the Israeli Jews that came to help them fulfill this - it was the fusion of wheels that was the strength of the operation.” I think of the months Ethiopian Jews walked through Ethiopia and into Sudan, the years they lived in provisional camps, and all of the people who died on the journey. I think of the 2,000 years the Beta Israel lived in Ethiopia and thrived, were forcibly converted to Christianity, the 40 years Queen Judith was on the throne, lived in relative peace, were persecuted, and the Ethiopian Jewish activists who worked on the ground so that the epic rescue missions - and they were epic - could even be possible.
I learned tonight in a Times of Israel article about the documentary “With No Land” about the Beta Israel and the ongoing saga of the Ethiopian Jewish community. The film is directed by filmmakers and spouses Aalam-Warque Davidian, who arrived in Israel during Operation Solomon, and Kobi Davidian, who was born in Jerusalem.
I’m adding the documentary to my to-study list for Shavuot.
I’ll be watching The Red Sea Diving Resort, too.
See you at Sinai.
How to say the blessing:
Choose the language that resonates with you the most.
Non-gendered Hebrew based on grammar system built by Lior Gross and Eyal Rivlin,
available at www.nonbinaryhebrew.com
Gender Expansive:
הִנְנִי מוּכָנֶה וּמְזֻמֶּנֶה …
Hineni muchaneh um’zumeneh …
Here I am, ready and prepared …
Feminine:
הִנְנִי מוּכָנָה וּמְזֻמֶּנֶת …
Hineni muchanah um’zumenet …
Here I am, ready and prepared …
Masculine:
הִנְנִי מוּכָן וּמְזֻמַן …
Hineni muchan um’zuman …
Here I am, ready and prepared …
All Continue:
… לְקַיֵּם מִצְוַת עֲשֵׂה שֶׁל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר כְּמוֹ שֶׁכָּתוּב בַּתּוֹרָה וּסְפַרְתֶּם לָכֶם מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת
מִיּוֹם הַבִיאֳכֶם אֶת עֹמֶר הַתְּנוּפָה שֶׁבַע שַׁבָּתוֹת תְּמִימוֹת תִּהְיֶנָה. עַד מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת
הַשְּׁבִיעִית תִּסְפְּרוּ חֲמִשִּׁים יוֹם וְהִקְרַבְתֶם מִנְחָה חֲדָשָה לַיי
… lekayyem mitzvat aseh shel sefirat ha-omer, kemo shekatuv batorah: us’fartem lakhem mimacharat hashabbat, miyom havi’akhem et omer hat’nufah, sheva shabbatot temimot tih’yena, ad mimacharat hashabbat hash’vi’it tis’peru khamishim yom, vehikravtem minkha khadasha l’adonai.
… to fulfill the mitzvah of counting the Omer, as it is written in the Torah: And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Shabbat, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the wave-offering, you shall count seven full weeks. Until the day after the seventh Shabbat, you shall count fifty days, until you bring a new gift to the Eternal.
Gender-Expansive Language for God
בְּרוּכֶה אַתֶּה יי אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ חֵי הָעוֹלָמִים אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשֶׁנוּ בְּמִצַוְּתֶהּ וְצִוֶּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר
Brucheh ateh Adonai, Eloheinu khei ha’olamim, asher kidshenu bemitzvoteh v’tzivenu al sefirat ha’omer.
Blessed are You, Eternal, Life of all worlds who has made us holy with Their commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.
Feminine Language for God
בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ יָ-הּ אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוְּתָהּ וְצִוָּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר
Bruchah at Yah, ru’akh ha’olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotah v’tzivanu al sefirat ha’omer
Blessed are You, Yah, our God, Spirit of the universe who has made us holy with Her commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.
Masculine Language for God
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotav v’tzivanu al sefirat ha’omer.
Blessed are You, Lord, our God, ruler of the universe who has made us holy with His commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.
Count the day and week
Today is the _________ day, which is _________ weeks and _________ days of the Omer.
Today:
הַיּוֹם שִׁבְעָה וְאַרְבָּעִים יוֹם
שֶׁהֵם שִׁשָּׁה שָׁבוּעוֹת
וַהֲמִשָׁה יָמִים לָעוֹמֶר.
Hayom shiva v’arba’im yom
shehem shishah shavuot v’chameish yamim la’omer
Today is forty-seven days.
That is six weeks and five days of the Omer.
Sefirat HaOmer Blessing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8hCiPI1tMQ