The Beta Israeli Sigd festival falls on the 29th of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan. It is the 50th day, starting with Yom Kippur (analogous to counting 50 days from Pesach to Shavuos), and is a festival unique to the Beta Israel community.
For their forebears in Ethiopia, the Sigd was a religious holiday renewing their covenant with God and expressing longing for Zion. But for many among the thousands marking it in Jerusalem on Monday, the festival was more of a day of ethnic pride.
“The sigd is very empowering,” said Aviva Nagosa, 32. “It is the only thing left that joins us all together.”
While in Ethiopia, the Sigd highlighted the uniqueness of the Beta Yisrael — the ancient Jewish community — amongst their Ethiopian neighbours, today it defines them as a distinguished group among other Israeli Jews.
The government last year recognised Sigd as an official Israeli holiday, meaning no one gets penalised for taking time off work to attend. And indeed the buses came from all over Israel.
As white turbaned holy men, or kessim, holding up colourful umbrellas, recited prayers in the ancient Ge’ez language, Natan Biadglin, a 25-year-old Ethiopian youth counsellor from Haifa, said that “Ninety-five per cent of people here do not understand Ge’ez.”
Still, the prayers are significant as a part of the community’s heritage.
“Young people need to know where they come from. This strengthens them and helps them because Israelis do not accept them so much.”
White-robed women prostrated themselves at key points of the prayers and a kes offered blessings — this time in Amharic — for peace, livelihood and “that god will hear our prayers”.
Soldiers given the day off strained to take pictures of the holy men with their cellphones and cameras.
Despite some gains, Ethiopian Jews remain the poorest segment of Israel’s Jewish population and are at times stereotyped as a social burden. The sense of not being accepted by other Israelis was accentuated in September when religious schools in Petah Tikva refused to accept Ethiopian children.
“Even if they do not accept us at work or in school, we are here,” Shlomo Mola, an MK from the Kadima party, told the gathering. “We do not need a kosher certificate from anyone.”
Some in the crowd walked up to the kessim and gave them money, fulfilling vows they made during last year’s Sigd to donate money if their prayers came true. “Today I made a vow for next year,” said Tzahi Ezra, 36. “My mother is sick and if she becomes healthy, I will bring her here.”
The word Sigd is from the semitic language Amharic for prostration and the root letters s-g-d are the same as in Mesgid (etymologically related to Masjid in another semitic tongue – Arabic), one of the two Ethiopian Jewish terms for synagogue. During the celebration, members of the community fast, recite Psalms, and gather in Jerusalem where Kessim read from the Orit. The ritual is followed by the breaking of the fast, dancing, and general revelry. In February 2008 MK Uri Ariel submitted legislation to the Knesset in order to establish Sigd as an Israeli national holiday, [2] and in July 2008 the Knesset officially “decided to formally add the Ethiopian Sigd holiday to the list of State holidays.”
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — The state-controlled news service, WIC, reports that a former general manager of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and two other individuals received stiff prison sentence for corruption.
(WIC) – The Federal High Court sentenced three corrupt offenders on November 16 and 17 to rigorous imprisonment ranging from 5-9 years and ordered them to pay from 1, 000-15,000 birr in fine.
According to a press release the Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (FEACC) sent to WIC, the court found Tibebu Robi, former General Manager of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia at the China-Africa Avenue Branch guilty of misappropriating 400, 000 birr and 1,000 USD, which went missing.
The Court, therefore, sentenced him to nine years of rigorous imprisonment and fined him 15,000 birr on 16 November 2009.
Similarly, Aklilu Alemayehu, former Head of the Customers Service Department with the same Branch, was found guilty of being part of the above-mentioned crime and was, therefore, given eight years of rigorous imprisonment. He was also fined 10, 000 birr.
In a related development, the Court found Genet Tadesse, former Employee of Kebelle 07/14 was found guilty of embezzling 18,514 birr. As a result, it sentenced her to five years of rigorous imprisonment and fined her 1,000 birr. FEACC filed the charges in 2008.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — An Ethiopian court on Thursday convicted 26 people who were accused of taking part in an alleged coup plot earlier this year and acquitted five others.
Judge Adem Ibrahim said most of the defendants in the case had said they were tortured by police into submitting false testimonies. But he said the witnesses had not convinced the court of the torture allegations.
In April, Ethiopia said the suspects were found with weapons, plans and information that linked them to a prominent opposition group started after the country’s disputed 2005 elections. Ethiopia has acknowledged that its security forces killed 193 civilians protesting alleged election fraud that year.
The defendants had faced charges of attempting to dismantle the constitutional order, assassinate officials, destroy infrastructure and agitate anarchy. The court said Thursday there was insufficient evidence brought against five of them.
In August, a Pennsylvania economics professor was found guilty in absentia, one of 13 previous convictions in the case. Berhanu Nega, who teaches at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., has denied any involvement.
Berhanu was elected mayor of Addis Ababa in 2005 but was arrested afterward along with more than 100 other opposition politicians and stood trial for treason. He and the others were freed in 2007 in a pardon deal.
More from Reuters:
ADDIS ABABA, Nov 19 (Reuters) – An Ethiopian court convicted 27 serving and former soldiers on Thursday of planning a coup and found them guilty on other charges which also carry the death penalty.
“The men were convicted of various offences including conspiring to kill government officials and conspiring to instruct the army not to obey government orders,” Mekonnen Bezabeih, Justice Ministry spokesman, told Reuters.
“The maximum sentence for the offences would be the death penalty.”
A further 13 men were convicted in absentia on the same charges in August. That group included Ethiopian-born U.S. citizen, Berhanu Nega, who teaches economics at Philadelphia’s Bucknell University.
Six more men were acquitted on all charges.
Judge Adem Ibrahim warned relatives not to “wail or show emotion” when the verdict was announced but several people cried as the men were convicted.
Scores of police ringed the courtroom and escorted the men to waiting vans.
Berhanu was elected mayor of capital Addis Ababa in Ethiopia’s last elections in 2005, but was jailed with other opposition leaders after disputing the government’s victory in the election and were accused of orchestrating street protests.
Security forces killed about 200 protesters who Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said were marching on government buildings to overthrow him.
“BEATEN AND BEATEN AND BROKEN”
Berhanu was pardoned in 2007 and went to the United States where he set up his “May 15” opposition group named after the date of the 2005 election.
Prosecution lawyers said Berhanu led the 40 “May 15” members from the United States.
Addis Ababa says the group had planned to blow up power and telecoms facilities to provoke protesters who would then march on government buildings and try to topple the government.
The arrests have worried rights groups, who say the Ethiopian government has been cracking down on dissent ahead of national elections next May.
Opposition parties say the charges have been trumped up as an excuse to arrest their members. Relatives of the men say they have been tortured in prison.
“They have been brutalised in prison and so have all the other men,” one relative told Reuters after the conviction.
“Our loved ones have been beaten and beaten and broken so that we don’t even recognize them when they come to court. One man has been blinded.”
Rights group Amnesty International says relatives of “May 15” members have been unfairly arrested. The Ethiopian government denies that.
The men will be sentenced on Nov. 24. (Editing by Louise Ireland)
I love this word. However, as an Ethiopian who lived the overwhelming majority of my life in America, I did not understand that this word has been tainted due to the origins of a propaganda campaign back in Ethiopia. Ironically, this word represents the very essence of a regime that forced my family to immigrate to America back in 1983 at the age of seven. This very word—Hebret—is a word that represented the suffering of countless many and the reason why Ethiopians are the second largest community of immigrants from Africa. But still….
Hebret.
The word, irrespective of history, is one that I love. To me, Hebret means unity; it means a collective effort for a collective success. The Chinese have a saying that goes “you can break on straw easily, you can’t break a hundred straws bonded together”. One man alone can accomplish little, a hundred men working together for one goal can profoundly change the world. That is the very meaning of a community, thus the saying “it takes a village to raise a child”. Let me put it another way, “50 Lomi Le 1 Sew Sekimu, Le 50 Sew Getu New”. It basically means that 50 lemons when one person is carrying is it heavy, but when carried by 50 people is enjoyable.
So is this the missing link in Ethiopia, is this the missing link in Africa, and is the missing link within the African Diaspora and African-American community at large. When I was a child in Ethiopia, I used to notice a certain inferiority complex in the community. Shocked? You should not be, I remember that certain doctors that were not from Ethiopia would be flocked to, meanwhile, doctors Ethiopian doctors would have a certain connotation—a certain stigma as if though you only go to them if your literally in dire straits. It makes me wonder why I romanticized the fact that I attended Lycee in Ethiopia. Or why, as a child, I deferred to non-Ethiopian instructors a thousand times more than my Ethiopian instructors.
Thus I came to America, and what I have noticed the utter dearth of Hebret not only in the Ethiopian community but in the African Diaspora overall. I took note of the many instances of an African-American that would try to start a business and would struggle to get support from his/her own community. How else can you explain when a black man starts a business and he goes to service his own for support and he literally gets almost no support. Oh how many times I have you witnessed a black plumber who would visit an African-American to fix his leaking toilet. Upon entrance to the house, the first question he would often get asked is “Bruh can I get a discount”? Yet these very people would NEVER ask a non-minority for a discount. Or how about an African-American mechanic who has to put up with the menace of “dude seriously I can only pay $25 for the oil change”. Yet these very obstinate consumers would gladly fork over $60 for an oil change at Jiffy Lube.
Is it no wonder that successful Ethiopians specifically or those from the African Diaspora generally often get frustrated and feel alienated from the community. And then they get blamed for being “sell-outs” when they choose to move to the suburbs and no longer feel a bond to their community. When you call them sell-outs because they made it big, did you support them when they were struggling? Thus, who is the sell-out, the person that tried to provide you a service that you neglected when he was struggling or that very same person who—out of frustration, anger, or experience—finally says good riddance when he makes it big.
This happens time and again. Through my work last during last year’s presidential campaign, what I encountered over and over again were whisper campaigns about this person or that person. “Oh you can’t trust him, he is a leba (thief)”. “Esu ma, lerasu becha new emiseraw.” “He is only using Ethiopia for his own good”. I shake my head, here is a man who is offering something profound for his community, a visionary that can advance the cause for everyone. Yet, he is a leba aydel? I am forever grateful for the many people I met during last year’s presidential campaign who worked endlessly to organize the Ethiopian community. And I know that there were countless others who did the same without me knowing about them. However, as much as we broke out back to offer our community a voice, the vast majority of our own did not support. Yet, when Obama got elected on November 4th, I could not count how many Ethiopians I saw dancing in the streets of DC.
And yet, as I point a finger, there are three pointing back at me. I recall many times of my own personal failings. There was a particular moment when it crystallized in me how my own judgments are infected with the germ of self-hate. When was this? Well, I never had a problem giving a dollar to none minority kids who were selling donuts for a basketball camp or a weekend getaway. However, one particular day, after buying groceries from Safeway, a couple of African-Americans kids asked me to give them money so they could go to football camp. My first though, to my own shame—“yeah right, I wonder what you will really do with this dollar?” I got in my car, and I ran smack dab into a cognitive dissonance. Did I ever have this question for those kids that were not minorities? Did I have this question to those children who were selling Girl Scout cookies? Most have these types of thoughts, but bury them behind facades of enlightenment and smiles of indifference.
Yes, this is uncomfortable to discuss, but truth is needed. How many of us have these types of judgment, and it’s not a one way street where Ethiopians have stereotypes about African-Americans. When I came to America in the 1980s, growing up I was called jungle monkey, antelope chaser, vine swinger, by whom you say, by my African-American classmates. The first friend I had was a white girl who asked me about Ethiopia and wanted to know my name. So lest you think that the biases and judgments are only one way, think again, it is a strain that strains the whole lot.
This is the plight of our community. We don’t trust, we don’t support. I cannot paint everyone with the same brush of mistrust, but my own experiences have taught me that this is not an isolated incident. When someone comes around tying to make a change, she is instantly questioned—her motives judged not for the facts but by the opinions of poisoned minds. I wonder if we really knew how much inherent power we have in our own community. Although we have no quantitative idea of how many Ethiopians live in America, we know that there are enough of us to make a profound change and improve the lives of many if we worked together. However, we choose to sip buna and talk about what if and what is not right. Inertia is a rule of thumb, action is always given the thumbs down.
We question and procrastinate before we support. We suspect before we accept. Guilty until proven innocent, and even then guilty regardless. Any Ethiopian who sets out to try something new is instantly branded with the scarlet letter of either greed or a some overseas political affiliation. So I circle back to the original premise. What exactly is wrong with using Ethiopia for our own benefit. After all, it’s all semantics; what one would call using others would say unity. What one would label as “using”, others would say it’s Hebret—a collective success based on a collective work.
“One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
So how much longer shall we continue to question every man or woman who espouses to do something different—to make a change. Do we continue to brand a visionary who dares to have the audacity to believe in making an impact that will help his own people—and so what if he benefits financially while doing so? Sure there are times I can recount when my very people were selling bottles of water for four dollars while we were marching for freedom in 1996, and do I put these people (hustlers) in league with the someone who dares to dream the dream that he can make a profound impact on humanity—to achieve the impossible and to think he can make a difference in even one person’s life?
So next time you see a man or woman—Ethiopian, Nigerian, Kenyan, Jamaican or other—who starts his own business. The next time you encounter kids at Safeway who are selling cookies to go to football camp. The next time you see a visionary who just might make your life better. Pause. And ask, is what he is doing going to make my life better, or will you ask “bruh can I get a discount?” or “What do you get out of it”. Will you ask, “Is he using Ethiopia”, or will you ask, “Is he going to make a difference for Ethiopia?” Maybe, just maybe, his idea can unload some of the lemons off your back.
(Teddy Fikre isw an organizer with Ethiopian-Americans for Change, www.EA4C.org)
I have just returned from a 30-day field trip during which I visited and held meetings with leaders and fighters of the Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF), as well as the Tigray People Democratic Movement (TPDM), Benishangul People Liberation Movement (BPLM), Gambela People’s Democratic Movement Front (GPDMF), and Ethiopian People’s Front for Equality and Justice (EPFEJ — formerly known as Southern Ethiopian People’s Front for Equality and Justice). These five organizations are currently coordinating their activities after signing a cooperation agreement over a year ago. Their cooperation includes joint military missions against the Woyanne tribal junta.
I had also participated in a 2-day EPPF conference, from October 17-18, which was attended by members of the EPPF executive committee and central council, and representatives from the U.S., U.K., Germany and Denmark.
During the trip, I spent most of my time following EPPF activities and holding discussions with its leaders and members, both at the organization’s headquarters in Asmara and in the field.
I am not sure whether it is a coincidence, but while I was there visiting with EPPF fighters, the Woyanne-controlled TV aired a 4-day program about the elimination of EPPF “bandits” by “government” forces. (Derg also used to call Woyannes “bandits.”) A couple of days later I was a few hundred meters from the Tigray border with a unit of EPPF fighters taking photos and recording video. I told the fighters, who had recently returned from a military mission, what the Woyanne media was saying about them. The unit leader smiled and told me “here is the proof,” pointing to his comrades.
Such claims by Woyanne do not surprise the battle-hardned EPPF fighters. They are used to the Bereket Simon lie factory. But one thing is clear — Woyanne is increasingly concerned about EPPF. Otherwise, why air a 4-day TV program on an organization that it claims doesn’t exist? The answer is clear.
It is not only Woyanne that is questioning EPPF’s role as a viable opposition group. It is joined by others with different motives who are desperately arguing that EPPF should not be taken seriously. There is even a web site that is dedicated to telling people that EPPF doesn’t exist. As an eye witness, what I have seen is to the contrary. EPPF is becoming a leading Ethiopian opposition group that is poised to fill the current leadership gap in Ethiopian opposition camp.
Having said that, the organization is not without its own share of problems and difficulties. Its political wing is terribly ineffective and for a long time its public relations effort has been weak. With the recent launching of its own radio program — YeArbegna Dimts — and a web site, eppfonline.org, EPPF is attempting to improve its shortcomings as far as PR is concerned.
In the political sphere, a recent attempt by the leadership to restructure its political wing has failed due to the selection of an incompetent individual who was appointed as head of political affairs. That person has now been replaced and a new political affairs office is being considered.
EPPF’s activities in the Diaspora has also been facing recurring problems. The EPPF International Committee has been disbanded for the second time after it was concluded at the October conference that the group was doing more harm than good. The conference decided that there will no longer be an “international committee” that is tasked with coordinating the Diaspora activities. From now on, each chapter in the Diaspora will report directly to EPPF’s main office. The October conference unanimously passed a resolution to this effect.
Additionally, the conference has authorized local chapters to engage in diplomatic and political activities on behalf of EPPF. Representatives in Europe and the U.S. can now contact government officials and explain to them the mission and objectives of EPPF, particularly its clear stand on international terrorism, which is one of the main concerns of the U.S. and EU governments when it comes to political activities in Ethiopia, and the Horn of Africa, in general. EPPF has made it clear in its political program that it is waging a struggle to defend the people of Ethiopia from Woyanne regime’s brutal repression. EPPF strives to maintain good relations with all governments around the world, including those in the Horn of Africa.
With all the difficulties it is facing, EPPF’s track record as an opposition force shines better than any other Ethiopian opposition group. During the past 10 years of its tumultuous existence, EPPF has been able to survive many dangers that could have splintered the organization into several small factions. Unlike many other Ethiopian opposition parties, EPPF is forging ahead as a united resistance group. With some minor adjustments and restructuring, EPPF has the potential to transform itself in to a leading opposition force that can help bring about positive change in Ethiopia.
Before I returned to the U.S., my colleague Sileshi Tilahun and I had the opportunity to meet with President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea. It is our second meeting with him. The first one was in May 2009 for an interview. I have also held discussions with the Minister of Information Ali Abdu and other officials. I will post a report shortly about the meeting with Prsident Isaias, in which he shared with us his views about cooperations between Ethiopian opposition groups and Eritrea, and his vision on normalizing Ethiopia-Eritrea relations.
The Beta Israeli Sigd festival falls on the 29th of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan. It is the 50th day, starting with Yom Kippur (analogous to counting 50 days from Pesach to Shavuos), and is a festival unique to the Beta Israel community.
