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Code name: Maverick
Immigration Minister will retire, having helped Israel absorb Ethiopian Jews
GIL KEZWER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Toronto
Once a maverick, always a maverick. That's been the life story of Yair Tzaban, the white-haired grandfa-therly Member of Knesset (MK) who more than any other Israeli parliamentarian can take the credit — oi- the blame, according to critics — for the Jewish state's policy on the assimilation of 57,000 immigrants Irom Ethiopia.
The Tel Aviv-born Tzaban, 65, is currently a member of the Mei'etz faction of the Labor pai-ty alignment, Mr. Tzaban was in Toronto recently to open an exhibit on the now-vanished traditional way of life of Ethiopian Jews before their en masse allyuli. The clandestine Israeli rescue operation known as Operation Moses brought some 8,000 black Jews to the Jewish state via the Sudan in 1984, before being aborted following news leaks to the media iji January 1985.
Individual Jews continued fleeing the dictatorship of Ethiopia's Marxist leader. President Haile Mariam Mengistu. A second emergency airlift in May 1991, code named Operation Solomon, brought 14,163 rcfugees to Israel in 33 hours as rebel ;md government troops faced off in the famine-stricken capital Addis Ababa.
Israel was ill-prepared for the Africans, who encountered religious and social discrimination. l'"or many despairing ]5thiopi;uis, salvation has soured into a nightmare. Majiy have spent yemvs living in "temporary" cnruvanini (mobile homes) with no prospects (or a permanent home (see JB,
April 19, "Timid no more").
Following elections for the 13th Knesset in 1992, Mr. Tzaban, a veteran politician who has sat in evei7 parliament since 1981, was offered his choice of five cabinet posts: immigration, energy, communications, environment or tourism. Meretz insiders urged him to take any of them but the
brimming with disgruntled and unemployed Russians and Ethiopians. Mr. Tzaban made his twin priorities to empty the festering sites and prevent the creation of ghettoes in outlying areas.
"Ten percent of Afula is Ethiopian. Pfeligious schools there are 70 percent Ethiopian. We
first, a thankless and impossibly difficult post.
"As psychologists know, immigration is as traumatic as death and divorce," Mr. Tzaban reflected. Naturally he opted to become immigration minister.
"It's a test of honor for our society," he said of the task of integrating Ethiopians. "A test not foi- a year or a decade, but for a generation."
When Mr. Tzaban assumed the portfolio, Israel had 22 sprawling mobile home camps
Immigration Minister Yair Tzaban meets with new immigrants in Tel Aviv. The musicians are immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
wanted to spread them all over in order to integrate them," he explained.
To facilitate a permanent housing solution, Mr. Tzaban's ministry persuaded the finance ministry to up the standard immigrant mortgage of $32,000 US to between $80,000 and $120,000, depending on family size. Moreover, 96 percent of the 28-year loan became a grant, reducing monthly payments to $56 US per month.
Like Sir Moses Montefiore when he built the first neighbor-
hood outside the walls of Jerusalem in 1860, Mr. Tzaban initially encountered grave reluctance among the would-be beneficiaries of his largesse. The concept of a mortgage was unknown in remote Gondar, he said. "The start was very slow. Seven thousand audio cassettes were produced in Amharic explaining the generous offer."
Mr. Tzaban noted that nowadays, "the caravan sites are emptying out." Less than 400 families remain without a permanent home. But given Israel's soaring real estate prices, and that the last families are always the most problematic, no immediate solution is at hand.
Despite Mr. Tzaban's impressive human investment, Ethiopian Jews have continued to have a difficult time entering the Israeli mainstream. Most recently, Ethiopian Jews were outraged to learn that blood they donated was routinely discarded by the Magen David Adom -Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross. "Color of skin is the deepest obstacle to integration," Mr. Tzaban observed.
The Ethiopian immigrants face cultural hurdles in making the transition from a traditional Third World way of life to Israel's modem, largely secular and frenetic society. The adjustment is said to be particularly traumatic for the elderly. Since 1985, more than 100 have committed suicide. Depression stemming from the separation of close-knit families on two continents with no communication possible is no longer an issue. But culture shock remains a profound problem. 1]
Immigration Minister Ytiir Tzaban's initiatives have been part of broader reforms intended to avoid the Moroccan and Yemenite assimilation fiascos of the 1950s — when tradition-bound Jews were humihated and encouraged to drop their "primitive" ways.
Mr. Tzaban instituted a policy of pluralism or multiculturalism. Immigrants were no longer encouraged to discard their native culture and emulate native-born Israelis. He recently set up prizes for immigrant authors writing in languages other than Hebrew to promote "full legitimization of various cultures, so that children won't be ashamed of their parents."
Just as all Ethiopian Jews have now left Africa, Mr. Tzaban anticipates that no Jews will be left in the former Soviet Union (FSU) in the not-too-distant fliture. Of the 2.2 million there in 1989, only 1 million are left today: 720,000 have settled in Israel; some 250,000
have moved to the West including Canada, the United States and Germany; and deaths have far exceeded births.
"I believe that during the coming five years we will have an average of60,000 per year [fi-om the FSU];" Beyond that, Russian Jewry will face dissolution, he suggested.
"I believe aliyah will continue from South Africa and Argentina. Similarly, we may see mass immigration from the United States and Canada. We want a majority of the Jewish people to live in Israel."
Mr. Tzaban's last public act on behalf of the homeland he so dearly loves will come at the end of May. In a country renowned for its septuagenaiian politicians, the maverick is resigning at the age of65.