JERUSALEM, March 3 (UPI) — Despite official bans on the practice, Israeli education officials say many teachers are asking Ethiopian immigrants to change their names to Jewish names.
Many Ethiopian students say their teachers are persuading them to change their first names from things like Habtam, which means “wealth,” to Hannah and another student from Natab to Sarah.
Ethiopian heritage places great significance on first names and members of the community say they see the practice as an effort to detach them from their heritage, Ynetnews reported Monday.
Education officials in Israel said the wishes of the parents should be honored and stressed immigrant students shouldn’t be asked to change their names.
6 thoughts on “Ethiopian immigrants in Israel asked to change their names”
I do not understand they are living in peace knowing the place and home they are staying once belonged to the natives.
Jerusalem, what is the problem with you?
What ever names they have, these Ethiopian Jews are your children, and the names they bear are precious Ethiopian names. Each Ethiopian name has a meaning, an explanation, and significance. For example, mebratu means light or his light. Wondim-agengehu means I got a brother. In Ethiopia, good names are hard to find, and once the parents of a child have found a name that fits to their own circumstances, events, and history of their families, they give the name to their child. For instance, if the child was born in a bad time, they name the child according to that particular event.
Jerusalem? You are not James Town of America where African Americans were forced upon their arrival to change their names, their cultures, and their African traditions. They are now, many of them, changing their English American names to West African names, but it is too late, and the damage had been already done. Therefore, we do not want such travesty of justices to happen to our Ethiopian Jewish students in Israel. So let the Ethiopian Jews, whether they are in school, in the army, in the cabinet, in the keenest, and in the Synagogue keep their precious Ethiopian names.
It is understandable why the rabbis (teachers) in Israel are forcing or persuading the Ethiopian Jewish students to change their names to Jewish names; these teachers may have a hard time to pronounce correctly the Ethiopian Jewish students’ names when ever they take students’ attendance in their classes. I have had Russian, Korean, Mexican, and Arab students in my Civics Class; some of my Arab students’ names are Muntather T. Al-Rheihani and Rahman AL-Saidy and so on. But I have to learn their names and never forced them to change their names according to my convenience to English names or Ethiopian names. When I call the name of each foreign student in class, I would say: “what a beautiful name you have!” When I utter this kind word to each one of them, each one of them is happy and ready to learn the subject.
I’m sure these Israeli teachers are ridiculing and disparaging their Ethiopian Jewish students’ precious names in the classroom in front of the other White Israeli Jewish students. They are making them a laughing stock! In such a hostile environment, the Ethiopian Jewish students will have a difficult time to concentrate on their studies, being teased, tormented, and laughed upon by their classroom teachers and the other students every day.
Israeli teachers should be required to study the Ethiopian Jews’ languages, histories, cultures, and traditions; otherwise, they should not be assigned to teach these smart, well-disciplined, cultured, and good looking Ethiopian Jewish students. The Israeli school curriculum must include the Ethiopian Jews’ studies, and the teachers must take this course in order to teach the Ethiopian Jewish students. Any Israeli teacher who failed to take the course should be disqualified from teaching the Ethiopian Jewish children.
Whether we are Ethiopian Jews, Ethiopian Muslims, and Ethiopian Christians, our names are parts of our heritages, our histories, our prides, and our badges of honors. Come immigration, come persecution, come intimidation, come poverty, and come death, we will never ever change our Ethiopian names to Jewish names, to Russian names, to Chinese names, and to any other race’s names without any adequate reasons or without the will of God.
Yes, we know God the Almighty has changed the name of Abram to Abraham; Sarai to Sarah; Jacob to Israel; Jedidiah to Solomon; Simon to Peter; Saul to Paul, but when God changes names, he has his own divine plan; he has a purpose, a plan, and a goal. Yet, what are the purposes of the Israeli teachers who are eager to change the Ethiopian Jewish students’ names to Hannah, to Sarah, to Sosina, to Ruth, to Naomi, and to many other Jewish names? When the Israeli teachers persuade the Ethiopian Jewish Students to change their Ethiopian names to Jewish names, are they telling them that if they refuse to change their names to Jewish names, they will not get good grades, or they will not be considered good Jews? I understand the Israeli officials have not yet imposed any laws that force the Ethiopian Jewish students to change their Ethiopian names to Jewish names, but don’t the Ethiopian Jewish Students have the right to sue those rabbis who harass them in every school day to change their names to Jewish names?
Murderers, traitors, and terrorists change their names from time to time to conceal their identities, but Ethiopian Jewish students are descent and law-abiding Israeli citizens who would like to remember their Ethiopian heroes through their names, so we may have Ethiopian Jews whose names are Tewodros, Menelik, Sheba, Lalibela, and so on. In short, Ethiopian names bear the history of the Ethiopian people, and for this reasons Ethiopians should never change their names wherever they are and what circumstances they are in. The only time they could change their names is only when God tells them to do so.
When I ran away from my parents and joined a church school in Ethiopia, I voluntarily changed my name not to let my parents know where I was so that they would not come and take me home and make me help in the field or tend the sheep. Every time I changed a church school, I changed my name over four times for the reason I explained earlier. One day, I and my friend were going to another new church school, so we agreed to change our names. I changed my name to Like-brhan, which means the messenger of light, but my friend didn’t like my name, saying that it was easy to some one to remember and report me to my parents. He took a long time to find a name for himself that no one could memorize it, so he came up with the following long names: “The faith of the three hundred and Eighteen fathers assembled at Constantinople to anatamatize the Arians.” With my new name and with his new name, we went to this new church school, and the teacher of that new church school wanted to know our names. I went first and told him my name; then my friend read his long new name to the teacher, and the teacher could not control himself from laughing louder until all the other students ran to us and wanted to know what was going on with their teacher because they had never seen him laughing like this before. Finally, the teacher said to my friend: “your name would be Arian.” Then we started to call him Arian, which means heretic.
We had reasons why we changed our names to other new names, but still the Israeli teacher have no reasons to insist the Ethiopian Jewish students to change their Ethiopian names to Jewish names except to erase the glorious heritage of the Ethiopian Jews, the real true children of Abraham, the friend of the Almighty God, the God of Israel.
I like your interesting observation,Assta.I particularly like the ethio-centric light you always shed on issues which,I lament,is rare these days.ABERAHILIGN!EGZIABHER YAKEBERELIGN!
Changing “Ethiopian name to Jewish ” is ridiculous.
Hey Ashkenazim (European Jews) Ethiopian Jews speak a Semitic language-Amharic or Tigric-, Thus they already have a Hebrew name Hanna is as Ethiopian as it is “Jewish.” Please Learn who Ethiopian Jews are in-depth before making an “historic mistake”,like changing a Semitic name to a Semitic name.
Ashkenazim Jews unlike you, Ethiopian Jews already have a “Hebrew name”.
Well i suppose its good to change our name from ethiopian name to an israel jewish name it will make it easy for our integration proses and most important thing we the the jewsh of ethiopia most of us we got our name from ancient hebrow name however some of our jewish brothern they may have ethiopian name weach is not jewish origin and those name’s most of them they are imoral and degrading it has bin give to us by ethiopians with haters mane’s like (kushiet)(flasha)(booda)and others we are not in ethiopia and we are not ethiopians… we are a proud jewish in israel from israel.
FIrst, for Sosina semitic doesn’t mean jewish… arabic is also semitic and not jewish.
For my case, i’ve changed my name when i arrived in Israel, as a sign of integration and to leave behind the exile.