When the World Became White

Ethiopian Jews in Israel

Abstract

Departing a country where overwhelming religious imposition endangered their ancient faith was one of the steps in the quest for self-preservation that Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) had to submit themselves. In Israel, where they se!led in the last decades of the 20th century, Ethiopians had the painful task of envisaging the hierarchical change that the family itself had to go through, alongside the other socioeconomic and cultural differences. And, to all these, the distinction ofskin color was superimposed.How such confrontations and adaptations to the new experience are presented in the bold language of the short story “Eich shehaolam nihiya lavan” (When the world became white), (2013) from the collection under the same title by Dalia Betolin-Sherman, -one of the rare Israeli writers of Ethiopian origin, is addressed in this text. It is through the eyes of the character Ester, a girl and later a teenager, when growth is accompanied by a feeling of strangeness, that one can follow the complexity of the experience in the new country.