April 6, 2003
4 Nisan, 5763
Jerusalem

Tomorrow (7 April) 10:00am , at Lod Absorption Cntr (9 David Hamelech St. Lod), Colorful Graduation Ceremony for Ethiopian Traditional Mediators and Model Seder. Press Invited

Tomorrow, two unique ceremonies will take place at the Jewish Agency's Lod Absorption Center: a graduation ceremony for Shmaguelot (traditional Ethiopian mediators and adjudicators in family and civil conflicts) and a Model Seder. Present at the ceremonies will be Lod mayor Benny Regev, and Rabbi David Yosef, a scholar of the Ethiopian community, who has written works reconciling Ethiopian Jewry with modern Jewish practices. Following the Ceremony, Rabbi Yosef will conduct a model Passover Seder in which the new immigrants from Ethiopia, who reside in the center will learn about how the Seder is celebrated in Israel.

In traditional Ethiopian society, explains, Shlomo Molah, Director of Ethiopian Absorption for the Jewish Agency, elders would settle family conflicts and even conflicts pertaining to property and civil matters. Such an institution, which serviced the Ethiopian community, and relieved the court system, was missing in Israel. The Jewish Agency saw fit to re-institute such a system of traditional mediators, institutionalizing it in three-month course, which imparts the legal norms of Israeli society to the students. The Jewish Agency's philosophy is to synthesize both the traditional and the modern world for new immigrants from Ethiopia.

Ms. Hannah Dovkin, Director of the Lod Absorption Center said that the basis of modern mediation may be found in the traditional practices of the Shmagalot.

For additional information contact
the Office of the Spokesman:
Yehuda Weinraub
Liaison to Foreign Press and Media
Jewish Agency for Israel
Mobile:972-53-927017
Fax: 972-2-6204013