Haifa, Israel (special) -- At the offices of the Jewish Agency, members of a visiting delegation from the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County were transported by stories recently to the deserts of Sudan and to a night of stealth in Syria. 

Through a translator, Reuben Solomon quietly told of his fateful decision to follow his ten brothers who had left Syria 37 years before and to go to Israel.  Because Syria and Israel are enemies, he could not tell the Syrians where he intended to go, instead telling the authorities that he planned to go to Turkey. 

After receiving his travel documents, Solomon “packed up his clothes, he packed up his suitcases, and he decided to smuggle an ancient Torah scroll from the Syrian Jewish community to Israel,” according to the translator’s account.  “He took the keys to the synagogue at midnight, went in, took out the Torah scrolls with two of his children and he was scared out of his mind,” his interpreter said. “He thought that everyone was looking at him and if they caught him he knew that he would be put in jail in Syria.  “In the end, he decided to take four Torah scrolls, and all the time the fear was growing and growing and growing,” the translator said. “When he got to the border with Turkey, the Syrian authorities caught him.  They opened all the suitcases.  He didn’t have a feeling in his soul--from fear.

Reuben Soloman

‘What am I going to do if they catch me?’  But with luck, they didn’t recognize the Torahs.  And at the same time he gave a nice big bribe.” 

Once Solomon got to Turkey, he continued straight to the capital, Istanbul, where he went immediately to the Israeli Embassy, telling his wife on the way, “Tonight we will get to Istanbul; tomorrow we will go to Israel.” 

When the Syrian Jew got to the Israeli  embassy, he “saw the flag of Israel but he was frozen; he couldn’t go into the building.   He was so excited, and so moved by the flag of Israel, that he couldn’t move and he started crying.  And every time he tells the story he gets shivers again.  Because on television in Syria, he always saw the Israeli flag burn.” 

It took ten days before the necessary paperwork could be done to admit Solomon to Israel as a new immigrant, ten days in which he said he lived for the first time as a “free man,” out from under the oppressive regime of Syrian President Hafez el-Assad. 

“He got to Israel and he saw all his ten brothers at the airport and that was the best day of his life.  And then the worries started again.  When the Jewish Agency received him, they gave him and his family an apartment at the absorption center in Mevaseret  Zion (on the outskirts of Jerusalem).   ‘Where will we get  food?’  he said to his wife.  ‘Where will we sleep?’ 

“When he came into the apartment, he saw everything: food and sheets and towels, everything you can imagine already thought of. ...The Jewish Agency helped them.  The first year he didn’t work; he studied Hebrew.  The Jewish Agency gave him a salary and expenses for a full year to take care of himself and his wife and his (six) children. 

“In Israel ‘I am very happy; I burn on (love) Israel,’” quoted the translator, adding: “He knows that everything that the Jewish Agency did for him was because of your good help. He prays every Jew who comes to Israel will hold his head high, the way he does in Israel.” 

Solomon donated the Torahs to the Syrian Jewish community in Israel, turning aside offers from people who wanted to buy them from him. “I am happy with my portion in life,” he said. He works today as a cook. 

Solomon Berihun stepped next to the podium, and although he began learning English only three years before, he was able to tell the story of his exodus from the Gondar region of Ethiopia quite dramatically and cogently. 

“My parents’ dream was to come to Jerusalem,” he said.  “In their eyes Jerusalem was something spiritual where God lived and from where He looks at the world--Jerusalem of gold... something real that we could get to and feel.”  In 1983, when Berihun was 12, “the Jews of Ethiopia began to run into the direction of the Sudan, and in 1984 my parents decided to come to Israel. But first they would send their children to Israel and after that they would join us.” Berihun was the first of his immediate family to go, setting out in a group of  60  with his uncle’s family.  “We walked bravely in the direction of Sudan,” Berihan said.  “At that time, I remember, it was very hot and many children dried out because of the great heat.  Also many people in our community fell sick because of disease. We walked five days...”

Solomon Berihun

Then disaster struck.  “When we were in the middle of the desert, we met murderers and kidnapers. They took our water and our horses, the goods we had brought from Ethiopia.  We had nothing.” 

When the refugees finally reached Sudan’s border, they asked for water, only to find that they could not immediately drink it because their throats were too dry.  “We waited for three days at the Sudan border, and after that we were taken to a refugee camp,” Berihun said.  “We received food at the camp” but troubles were far from over. The  “refugee camp was most crowded and dirty.... I remember many children got sick ... We lost many grown ups...“ 

Among the fatalities were Berihun’s uncle and cousins, leaving him to continue his journey alone. 
“After this, five guys came at night to the refugee camp, and this guy moved from tent to tent, and started to get up the people,” Berihun related. “These five guys took us beyond the refugee camp... we walked five kilometers (and) arrived ...some place. We saw two trucks and these guys put us in the trucks and took us in the direction of the desert. 

“After a journey of about two hours, we arrived in a certain place, and when we arrived there -- two airplanes came and landed, one next to the other. And these guys put us on the bottom of the airplanes and we were brought to Israel.” 

Berihun spent seven months in a boarding school where he learned Hebrew, then enrolled at another school near Mount Carmel which specializes in educating foreign students. The school is called Yemin Orde. Life there “was very hard; my parents were in Ethiopia” and he had  “no brothers, no sisters.” He recalled that “on Sundays when others were visiting their parents, I was thinking about my parents.” 

He finished high school  “and in 1990, my parents came.”  “My parents cried and of course my sisters” at the reunion.  Since then he has served in the Army, completed a bachelor’s degree and is now studying for a master’s degree in behavioral sciences at Haifa University. 

“The Jewish Agency helped me so much,” Berihun told the San Diego group.  “Without their help I would not have been able to finish my degree...I would not be here. ... On behalf of the Ethiopian Jews and of course the Ethiopian students who study with me, thank you.”