by Susan Weidman Schneider
This issue is about journeys—physical and metaphorical. Sociologists and social workers have begun to explore the stresses that Ethiopian Jewish women endure in adjusting to late-twentieth-century life, as well as the gender conflicts they experience when traditional patriarchy confronts a more egalitarian Israeli lifestyle. But the path these refugees take in escaping from Ethiopia—where, says our author, “Jews are witches”—has been somewhat shrouded in mystery, in part because of the secrecy surrounding the airlifts Israel organized to rescue the thousands of Ethiopian Jews who came out of Africa in the mid-1980’s.