A Polishman among Ethiopians

20.05.2011                      16.Ijar, 5771                      Tag 31 des Omer

Erinnerung:

A Polishman among Ethiopians

A century before global Jewry reached out to Ethiopia's community, a researcher named Jacques Faitlovitch sowed the seeds for a future ingathering.

An odd sculpture recently appeared on the Tel Aviv University campus, following a complex, transcontinental, logistical operation. It was designed in London, assembled in Italy and shipped by sea to Israel. The artwork consists of metal pipes emerging upward from the ground, splitting, and winding around two palm trees. "This expresses continuity and departure," said the sculpture's designer, Israeli-born architect Ron Arad, in a phone call from London.
The sculpture is a memorial to Ethiopian Jews who left their homes between 1977 and 1985 for the exhausting, traumatic journey to Israel. The trek took them from Ethiopia to Sudan, and across mountains, deserts, rivers and forests; they faced hunger, thirst, illness, harassment and arrest before winding up in refugee camps….