Volume 8, Issue 1 / Tevet 5765 / January 2005

"I Kissed the Ground and Thanked God
for Allowing Me to Come to Israel"

"Jerusalem was always in our prayers and thoughts."

Although it's a hot day, and the apartment at the Jewish Agency's Nurit Absorption Center in Beersheva is small, the Teldesas welcome us with smiles and gestures. At 53, Shimi Zauda Teldesa is tall and thin, with a gaunt face and hollow cheeks. He looks like a man who has known hunger and hard times. His wife, 43, is tiny and shy; she keeps their rooms impeccably clean and tidy. "Did you always want to come to Israel?" I ask Shimi Zaudi, speaking through a translator. He bursts out laughing and, raising his hands to the ceiling, claps them together. "They always longed for Israel," the translator relays his words. "Jerusalem was in their prayers and thoughts all the time; they risked everything to come here; this is home."

The Teldesas, who arrived in Israel this past summer with their 11 children, now ranging from 22 down to 4, come from the village of Chillinga, in the Gondar area. The three older children are studying at the Yemin Orde pre-army boarding school for young immigrant men; the younger ones live with their parents in the small caravan.

"In Ethiopia, if you have your own land and if you are not lazy, you can live like a king," Shimi Zaudi says. But life in the small village was not always so wonderful. The Teldesas' firstborn died of an undiagnosed disease. There was no doctor in the village, and the nearest hospital was miles away. "He was my eldest," says his mother, on the verge of tears, "strong and tall like his father. He died when he was only eight years old."

When the family decided to come to Israel, they sold all their property, hired ten strong guards to escort them on their way to Addis Ababa and started walking. They walked for days in the wilderness, ever fearful of the wild animals whose sounds they heard in the distance, and of marauding bands of robbers.

The Teldesas arrived in Israel this past summer with their 11 children.

The Teldesas lived in Addis Ababa for six and a half years while waiting to come to Israel, crowded together in one room. The income Shimi Zauda earned making the traditional Ethiopian embroidery was barely enough to pay rent; the family never had enough to eat. He smiles sadly and says, "I learned how to beg for food there."

"When my feet first touched the land of Israel, I fell to the ground crying," Shimi Zaudi explains, in a voice hoarse with feeling, his hands spread out expansively. "I kissed the ground and thanked God for allowing me to come."

Shimi Zauda hopes that his children will study hard; he wants them to have good jobs and contribute to the country that received them with open arms. His wife wants her children to grow up safe and strong; she hopes they will defend Israel by serving in the army.

Written by: Edith Sharon
Photo by: Aliza Orbach

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