On the Nightstand: The Return by Sonia Levitin

Continuing on my Jewish Young Adult book kick, I want to recommend Sonia Levitin’s The Return.

One of the big problems in Israel today is that the Ethiopian community has not been treated with all of the dignity and respect you might hope for. Israel did a great thing airlifting the Ethiopian Jewish community out of Ethiopia in the early nineties, but as is always the case, the follow through hasn’t exactly be satisfactory. I got these statistics from the website of the Israel Association of Ethiopian Jews:

70% of Ethiopian families have no incoming salary. 63% of employed Ethiopians work in non-professional fields. The average Ethiopian salary is below the poverty line. Only 32% of Ethiopian fathers and 10% of Ethiopian mothers are employed. 40% of Ethiopian students in grades 1-9 are below the class level for reading. 60% of Ethiopian students in grades 1-6 are below the class level in Hebrew and Mathematics. 6.2% of Ethiopian students drop out of school between the ages of 14-17. This is double the national average. Only 28% of Ethiopian students pass the matriculation exams-less than half the national average. 46% of Ethiopian students are sent to boarding schools due to financial hardship. 45% of Ethiopian parents can not speak even basic Hebrew. 49% of Ethiopian families live with two or more people in each room. Due to multiple hardships, the number of juvenile delinquents is double among the Ethiopian population. Between 1996-1999, the number of Ethiopian youth arrested increased by 255%.

This is all by way of saying that I think the diaspora Jewish community needs to pay way more attention to the fate of Ethiopian Jews, and though it’s admittedly kind of a lame start, I highly recommend The Return. Here’s the Publisher’s Weekly review:

Levitin's book is a glorious, heartrending account of Operation Moses, the airlift of Ethiopian Jews from the Sudan into Israel, as seen through the eyes of Desta, 12. Desta's family belongs to a small community of Jews in dire poverty, isolated in the mountains and terrorized by Ethiopia's communist regime. A dream foretells the arrival of other Jews promising freedom in Israel; subsequently Desta's older brother, along with her betrothed, Dan, and his family, are chosen to travel to the Sudan, where they will be flown to Israel. The journey becomes a nightmare for them all. This book will remind readers that there are thousands of children in the world who spend each day in jeopardy. The story ends with Desta and Almaz healing in Jerusalem, but there is a last note that the airlift was stopped, and that many Jews remain trapped in Ethiopia.

I know they read The Return in a lot of Jewish middle schools, but if you don’t happen to be a twelve-year-old at a Solomon Schechter it’s still worth picking up.