AbstractWith the arrival in Israel of Ethiopian Jews, libraries—like other institutions— have an important challenge. The immigrants come from an oral culture, and have difficulty in adaptation to a society where reading skills are expected. Libraries have acted as socialization agents, and have endeavored to facilitate the transition to literacy. The greatest attention has been toward children. Library use itself presents great problems for the Ethiopians, since such familiar elements as indexes and tables of contents have no counterparts in their culture. Librarians have emphasized reading aloud, picture books, and establishment of small reading centers in the Ethiopian settlements. At the same time, librarians strive to preserve the Ethiopian culture that the newcomers bring with them; they record stories, myths, legends, and songs. The effort appears to be succeeding: children are learning quickly to become Israeli without losing their original identity.
The arrival in Israel of immigrants from Ethiopia has presented us with a unique opportunity of exploring the ways by which the promotion of reading can be achieved among children who come from a primarily oral culture into a basically book oriented social and cultural environment, based on literacy [1]. “Beitah Israel,” the Jews of Ethiopia, hark back to the times of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba according to their legends and stories. Whatever the historical truth, their Jewish practices show that they have been without contact with the religious and social events of other Jewish communities for centuries. They have no tradition of the Mishnah and the Talmud, and their religious practices closely resemble those of the earlier periods of the Jewish faith, connected with the period of the First Temple, not with subsequent periods. However, they have faithfully fulfilled throughout their long history the dictates of the Jewish faith: the Sabbath, Holy Days as well as dietary and other laws. Even though their religious practices were mostly conducted in Amharic there is a wealth of stories and legends similar to those connected with the prophet Jeremiah [2].
Beitah Israel have kept themselves apart from their Christian neighbors and have lived in tight–knit communities. They have thus conserved their unique traditions, carefully transmitted from generation to generation. Through the vicissitudes of historical developments they enjoyed cultural and administrative autonomy in the tenth and fourteenth century while at other times they were subject to persecution because of their religious practices. All the books owned by the Beitah Israel destroyed in flare–ups of hostility and they were forced to rely almost entirely on orally transmitted traditions. In spite of this, the knowledge, carefully kept safe by the Elders of the People, seems to have reached the present time in great detail and precision, virtually unchanged through the centuries [3].
Formal education is a relatively new phenomenon among the Ethiopian Jews: when schools began to be established in Ethiopia, they were mostly run by Christian missionaries, and the Ethiopian Jews, concerned about Christian influences, did not allow children to attend. Moreover, historical events had pushed the Ethiopian Jews gradually far from the urban and cultural centers of the country to the rural peripheries, where educational opportunities were few or non–existent. The first attempts to introduce Jewish education to the Ethiopian Jewish community were made in 1924 with the establishment of a Jewish school. Young people were sent to study in the Jewish community of Palestine and returned to Ethiopia to serve as teachers. However, this project had only restricted impact on the education of Beitah Israel, affecting very little of life of the rural population in the remoter parts of the country.
It must be pointed out that in terms of technology the people used only materials that could be found in their immediate environment. They had no knowledge of such tools as clocks or watches, no acquaintance with electricity, steam engines or telephones. Their medical practices were also based on natural materials, and they refrained from using the few medical services available in the country, because they feared that entering a hospital might put their religious practices, especially dietary customs, into conflict [4]. The main educational framework was therefore the traditional transfer of information from parents to children. Those who showed special ability were sent to the Elders of the Community, who taught them Ghez, the ancient language of Ethiopia, in which some books left to the community were written. Thus only few of the young among the people were literate, and that only in Ghez, an archaic language not used except for religious practices. Consequently, immigration to Israel was for the majority of the Ethiopian Jews not only a bewildering entry into the twentieth–century civilization with its technology and customs, an encounter with a culture familiar in some religious aspects while completely alien socially, but also an introduction into a literate environment for which their former experiences had left the people mostly unprepared, in a new language they had to learn.
The problem is one that has preoccupied librarians in many countries: how to assist in the cultural integration of newcomers from a variety of countries, when the immigrants are literate in their own language. The problem is many–faceted: undoubtedly libraries should help in the acquisition of the new dominant culture, but should they also encourage the conservation of old–country cultural values? How is their seemingly paradoxical task to be accomplished? What is more urgent: teaching the older, bread–winning generation to acquire skills necessary for earning a living in new conditions or to concentrate on the young, who are more adaptable and likely to be more successful in acquiring new language and technological skills? How can the public and school libraries best serve the newcomers in their social and cultural integration?
There is no easy answer to all these questions, but the problem presented by the Ethiopian Jews is even more complicated: how to help in the acquisition of literacy in a new language when the traditional cultural basis is an oral one [5]. The Ethiopian child has heard since early infancy stories, songs, myths and legends. Picture books, television shows, movies and theater performances are new concepts. The children from Ethiopia arriving in Israel were of different ages, often uprooted from their families and social milieu, forced to wander months on the long trek to the planes awaiting them in Addis Ababa witnessing disease, death and despair. The culture shock upon arrival in Israel created further disorientation and the severance of cultural and community ties left many children to face their new life alone, while families disintegrated under the pressures of immigration. In many cases it devolved on the young children to help their parents in their absorption problems, and they had to acquire Hebrew as quickly as possible not only to cope with school work but also in order to assist their elders.
Even though teaching language and reading skills to the children has been emphasized, other projects have been carried out for adult Ethiopians: the army has taken an active role in the integration of Ethiopian youths serving in the armed forces through the use of advanced teaching methods [6]. A system of adult education and literacy courses have been established in the various temporary accommodations created for Ethiopian immigrants. Thus, a relatively massive effort has been made to help the new arrivals acquire the language skills necessary to enter the work force and become economically independent. However, these efforts have not always been successful, as older immigrants have more difficulties in acquiring the necessary Hebrew skills needed in the technological environment of modern Israel. Ethiopian immigrants, because their occupational background is so different from that of Israel, have been severely handicapped in this sense and in the general unemployment scene of Israel. They have higher rates of unemployment than the general population, because of their lack of literacy in Hebrew and because their skills are not compatible with the Israeli work scene.
What should be the role of the libraries in the absorption process of the Ethiopian immigrants? First, to participate actively in the process by which the newcomers acquire literacy and Hebrew language skills; and second, to do the utmost to preserve the fragile traditions of the Ethiopian Jews. In the first sense, libraries can use their existing resources to aid the process of acquiring literacy. However, librarians should remember that unlike other children, Ethiopian children are used to oral transmission of information and librarians should probably prefer the oral path in introducing written texts. They should read aloud to them, in order to familiarize them with literary conventions and narrative forms to which they are unaccustomed. In order to master reading, narrative and literary forms must be familiar, especially if reading comes on the basis of a second language, not the mother tongue. These are acquired as a rule in the preliterate stage of development. However, the native language is acquired differently from a second language — which tends to be learned on the basis of analogies and translations from the native tongue. The problem with learning to read on the basis of an oral native tongue is that analogies for literary expressions used in written texts are not readily identifiable. Hence the need for a thorough acquaintance with literary expressions, and as these cannot be acquired in the native tongue, they have to be acquired in the second language. In order to facilitate the process, reading aloud, hearing literary texts and having the expressions explained not only in their lexical sense but in their social and cultural significance can make the process easier.
Books are expected to broaden horizons, introduce new concepts and circumstances, acquaint the reader with hitherto unknown worlds. In the case of the Ethiopian young, books describing Israeli customs, styles of life and cultural mores can do much to ease the transition from Ethiopia to modern–day Israel. However, librarians must remember that the Ethiopian community is deeply religious. In addition to secular literature they must have at their disposal religiously oriented stories, which are not particularly interesting to the secularly educated Israeli youth and therefore are not especially prominent in the collections of some public libraries. Books as a source of information is another alien concept for the Ethiopian immigrant. Traditionally accustomed to ask their elders for information, they must be taught that books contain answers to questions. This is especially important as the subsequent integration in the work force depends on the ability to compete successfully with the informationally sophisticated Israelis. Thus libraries should prepare programs for teaching information retrieval skills, the use of encyclopedias, dictionaries and other sources of information.
From studies carried out in the Laboratory for Children’s Librarianship of the Haifa University Library, we know that beginning readers have a marked preference for familiar stories and books [7]. There seems to be difficulty with an unfamiliar text, partly because of the slow deciphering of which the child is capable, and also because a new book can only be appreciated if it is connected to something familiar. The author, the hero or heroine, the series, the type of adventure, etc., make it easier for a child to overcome the difficulty of a unfamiliar text [8]. Those children whose background does not include familiarity with books in the preliterate period seem to have more difficulties in acquiring fluent reading than their peers who have grown up with stories. In the case of the Ethiopian children, what the parents were precluded from doing owing to circumstances in the old country and after immigration, could well be carried out by the librarians, as otherwise the process of acquiring literacy may be long, tortuous and frustrating. Therefore, a library with Ethiopian readers would do well to increase the sessions of reading aloud, showing picture books and telling the stories, asking the children to tell stories on the basis of picture books.
The library, therefore, should act as a socialization agent for the newcomers and make the transition from oral to literate as facile as possible. This requires new approaches to service on the basis of existing materials and an understanding of the difficulties that the Ethiopian child encounters on the road to literacy in Hebrew.
The need for information on a variety of hitherto unknown subjects is critical for the newcomers. Unless they can ask their teachers to explain, only libraries and their collections can come to their aid. Information retrieval can be taught as soon as basic reading is mastered, as the experience gained at the Laboratory for Children’s Librarianship has amply shown [9]. However, information retrieval for Ethiopian children means also more drill in alphabetization, more training in the use of indexes, tables of contents and other aids to retrieval, as these have no counterpart in their own culture. What may be even more important is the need for training in the formulation of questions, something even Israeli youngsters often have trouble with, in spite of their acquaintance with their own culture and the world in which they live. Formulating a question requires background information about the world around us, and if this world is only partially understood, as it is in the case of the Ethiopian child, the formulation of the question becomes even more complicated. Therefore, in order to be able to compete with some degree of equality with their peers, the Ethiopian child, as any other child in the Third World who has to learn in a strange environment, in a foreign language about alien concepts, must be trained to think logically, to find what material is relevant to the problem at hand and to verbalize the outcome. This does not come naturally: it must be taught and reinforced by training. Otherwise, the difficulties of acquiring the modes of thinking of their new environment will remain out of reach and will handicap the children of an entire generation.
Some of the difficulties encountered by the Ethiopian child are easy to describe: learning a new language concomitantly with learning to read and to think in new ways is a difficult task. But in addition, Ethiopian children have several other obstacles to overcome. Israeli children spend at least two years of their early childhood in kindergartens, which prepare them not only for school life but also teach many basic concepts at an early age. Educational television has a great impact on the mental development of young children with Sesame Street type programs also devoted to teaching abstract concepts, vocabulary and general information. However, these concepts are from the immediate environment of a child growing in a modern society. For the Ethiopian child even such basic concepts may be new and cannot easily be translated either conceptually or linguistically into the store of knowledge acquired in early childhood, especially if the child was born in Ethiopia. Thus, not only must new words be learned, they must also be understood in terms of a new environment, as they do not always have an equivalent in the old–country concepts. Stories written for the very young and for the older but preliterate child endeavor to dotwo things: teach new concepts and the words describing them. However, a child learning Hebrew as a second language, but having difficulties in finding analogies in the mother tongue, finds the task of absorbing new concepts and words twice as difficult. Another difficulty encountered by many Ethiopian children is that while their background includes many pictorial representations, picture books and books with little text do not form part of their childhood experience. The need to learn a new language as quickly as possible in order to integrate successfully into the school system must be made mainly on the basis of written words, not pictures. As a help to conceptualization, pictures doubtlessly are of prime importance and therefore librarians have made efforts to introduce picture books and visual material to the Ethiopian children. This will help them overcome some of the difficulties they are facing in learning the concepts and thought processes of an essentially alien culture. Several encouraging beginnings have already been made in this direction: Beitah Israel are in many instances housed in prefabricated houses, grouped together so as to diminish the effects of the inevitable culture shock. Many have also been housed in absorption centers (hotels and special apartment houses built for that purpose). In the prefab settlements, with the help of voluntary organizations, small but attractive libraries have been established, with carpeting, invitingly open shelves, and helpful librarians. The librarians spend a lot of time reading aloud, explaining texts and helping children with homework, while at the same time teaching mothers how to enjoy reading together with children.
Librarians report that Ethiopian children take to reading and libraries like ducks to water. They are eager users of library facilities and seem to enjoy their newfound skills. Mothers seem to be affected by the enthusiasm of their children and also participate in the various activities that librarians devise for their benefit. The adults are accepting the new ideas more slowly, but they too seem to appreciate gradually the advantages offered by library activities. In this manner, librarians devising activities on the basis of the day–to–day needs of the population they serve seem to play the ideal role they rarely succeed in realizing among literate populations: the office of a social and cultural agent.
However, absorption into a new dominant culture creates a problem that many countries with immigrant population seem to be grappling with: while the first generation of immigrants carry their home country values and norms with them into their new life, the second generation is usually far removed from its cultural roots. Countries with large immigrant populations face this problem today regarding the children born and educated in the new country: should they shed their cultural heritage completely and become American, French, German or Israelis? What about the third generation, twice removed from the old country? Different host countries to immigrants have tried to solve this problem each in its own way. In Germany children of Turkish immigrants are taught Turkish as a second language to strengthen their ties with their historical homeland, even though by education, outlook and culture they have adapted to German ways. America has a variety of approaches to the problem of integration, but tends to expect newcomers to become Americans and to accept its culture. Israel is in a special position: for many immigrants there is no “old country” any more. Ethiopian Jews will never go back to Ethiopia, except perhaps in happier days on a nostalgic trip. Moroccan Jews, who brought over to Israel many of their customs and cultural attributes now take a backward look at their old homeland, but they come to Morocco as tourists, just as Jews of Polish extraction visit, 50 years after the Holocaust, the places of their birth. Becoming Israeli means losing one’s former identity and adopting a new one.
The culture of the Ethiopian Jews was unique: materially poor but spiritually rich and varied. Therefore it seems to this writer that it should be preserved in all its richness. This is the other face of the library’s task: that of preserving Ethiopian traditions and culture. Stories, myths, legends and songs should, if possible, be collected and recorded so that the youngsters growing up in Israel will still have a source of information about their cultural roots. While the process of immigration and integration is going forward, it is easy, and unfortunately rather common, for the former cultural heritage to diminish in value in the eyes of those busy adapting to a new life style. Libraries should be aware of the many–faceted aspects of Ethiopian Jewish culture and preserve it for the future. When Beitah Israel have become Israeli, they will need a reminder of the cultural treasures they have had to shed in the quest for new customs. If libraries do their conservation well, it will help in more than one sense: it will provide Israelis with accurate information about the culture of a unique people, it will enrich the scientific research into the wealth of oral traditions of this community, and it will provide the Ethiopian Jew with the pride of a new culture acquired without sacrificing the old.
Irene Sever is Senior Lecturer and chair of Library Studies, University of Haifa, Israel. She has an M.A. from Haifa University, and a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne, Paris. After working as information officer in several scientific institutions, she changed course to anthropology and communication, and began to concentrate on library services for children and communication skills of children and librarians. Together with Shmuel Sever she created the Laboratory for Children’s Librarianship, a research facility for observing children acting in a library milieu independantly from adults. Dr. Sever is the author of Beginning Readers, Mass Media and Libraries (1994), Library in Society (in Hebrew), and articles in various journals. She is a member of the IFLA Round Table on Research in Reading.
© 1994 Irene Sever.