Dayton premiere of locally produced documentary on Ethiopian aliyah

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

Fekadu, his wife and children left their Ethiopian village to live in a squalid shelter in Gondar while they waited for their opportunity to make aliyah (immigrate to Israel).

A decade later, these Falash Mura — descendants of Ethiopian Jews who had converted to Christianity under pressure — are finally told they can depart for the Promised Land. But they must leave their adopted son, Worku, behind.

The story of Fekadu and his family form a central narrative of Take Us Home, a new documentary about the plight of the Falash Mura who languish in Gondar and the difficulties they face when they arrive in the Jewish state, which has committed to absorb them.

With major funding from Dayton’s Levin Family Foundation, Take Us Home was produced and directed by Aileen LeBlanc, known for her work with WYSO and the documentaries Who’s Minding the Planet? — The Story of YSI, and Dayton Codebreakers.

The Take Us Home production team includes locally-based Senior Editor Jim Klein, a professor at Wright State University; Director of Photography Mike King, Consulting Editors Julia Reichart and Steve Bognar; with music composed and performed by Sandy and Michael Bashaw.

LeBlanc and Klein received the Van Gogh Film Editing Award for World Cinema Documentary from the 2012 Amsterdam Film Festival for Take Us Home.

In June, Take Us Home had its world premiere at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival; in October it was screened as part of Louisville’s International Festival of Film.

Take Us Home will come home for its Dayton area premiere on Nov. 15 at the Dayton Art Institute. Fekadu and Worku are expected to attend the Dayton premiere; the following day they’ll participate in a conference about refugees at the University of Dayton.

“I have been dreaming since February 2007 about the day when these families can walk out onto a stage in Dayton, Ohio,” LeBlanc says of the local premiere.

Following a trip to Ethiopia and Israel in 2006 to meet the Falash Mura, Levin Family Foundation Executive Director Karen Levin contacted LeBlanc.

“She thought this would make a great documentary and nobody’s really told the whole story,” LeBlanc says. “I didn’t even know there were Ethiopian Jews. And, I’m not even Jewish.”

But Levin said she wanted a non-Jew to lead this project. “I could ask all the ‘dumb’ questions — to the rabbis, to anybody — and they wouldn’t be offended and they wouldn’t expect me to already know,” LeBlanc says.

The story of the Falash Mura is complex. Ethiopian aliyah began in May 1991 when Israel launched Operation Solomon, a covert mission that airlifted 14,325 Ethiopian Jews from politically unstable Ethiopia to Israel over 36 hours. The Jewish Agency, a major beneficiary of the Jewish Federation system, provided key funding and services for their relief and absorption.

Those who were brought over were the Beta Israel, Ethiopians who had maintained their ancient Jewish identity.

For the Falash Mura to qualify for aliyah, however, they must trace their Jewish ancestry back at least seven generations.

Twice the Israeli government has announced it would end Falash Mura aliyah because of overcrowded Israeli absorption centers and dwindling funds. Each time, intense lobbying reopened the gates.

According to the Israeli government, approximately 2,200 Falash Mura remain in Ethiopia and will be brought to Israel by March 2014.

LeBlanc describes Take Us Home as the first film from the perspective of the Falash Mura telling their own story.

“I knew there was a culture that was ending,” she says. “These people are sitting there for a reason outside of their control, waiting in a situation that is really unlivable and for somebody else to make a decision about their lives. If you meet the human beings behind the story, then you care about the human beings, then you care about the story.”

The day of her first shoot in Ethiopia, in 2007, LeBlanc says she felt like a tidal wave hit her.

“I had never been in a place where there are donkeys and goats and people dressed the way they are. And you’re the only white person you ever see. And (you’re) with no ability to speak the language (Amharic).”

Her concerns about getting the story were eased through her assistant, Orly Malessa, an Ethiopian Jew whose family arrived in Israel when she was a child.

The Ethiopians they interviewed had seen televisions only in shops but were not familiar with cameras and video equipment. Even so, LeBlanc says, those who participated soon weren’t distracted by the equipment.

“After a while, there’s something that happens with the equipment, when you put out your microphone. You take it seriously.”

She says it helped that her crew was laid back. “We were not loud, we were not pushy. We sat there quietly.”

When LeBlanc and her team shot in Israel for the absorption side of the story, she was impressed by how Israeli leaders and politicians were forthcoming about their mistakes.

“They told me, ‘We didn’t always get it right. And we’re still not getting it right.’ They told me, ‘We wish we had learned more about their culture before we tried to put our cultures on top of it because it would have been an easier absorption.’”

Absorption has proven hard for the Ethiopians. Until Israel, they had never seen doorknobs let alone flushable toilets. Though there are success stories, poverty, crime, and physical abuse plague the community.

“I knew after a while what the families were going to have to go through when they got to Israel,” LeBlanc says. The families, she says, had no idea.

“They said it was the land of milk and honey and it was going to be the end of their problems. It wasn’t Israel: it was Jerusalem. That’s from generations, ‘We’re going home to Jerusalem.’”

Back in Yellow Springs, toward the end of the editing process, LeBlanc learned that Worku was going to be in New York. Klein insisted that LeBlanc capture a last-minute segment.

“Jim said, ‘You have to go.’ I said we don’t have any money. I was involved with FilmDayton that year and I went to a meeting that night and said Worku’s coming to New York and Jim thinks we should go.”

One person donated a camera, another volunteered to handle sound, someone paid for the drive and hotel rooms in New York, and Mike King volunteered to come along and film.

“The whole end of our film was meant to be,” she says. “So speaking about people in Dayton and their dedication, that’s what I mean. When you can stuff people in a car and drive for 20 hours and share hotel rooms and do a shoot that we thought might happen, that’s an amazing thing. This is the kind of community it is.”

LeBlanc is now in talks with PBS about broadcasting Take Us Home. She hopes it will screen at several big Jewish film festivals over the coming year.

Even so, she doesn’t see it as a Jewish film. “I see it as about who fits into what group and why. Who gets to make the decisions about who fits. And we all do it.”

The Dayton Jewish Cultural Arts & Book Festival presents the local premiere of Take Us Home, Thursday, Nov. 15 at the Dayton Art Institute, 456 Belmonte Park North. Reception at 7 p.m., film at 7:30 p.m. followed by Q&A. $5 in advance, $7 at the door. Sponsored in collaboration with The Dayton Art Institute, FilmDayton, WYSO, and the Jewish Community Relations Council. Tickets are available at the Dayton Art Institute or online at www.daytonartinstitute.org.