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Health rules make it difficult for Ethiopian Jews to connect with their community in Sigd and with others in Israel
Sigd, the holiday that Ethiopian Jews brought to Israel that marks a renewal of the covenant with God and has become a force that unites these immigrants with other Israelis, is being observed in a reduced way this year due to the COVID-pandemic. 19. .
The holiday, which began at sunset on Sunday and ends on Monday night, became an official part of the Israeli calendar in 2008 and is observed 50 days after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
“At first, it was a closed holiday only open to the Ethiopian Jewish community, but after a while, the spiritual leaders of the community opened the ceremony and the Sigd holiday to the rest of the people here,” Qes Efraim Lawi, the spiritual leader from the Ethiopian Jewish community in the northern city of Karmiel, he told The Media Line.
“Many people from outside the community come to celebrate and learn and hear the prayers of the spiritual leaders in the [ancient] What a language, ”he said. After 35 years [in Israel], the Sigd holiday remains a Jewish holiday that connects not only the Ethiopian Jewish community, but also connects [us] to external Jewish communities. “
Anthropologist and educator Shoshana Ben-Dor, who has been studying Ethiopian Jews in Israel since 1979, told The Media Line that many young Israelis had been influenced by negative stereotypes that Ethiopian Jews were uneducated and poor.
Ethiopian Jews have suffered discrimination in Israel. In 2018, police in separate incidents killed two young Ethiopian Jewish adults.
The community still feels undervalued and that there is widespread ignorance about their identity, Ben-Dor said. However, this has been changing over the past two decades as Ethiopian Israelis shared more information about their customs and Israeli anthropologists and historians studied them. The number of Ethiopian Israelis in academia has increased and attitudes have changed among the general public.
“Israeli society has changed to embrace and value diverse cultures that did not come from Europe and North Africa, but from the rest of the diaspora,” said Ben-Dor.
Many people are concerned that the opportunity Sigd offers to unite the Israeli Ethiopian community and the wider Israeli public will be lost due to COVID-19 restrictions on the gathering. While the holiday has served as a unifying force in Israel, Lawi said it served the opposite role in Ethiopia.
Without Sigd’s vacation, I believe that the Israeli Ethiopian community would never have returned to Jerusalem.
“It is a unique and special holiday because the Sigd in Ethiopia kept us away from the rest of the local people living in Ethiopia. It brought us the power to maintain Jewish identity in a place where the majority of people are not Jewish, ”he told The Media Line. “Without Sigd’s vacation, I believe that the Israeli Ethiopian community would never have returned to Jerusalem.
Sigd’s rituals are based on Chapter 9 of the Book of Nehemiah, when the biblical scribe and priest Ezra presided over the reintroduction of the Torah in Jerusalem after returning from exile in Babylon and the renewal of the Jewish covenant with God.
“It is not just a day when people climbed a mountain and returned to Jerusalem. It is meant to be a day of covenant renewal, ”said Ben-Dor, who has published works on the Sigd liturgy and other Ethiopian Jewish liturgy, as well as other elements of his religious life and history.
“The 9th chapter of Nehemiah is read in the Sigd; so are the Ten Commandments, the first covenant between God and Israel. Also, biblical blessings and curses. [are read] to emphasize the importance of observing God’s law. Although there are some prayers that relate to longing for Jerusalem … even more important in terms of prayers is asking God to forgive our sins, ”he said. “The idea is that to renew the covenant, to be worthy of being in Jerusalem, you have to be pure, you have to observe the laws that God has made.”
Naftali Avraham, director of the Ethiopian Jewry Heritage Center, which sponsors Sigd, this year, said that last year more than 15,000 people attended, while this year only selected spiritual leaders will be able to attend the ceremony. It is broadcast on television and social networks.
There will also be very small services across the country at various synagogues with permission from the Ministry of Health due to coronavirus restrictions.
“It’s really sad, but this is the situation not only in Israel but around the world, and we have to accept it,” he told The Media Line. “Most of the people who come are older and it is very dangerous for them” to go in person.
There is concern that some Ethiopian Israelis may not be able to access online services and that younger members of the community are drifting away.
“We have to expose a lot of people [to the holiday]especially the young people who are born here, ”he said, referring to second-generation Ethiopian Israelis who are less connected to their roots.
Ben-Dor agreed that the younger generation is less interested in vacations.
“Older people are more attached to the tradition of [the spiritual leaders] and their prayers than the younger ones, many of whom are very secularized and less interested in something of a religious nature, ”he said. “Not enough has been done to teach you what Sigd really is. As young people engage with Sigd, it is more … a day for community identity than anything related to religious aspects. “
The essence of the Sigd celebration is repentance and community solidarity. Both should be done with the entire community in one place, where you see many people who believe like you. People cannot have this experience this year.
Rabbi Sharon Shalom, director of the International Center for the Study of Ethiopian Jews at the Ono Academic College in Kiryat Ono, is also concerned about the loss of connection within the community as a result of health restrictions that limit the number of people who can congregate. .
“The essence of the celebration of Sigd is repentance and community solidarity. Both must be done with the entire community in one place, where you see many people who believe like you, “he told The Media Line. “People cannot have this experience this year.”
On the other hand, Shalom said that due to COVID-19, the observance of the holiday is being broadcast and is not limited to those who attend it in Jerusalem.
“In normal years, only the people who came to Jerusalem were able to have the experience, but due to the virus, the media brings the celebration home,” Shalom said.
