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From: Devorah
Subject: Formative experiences
Date: 22 Elul 5783
Ben-Ari's list reminds me of my own gaps.
In Ethiopia, we had Jewish education, but not in forms this committee would recognize. The kessoch taught the Orit, the Torah in Ge'ez. The community transmitted traditions orally, through practice, through observance. The Sigd was our formative experience, the annual pilgrimage, the fasting, the prayers on the mountain. There were no summer camps.
My formative experience was Operation Solomon. I was young, but I remember the buses coming to take us to Addis Ababa. I remember waiting at the airport. I remember the airplane, which I had never seen before. I remember landing in a country where everything was different except that we were still Jews, though some said we were not.
Is that an Xp code? Xp:solomon? What modifier captures being airlifted to a country you were taught to pray toward but had never seen?
Later, in Israel, the absorption center. The ulpan where we learned Hebrew. The rabbinate questioning whether our Judaism counted. The conversion some of us were asked to undergo. These were also formative.
If we are building a category for formative experiences, whose formation counts?
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