Hi!

My name is Linoy. I'm Israeli, and proud of it. My favorite food is pizza, but I also love falafel. My favorite Israeli singer is Omer Adam - have you heard of him? And I love shopping in Tel Aviv.

I'm also Jewish, and proud of that too.  I light the Shabbat candles with my mother every Friday night, my favorite holiday is Passover, and I grew up in religious schools where I was surrounded by the coolest girls all the time.

You may also have noticed, I’m black. I could say I’m especially proud of that, though honestly, for me, it’s really not a thing. I've never experienced racism, not even discrimination. I feel there are no limits to what I can achieve, and the world is open to me.

I feel girl power, too.  And just like being black, I believe there are no limits to what I can achieve as a woman. Go girls!

So what part of me is my greatest challenge, you ask? It’s funny—because I’d say it’s the one thing I am NOT—I am NOT an immigrant. But I AM a child of immigrants.

So I’m a proud, black Israeli-born Jewish girl. Born to immigrants, who came from a totally different life, and do their best every day to give me everything I need so I can fulfill my dreams. Ethiopia was totally different than Israel. My parents and grandparents lived in a small Jewish village on a remote mountaintop. Life for them was almost like in the Bible. And they always dreamed of returning to Jerusalem. We—my 3 brothers and I—are the fulfillment of their dream, living in the land of milk and honey. Well, in Beersheva and not Jerusalem, but still it is the Holy Land!

So I’m here now to share my story, that of my family and my community, so you can understand how amazing we are, how incredible our journey was, and how much potential we have. And also our challenges, and the steps we are taking to overcome them.

But before I begin, I want to say thank you. First, thank you, for this opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams—of seeing America. And thank you for being the excuse and motivation to sit for hours with my parents and grandparents to truly understand what it is they went through so that I could be in Israel. If you’ve never done that, and if you are able, it is so important to do.  

So first, a little bit about my mother. It’s interesting, because whenever I would ask my mother about her Aliya story she would say “it is the same as your father’s,” even though they didn’t make the journey together—they met after reaching Israel.  It was my maternal grandmother who finally told me the story I never knew, a story that has forever changed me.

My mother’s family lived in the Tigrey region of Ethiopia, in a village called Wolokay. My grandfather heard that it was possible to reach Sudan by foot, and from there to be rescued by the Israeli Mossad and brought to Israel. The year was 1982—the large, famous exodus called “Operation Moses” was in 1984, so my family were among the early ones to leave. They quickly organized and sold as much as possible. There were old people and babies and everything in between—a group of about 50. They brought all the food and water they could carry-- but still ran out. They faced robbers and wild animals and experienced awful things all along the way.  It took them two long weeks of walking before they arrived at the border of Sudan.

When they reached Sudan, they pretended to be refugees fleeing the civil war. They had to hide the fact they were Jewish. Life was so hard in the camps. There was not enough food, there was so much disease. Every day was difficult, every day they buried someone.

My grandmother told me how one day she took my mother—who was 6 years old-  to the market to buy some food. As she was walking by the stalls, suddenly she felt her daughter being yanked away from her hands. She realized a man was trying to kidnap my mother. My grandmother held on to my mother with all her might, screaming. “I felt helpless,” she told me. After what felt like forever, she said a Sudanese man, a neighbor who knew them but didn’t know they were Jewish happened to be nearby and stopped the man from taking my mother.

My grandmother hid for days, scared to go outside, scared it might happen again, and she might lose my mother.

Remember I told you we should explore our family’s stories? I never knew this story, until just a few weeks ago. I never knew my mother was almost kidnapped. I wonder, G-d forbid, what would have happened had the man succeeded? I would not be here today. It made me realize, how much my family suffered, just to come to be in Israel. The price they were prepared to pay to make that dream a reality.

My mother’s family was in Sudan for two whole years, waiting to be rescued. Then one night in total darkness the Jews were told to gather outside the camp, they were loaded onto trucks, and driven to a distant air field. There the planes from Israel waited, and took my family home. As my grandmother told me this, I could see how emotional she was, even today, remembering the joy she felt, when they finally touched down in Eretz Yisrael.

My grandfather on my father’s side was a talented metalworker. He made axes and knives. When he heard that he could reach Israel if he could just make it to Sudan, he convinced a government official to give him special permission to go with his family to work there. So, instead of travelling secretly like my mothers’ family, my grandfather and his whole family crossed the border with permission. Of course he never said he was Jewish and would never return. And even though he had permission, his group also was threatened and beaten. It took a year and a half in the refugee camp until they received documents which flew them to Germany, and from there to Israel. 

No matter how they came, everyone who made the journey has a heartbreaking story to tell. In those years, 12,000 Jews, like my mother, father, and grandparents, left their villages. Of the 12,000, only 8,000 survived the journey. My family were among the lucky ones. My grandparents and parents are heroes, the bravest people I know.

But the journey to reach Israel is only a small part of the story. As hard as that was, it is so difficult for so many even today. Think about it—they left a beautiful little village, everything they knew, today they are in big cities with large families in little apartments. They never learned to read or write—as a shepherd, farmer, metal worker or home maker there was no need. Now, in Israel, what kind of job can you get? How can you support your family? When you come with nothing, with only the clothes on your back and no education, how can you survive? And who are you—when even your name has been changed!

My parents came as children, but after years of living as refugees in horrific conditions. They both finished high school. Today my father works as an aide in a hospital and my mother worked in a spice factory and today helps cook in a boarding school kitchen. They never went to university. But it is their dream that I will. I will.

I grew up attending religious girls schools. I studied in the same school until 8th grade. From 9th grade, I tried to get into a really competitive religious girls high school, called an ulpana. I had to take a test to get in. I failed. So my father went to the principal and told her I would work hard and deserved a chance. He believed in me and convinced the principal to believe in me, too. My dad’s great. But while the principal agreed, I entered school on probation, and would be kicked out if I didn’t do well enough.

Most of the kids there had already been studying together since the 7th grade. So I was the outsider, the new kid. And since I knew I didn’t pass the entry exams—maybe everybody else was smarter than me? The school work was harder than anything I had ever experienced. It was hard, socially and scholastically.

So when I met a new girl named Sefitu who told me about an after school program called SPACE, well, that changed everything.

SPACE is School Performance and Community Empowerment. It is ENP- the Ethiopian National Project’s after school program which helps kids like me—immigrants and children of immigrants and now even others—to succeed in school, and know the sky’s the limit to what we can achieve. 

In a large classroom I was lost, but in the small groups and amazing teachers and staff of SPACE, I found myself. We went on field trips, visited the university, met inspirational people.

Thanks to SPACE, instead of being scared I might get kicked out, I was surrounded by teachers who taught me everything I needed, almost one on one. I had a chance to make new friends which helped me fit in better.  I had an amazing counselor named Fitelwork who told me constantly that I could do anything I dreamed. She was in touch with my parents and even helped them help me better.

I think English is the best example of how much SPACE helped. For me, English was impossible. I always gave up right away. I was in the lowest track. Usually, once you are in the lowest track, you stay there. Even if I got 100, I still wasn’t even learning the material I needed to even apply to university. My SPACE English teacher, Nitzan, spoke with my English teacher at school, and asked what needed to happen so I could move up a level so I could apply to university. Then, she worked with me non-stop. She refused to let me give up. She would explain something 10 times, until I actually understood. It was so important to her that I truly learn. For her, I worked hard and tried my best to be my best.  And we did it. I moved up a track, and passed my exams. And when I get back from this trip, I’ll apply to university, and I know I’ll get in.

You may know, after graduating high school, we Israelis do army or national service. For the last two years I served in National Service as a medical secretary at Soroka Hospital in Beersheva. SPACE helped me get the good grades I needed to get that really good placement.

Today, I dream of being a registered nurse. I love nursing because I want to spend time with my patients and help them heal.

So that’s just a little bit of my story. There are a lot of kids like me. Every single one of us, sometimes, needs just a little helping hand to be able to do our best. SPACE gave that to me.

And just like I want to heal people and make a difference, I also want to make sure other kids have a chance to fulfill their dreams, to be their best. Because if it were not for SPACE, sure, I would have graduated, but there is no way that I could go to university, and no way I’d have the courage to believe in myself, know what I want and stop at nothing to get it.

My grandmother saved my mother. My father gave me a second chance. Now my future is in my own hands. And with my future I want to be able to save others and give them a chance. I hope every kid like me has an opportunity to be in SPACE, because I know how much it changed my life. That’s the difference I want to make today. I hope you’ll join me, and I hope every one of you has a chance to fulfill your dreams and help someone, too.

Thank you.