Beta Israel Mother-Daughter-Grandmother Narratives

• In Event: Israeli Domesticity & the Fissures of National Belonging

Abstract

BETA ISRAEL MOTHER-DAUGHTER-GRANDDAUGHTER NARRATIVES



This paper examines the experiences of members of the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews) through an analysis of oral narratives of several Beta Israel women living in Israel. It revisits a project I began in 1997. In this project I conducted a series of oral interviews of Ethiopian-Jewish mothers and daughters living in Israel. A second phase of analysis involved the sorting and processing of these narratives toward a literary study of mothers' survival stories and daughters' shared memories of collective emigration.
This follow-up study seeks to record the experiences of several (3-4) of the mothers and daughters, eighteen years after the project began. This will be the third set of interviews with members of this cohort (in 2007, I recorded interviews regarding the experience of becoming grandmothers).
In summer of 2015, I plan to meet again with several of the participants in the original study. I anticipate rich dialogue regarding the maturation of several of the women from daughters to mothers. The larger analytical goal is to further deepen and enrich our understanding of the process of immigration from Ethiopia and adaptation to life in Israel. Such research should generate new insights into the Israeli immigrant experience and the specific question of how Beta Israel/Israeli women construct their identity.

Author

• Ruby K. Newman, York University