Why did the mother stay?


A question that's been nagging at me: Why couldn't the mother just have taken off her cross necklace and come to Israel with her son? Seems so simple! Was her christian faith too strong to lie? Did she think people would buy a child's lies more than an adult's? That her son would be better able to adjust without her? Just seems like a slight error in the story's logic. Other than this, I really enjoyed the movie. What do you think?

Amen. And all that cal.

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It was clear to everybody that the mother wasn't a Jew. Schlomo had the chance to leave only because he secretly took the dead child's identity with Qès Amrah's and doctor's help. People who were proven not to be real Jews were expelled from the country.

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Note the scene just after all falashas have eaten their first meal in Israel, when they one by one (or one plus his/her own children) is called forth to a table where the Ethiopian interpreter and an Israelian official are sitting against them. Schlomo's Jewish foster moster does not merely say that she is a Jew. She invokes that everyone in her Jewish village knows her as such. And actually the Ethipian rabbi nods and confirms that he knows that she is a Jew.

Schlomo meets his first real fire-test when his atheist adoptive family offers him to say the Jewish meal prayer before they start to eat - and he does not know a word of this prayer.

The second danger occurs when he in the Mosaïc school says that Jesus has given the Jews their religious rituals. But in countries in which the Jews had to conceal their Jewishness, some children may not have got much religious education. Evidently it is the rabbi who gives Schlomo the old testament, which he then tries to learn by heart, one sentence after the other.

The story then jumps over many years. But it is possible that Schlomo is eager to help at the religious service in order to learn all those things which it could be dangerous not to know.

Recall how much fuss there is about another Jew's name "Adi-Salem", which is actually Hebrew and means "New-World". Schlomo's biological mother's name is "Kidane" which is definitely not Jewish. At a later time he tells the Eathiopian rabbi that she had to convert before she could marry Schlomo's father. If she herself had said so at the arrival to Israel, there must have been witnesses of such a conversion ceremony.

In sum, she would never have managed to steer through all the dangers. The attempt to save also herself would just have the consequence that she would fail to save Schlomo.

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Recall how much fuss there is about another Jew's name "Adi-Salem", which is actually Hebrew and means "New-World".


"AdiSalem" is not Hebrew--it is Amharic (or maybe Ge'ez, another language of Ethiopia). According to the Beta Israel interpreter it was a name commonly used by the Jews in Ethiopia-but it's not of Hebrew origin. Many Jews in different countries use names that are considered to be typically associated with Jews, but may not necessarily be Hebrew--example-Ashkenazi Jews often have Yiddish-derived names--"Hirsch", "Velvel", "Ber" (although they are literal translations of Hebrew names Tzvi, Ze'ev and Dov); girls are often called names like "Gittel", "Raizy"--Sephardic Jews commkonly had Jewish Spanish names like "Fortuna" (which is a translation of Hebrew "Mazal"). These names are always thought of as "Jewish" without actually being Hebrew.

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Note another scene. Before the fugitive are allowed to enter the truck, I man check them. He calls "Hana" by her first name. Evidently he knows her and knows that she is a Jew. He asks: Didn't your son die this morning? But the doctor (who later turn out to be an Israelian Jew) interferes and says: "I saved him".
(1) Hana was known by the "truck guard" to be a Jew.
(2) The Ethiopian rabbi testified that Hana was a Jew.
(3) The Jewish doctor testified that Schlomo was Hana's son (and hence a Jew). Evidently, he lied and was aware of the real facts.
(4) Hana testified at two checkings that Schlomo was her son.

Who would testify that Kidane, who did not even have a Jewish name, was a Jew?

There is a lot of things that a nine-yeasr-old child might not know about his religion. There are many things that an adult could not have missed. What Mormon does not know that Mormons must not drink coffee or tea? What Witness of Jehova does not know that they do not celebrate Christmas?

Schlomo very nearly was exposed on the first evening in his adoptive family.

Try to imagine what you would do to prove that you belong to a fundamentalist branch of the Mosaïc confession, if you had the knowledge you actually have; and if you came to Israel speaking no other language than Amharic.

LATER ADDITION:
Just a test question to you, which we would forgive a child but not an adult to be unable to answer. What is a "dibek"?

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