UNITY
YOU’LL GO!
There’s a special connection between Jews the
world over I BY MOIRA SCHNEIDER
The family during their trip to Iran in 2011, from left: Ma’ayan Nandi, Evan Robins,
Yael Lerato, Karen Kallmann, Aryeh Andile and Eitan Nkosinathi. Karen was
required to wear a ‘hijab’, the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women.
KAREN KALLMANN AND EVAN ROBINS CERTAINLY
believe in taking the road less travelled, as
their many trips to out-of-the-way places
across the globe over the past 15 years attest. The addition to the mix of five children, aged two-and-a-half to 10 years old,
has not deterred them in the slightest, instead confirming the couple’s irrepressible
sense of adventure in the face of challenges
that would certainly deter lesser mortals.
The intrepid travellers recently popped
into Ethiopia on their way back from attending a barmitzvah in Israel. There they
found a strongly Zionist community,
largely centred in Gondor and Addis Ababa. The former boasts a community centre, including a kindergarten and a tallisweaving facility. In addition, it has a
mikveh (ritual bath), as well as kosher
kitchens in two of its hotels.
10 JEWISH LIFE
ISSUE 86
While thousands of Ethiopian Jews were
famously rescued by Israel through Operations Moses, Joshua and Solomon in the
mid-1980s and early 1990s, Karen, a social
and economic researcher, says there are still
1 300 families recorded in Gondor, plus others who are not on the register. “During the
(rescue) process, many families were separated and all the Jews of Ethiopia are desperate to go to Israel. They are Zionistic and
religious – although their status is complex.
They are also very poor, but Israel has basically stopped all aliyah from the country.”
Her travels have taught her that people
are the same wherever you go, but that
Jews have a special connection. “The fact
that you can go into any Jewish community in the world and be accepted and embraced is a very special thing. It speaks to
the brotherhood of all Jews.
Karen shaking the lulav and etrog in a
sukkah in Isfahan, Iran.
PHOTOGRAPHS: SUPPLIED
Oh, the places
“The fact that you go into a shul and recognise the service, even if it’s something
that you’re not familiar with, like a Sephardi or Ethiopian service – everyone says
the Shema, everyone says the Shemoneh
Esrei and you feel like you belong. People
– total strangers – will invite you and have
you in their homes. It’s happened to us all
over the world. It’s quite amazing – you’re
part of a family,” she enthuses.
“Even in communities under deep
threat, like the Turkish-Jewish community, they invited us to the Kiddush brocha.”
When the family visited Iran in 2011, they
were welcomed with open arms by the
“absolutely wonderful” 25 000-strong
Jewish community. “We spent every meal
from Yom Kippur to the end of Simchat
Torah in someone’s house. People brought
us food to our hotel room.
“Every shul we went into, we were literally mobbed by people who wanted to know
who we were. What they were most interested in was not that we were South African, but that we were Ashkenazi, as many
had never met Ashkenazi Jews before.” Karen puts this down to the fact that so few
Jewish tourists visit the country. The first
family they went to for breaking the fast after Yom Kippur gave them a cell phone chip,
insisting they keep in touch at all times.
“They felt responsible for us!” she exclaims.
“If we needed to direct a taxi driver, we
could phone them and they would speak to
the driver in Farsi, or if we got lost – they
wanted to be contactable all the time.”
Karen and Evan were in Fez, Morocco at
the turn of the millennium, which hap-