On Ethiopian integration, there’s much to celebrate but also more work ahead

Most Israelis can’t say that they spent more than a year of their youth trekking under the hot sun while their family members spent months on the verge of dying from disease. Yet that’s what I did, along with 500 other Ethiopians, during Operation Moses — when many of us walked through Sudan during a civil war to finally make it to Israel.

No Ethiopian of my generation would boast of the fact that we did this and many of us speak about that period in a matter-of-fact way. Why? We understood our life in Ethiopia was difficult, and the promise of Israel trumped any physical or emotional hardship we had to endure to get there.

But when we finally arrived in Israel, we faced a myriad of challenges. As a 13-year-old boy who knew no Hebrew, and couldn’t read or write, I found myself in an absorption center studying in ulpan (immersive Hebrew language academy). When I finished, I entered fifth grade, where I was three years older than the rest of my peers. Despite that setback, I didn’t allow myself to give up. I studied, went into the army where I served as a border officer and eventually got married and had six children.

I knew that if I wanted to provide for my burgeoning family, I needed a career. I also knew that the Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT) was the pioneer in educating Ethiopians in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects.

Established in 1997, JCT’s Reuven Surkis Program for Students from the Ethiopian Community empowered us to improve their lives by giving members of my community a degree that would open doors in high-tech, business, and national security. The College’s graduates have gone on to work for top-tier companies like Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Elbit Systems.

Through the Reuven Surkis Program, JCT responds to the need to promote socio-economic mobility among the Ethiopian community in Israel, and to bridge the cultural differences that may make it difficult to narrow gaps in advancement. The program provides students with scholarships, on-campus housing, and tutoring to help provide a more level playing field.

In the early years of the program, when my community had few options in the way of higher education, Ethiopian students comprised 6% of the school’s population.

To date, over 180 students have graduated from the program and more than 50% have gone on to pursue graduate studies. In addition to changing the lives of those students who have graduated from JCT, advancing Ethiopian Israelis impacts the broader Ethiopian community and generates new paradigms for success.

Today, I’m the head of the program, and we have about 45 students enrolled this year. Over the years, I’ve seen our community grow in leaps and bounds.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, during the 2022-23 school year, the percentage of 12th-grade students of Ethiopian origin taking matriculation exams was 93.4% in 2022-23, compared with 95.2% of the overall Hebrew education sector. Moreover, the number of students of Ethiopian origin in institutions of higher education has increased nearly 30% since the 2016-17 academic year.

However, as we just recently celebrated the Ethiopian-Jewish community’s Sigd holiday — where we accept the Torah and yearn for Israel — I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that more work needs to be done.

Approximately 19,900 Ethiopian-born people were registered at the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs in 2023. Many Ethiopians live in impoverished neighborhoods where the education system is substandard, and crime is rampant. As such, between 2018-2020, cases opened against Ethiopian minors were 4.3 times their share of the population according to the Association of Ethiopian Jews, the Adva Center and Hebrew University’s Clinical Legal Education Center.

We must break this cycle. Our parents and grandparents sacrificed too much and set high standards for us in the Jewish homeland. We must reach out to the next generation and demonstrate to them that their hopes and dreams are tangible, their life doesn’t have to be one riddled with poverty and crime and it’s possible to overcome socio-economic barriers.

When my family came to Israel, we wanted nothing more than to be Israeli and be part of its vibrant society. Now 40 years since Operation Moses, the Ethiopian-Israeli community has made abundant progress in terms of integration, and today we are prepared to take the next step.