Sitting in a riveting meeting in Netanya today. An Ethiopian-Jewish olim is sharing with us his experience (his peers) as a parent going thru absorption and PACT.
Most telling aspect is his point to preserve identity as to who they are as Ethiopians.
Most interesting, however, are the same concerns and strategies that we all use in social service delivery.
We shared ideas, saw more adorable children and their parents participating in programs all made possible or augmented by PACT.
The greatest moment of the day came during our reflections at the end of the day. Much of what we were seeing, the ethiopian-jewish experience, shared challenges all clicked. Steve Fink, my rabbi and my friend, summed it all up for our crowd of jewish and non jewish delegates as to why this was all done - because its about Jews helping other Jews. No matter where they live, what color their skin, their level of need, that's what we do, that's what JDC does, and that's why $30mm is raised by Baltimore Jews annually to support world Jewry. And although this isn't a "jewish" mission per se, the reason as to why such a life saving misson was undertaken became evident and then the group understood how and why this would work. I wish we had recorded it. All were extremely moved.
Tomorrow we visit olim in their homes in ashkelon.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment