Volume 7, Issue 11 / Cheshvan 5765 / November 2004

"We Came Because We Are Jews."

"I have work. We are healthy. Everything is great!"

"The old people always spoke about Israel," recalls Nagosa Sisai, a slight, thirty-something immigrant from Ethiopia. "I remember at age five my grandmother and grandfather telling me, 'Some day we'll get to Israel.'"

That day came at the end of 1999, when Nigosa arrived in Israel on a Jewish Agency flight, together with his wife and two daughters, then age 5 and 2. (Another daughter was born in mid-2002). "We came because we are Jews," he states simply.

The family was referred to the Jewish Agency's Nahariya absorption center, where they spent two years. "It was very hard not knowing the language," he says. "And we didn't know even know how to go to the grocery story to buy bread, how to go to the health clinic...." The intensive ten-month ulpan -- five days a week, for five hours a day -- provided by the Jewish Agency enabled Nigosa to learn Hebrew. Lectures and workshops provided an introduction to virtually every aspect of Israeli life– ranging from health care, hygiene, and diet to home care - and acquainted them with institutions such as medical clinics, schools, banks, post offices, community centers, etc. in preparation for the move to permanent residences.

Nigosa and his wife made that move last year when they bought an apartment in Beit Shemesh, an old-new community about a half-hour's drive from Jerusalem. Before moving he checked out the town. "I saw children going to schools, it looked like a nice place," he says. Nigosa, whose worked in the fields in his Ethiopian village, found a job cleaning. But when he heard about the welding course given by the Technological Training Center operated by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Beit Shemesh, he jumped at the opportunity to learn a trade. The Center provides vocational training for unskilled workers in response to market demand: courses in welding, computerized office skills, CNC, computerized graphics, fashion design, and autotronics. Nigosa registered for a welding course, together with eleven other students, immigrants from Ethiopia and the FSU, which includes both theoretical study and hands-on training in automobile repair.

He recently began working at the Elkayam Metal Industries in Beit Shemesh. The company provides a starting salary of NIS 5,000-6,000 per month– a very respectable salary for blue collar workers - plus a wide variety of job benefits.

"I have work," says Nigosa. We are healthy. My parents, brothers and sisters live nearby in Rishon, Netanya, and Beit Shemesh. "Everything is great," he says emphatically.

Written by: Shifra Paikin
Photo by: Shlomy Ben Ami

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