Black and White in Israel

I saw their angry painted half white/natural half black faces on the tv news.  These are the children of the  newly-arrived Ethiopian teenage boys I took care of as a housemother in a boarding school in Maalot, Israel,back in 1984.  Those boys, now fathers, were traumatized by walking out of Ethiopia, living as hungry refugees in Sudan, being whisked to Israel in the belly of cargo planes in the dark of night, and plopped into boarding schools with Israeli kids who didn't want them there.boarding schools with Israeli kids who didn't  want them there.
I remember their beautifully sculpted faces, their melodious chanting as they walked around the boarding school, their frustration at trying to learn Hebrew and fit into what the boarding school administration wanted them to be.  Their thin bodies shook in the cold of a Maalot winter where each would hide even his head under his one allotted blanket at night.  They were so grateful for the lotion I put on their dry skin, cracked from the cold.  No one knew why so many broke out in boils.  Without warning, the cycle of malaria would turn some suddenly into a shaking mass of feverish sweat.  And they endured the painful frequent combing of their lice-infested kinky hair.
Believing that all Jews were their brothers, and that Israel was the paradise they yearned for, they wanted to be Israeli.  But, coming from Ethiopia that had never been dominated by a white country, they were not prepared for being black in a white society.  Nor had they expected being looked down upon as primitive in a technologically advanced society.  Grieving for the family members who never made it to Israel, struggling with a strange language that they were expected to learn instantly, being unwanted and unliked, they defended themselves by throwing stones at their attackers.  Even in the more harmonious boarding schools,  these proud, dignified Ethiopians began to understand that Jewish or not, there was a difference between black and white.  And black wasn't as good.  They eventually confided in me that they wanted to be white too.  It was heartbreaking.
I have followed their immigration in Israel over the years enough to know that theirs has not been a happy story.  Although the government tried to provide what the Ethiopian families needed for a healthy transition, the Ethiopians sank to the bottom of Israeli society.  The only place where Ethiopians have excelled in Israel is in the army where their natural physical attributes make them outstanding.  A few are crawling into law and politics, but the number of success stories is still low.  One movie I saw of an Ethiopian child struggling with the emotional conflicts of being Ethiopian in Israel was agonizing to watch.  A few painful books have been written by older Ethiopian survivors of coming to Israel.
The teenagers I took care of lost the innocence of having no color line when they came to Israel.  They could "see" black and white, but they didn't "feel" it.  Now their children are chanting too, but these are angry slogans in demonstrations against what they are calling Apartheid in Israel.  The  racism that turns couples away from buying homes, segregates Ethiopian children in schools and neighborhoods, and keeps Ethiopians in low paying jobs is being challenged as never before.
I weep for them now, as I did then.
Suellen Zima
Comments?? E-mail Suellen at ZimaTravels.com

The Broken Heart and Trust

Have you decided never to trust again?
Are you willing to take the risk?
It takes years to build trust and few seconds to destroy it, we are expected to trust our friends, families and loved ones, but it is quite unfortunate that they are the people who stands the better chance of betraying the trust we have in them. Our enemies are out of the question because we would never trust them even for a second.
It really hurts when someone you trust or love, betrays the trust you have in them, from then forth, trust becomes a nightmare, it disappears.
Friedrich Nietzsche once said "I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you". There is this other quote that says " Trust is like a vase once broken, though you can fix it, but the vase will never be the same again".
WHY IS OUR TRUST BETRAYED?
Sometimes we contribute 40% of our problems. When we want people to be who they are not, they pretend to be who we want them to be, when they can't go on with the pretense, we assume that we've been betrayed. The key is to get to know people and trust them to be who they are, instead we trust people to be who we want them to be, and when they're not, we cry.
WHO IS TO BE TRUSTED?
Is it when you need people to be there for you?, they're not.....
They're like million miles away and when you think someone is totally reliable and trust worthy and you've built your whole life around them and then it turns out they were never that person, you see your self as being alone?
Here is the big question, who is to be trusted?
Most times we trust those who doesn't deserve our our trust. People who always do things beyond our expectations to gain our trust should be careful with, because they may be looking for something else. We should be careful with people like that.
DOES ANYONE TRUST ME? If you are reading this article, know that someone trusts you and they would not want you to betray them. It took days, weeks, months, and years to build this trust and you wouldn't want to destroy it in seconds, that was why George MacDonald said "to be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved". Trust is more fragile than love.
CAN WE TRUST?
Yes, we have to trust, William Shakespare wrote, " trust but verify", his short and meaningful quote answers the one question that billions of people in the world seek to find answers to.
Finally, trust but be careful and don't forget William Shakespeare's quote.

Ozoani Chinedu Henry

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Elizabeth and Hazel from Little Rock

 I was 14 when Elizabeth and Hazel were 15 years old.  I lived in Massachusetts and they lived in Little Rock, Arkansas.  But just about everyone in the U.S. got to know Elizabeth and Hazel through a black and white photo by Will Counts that became iconic.  Little Rock was being forced by the federal government to integrate Central High School in 1957.  Nine selected black students tried to go to school that day.
     The photo branded Elizabeth and Hazel -- black Elizabeth as stoic and strong, white Hazel as the ugly personification of racial hatred.  It was a shameful day in American history that has not been forgotten even 50 years later.  The National Guard prevented the nine black students from attending school that day, but Elizabeth's camera-caught "mix of hesitancy and resolve"  lasted a lifetime.
Elizabeth had wanted the advantages of a white high school over a black high school.  In reality, along with the other eight black students, that year was mostly a nightmare of being subjected to daily humiliations dealt by their white classmates.  There were a few exceptions to that, but far too few.  Hazel, although not identified by name in the photo, didn't return to Central.  After suffering through a year, Elizabeth dropped out.
     A newly published book by David Margolik, "Elizabeth and Hazel:  Two Women of Little Rock," documents the rest of the story of these two women about to enter their 70s.  Their stories follow lives that diverged and intersected.  Elizabeth fought depression and suicidal thoughts.  Hazel could not forget the image of her face contorted in rage and hatred in that picture.  About five years later, after having married young and having a couple of children, Hazel called Elizabeth and apologized.  She then embarked on a "life of self-discovery and activism, much of it in the black community."  She atoned for her prejudice any way she could.
     In 1997, Hazel reached out to Elizabeth again.  As they drew closer and became friends and confidantes, they provided a much needed "source of hope and inspiration to a community intent on moving beyond its troubled history."  They posed for newspaper pictures, made joint speaking engagements, and enrolled in a seminar on racial healing.  Even Oprah invited them to appear together on her tv show.  Elizabeth gained strength from her relationship with Hazel, got a job she loved, and set her life on a smoother course.
     Far from being forgotten, the Little Rock nine were often honored.  There were many news stories about them, especially on anniversaries of that 1957 attempt at desegregation.  One of Elizabeth's proudest moments in 1998 was hugging President Clinton after he presented her (and the other eight) with the Congressional Medal of Honor.
After a few years, in little ways, Elizabeth began to sour on reconciliation with Hazel.  By 2000, "quietly, unceremoniously, their great experiment in racial rapprochement was over."  And herein lies the crux of the story.  "As Margolick charts the labyrinthine turns of this complex relationship, and acknowledges the pain that persists between the two women, the fissures and misunderstandings that continue to divide the races are laid bare."
     I didn't learn that my parents were prejudiced until my husband and I adopted a black child.  When I asked my mother why I hadn't known she was prejudiced, she said, "Because I knew it was wrong and I didn't want to pass it on to you and your brother."  When black speakers came to talk to our group of white parents who had adopted black children, almost all of them tried to convince us that, as whites, we had to face the fact that we were prejudiced against our black children.  And, in the mid-70s, black social workers in California stopped trans-racial adoptions dead.  They said that white people were not capable of raising black children.
It's very complicated.
Comments?? E-mail Suellen at ZimaTravels.com
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