Maj. Yaros Shigot wrote an emotional letter especially for Yedioth readers, sharing her unique experience as an IDF soldier who returned to Ethiopia for the first time since immigrating to Israel in 1991 to spend the Seder in her old village; 'The power of faith and hope, in spite of everything they go through, astonished me and very much strengthened me
This is the story of a most exciting and unique Passover Seder for Ethiopian-born Maj. Yaros (Yerushalem) Shigot, who returned to Ethiopia this week for the first time since immigrating to Israel.
The following moving letter, which was written to Yedioth Ahronoth by Shigot, who serves in the IDF’s Education Corps, contains the recordings of her journey, in which she shares her family history of their arduous journey to Israel, and explains why she shed tears while reading the Haggadah with the Jewish community in Addis Ababa.
Shigot also explains why the sight of her birthplace, combined with her love for Israel and family history, at once overwhelmed her with sadness but filled her heart with pride and longing.
“I decided! For the first time in my life I would take advantage of Passover and go toward freedom. I am on my way to my birth country—Ethiopia—to find an answer to difficulties that I often raised to my family. While in Israel they are having a Seder and telling the story about the departure from Egypt, I will be telling the story of the departure of Beta Israel ("House of Israel"—a group of descendants of Jewish nomads who travelled first to Egypt, then on to Ethiopia) and I will feel for myself in my legs the journey that my family underwent. Yes, I intend to spend the Seder night this year in Ethiopia with Jews who are waiting to make aliyah to Israel.

“I was born in Ethiopia, I made aliyah (immigrated) to Israel at age 4. My memories of the place are blurred. I am being photographed at a muddy house in some place in a village in the south of Gondar. My mother was carrying me on her back and getting the home ready for Passover with the women of the village. My memories of the village are isolated but those which are etched into my consciousness escort me at every moment, like the ambiguous memory of mine and of my father’s where we are sitting on the banks of a river near the village or the memory of the frightening night during which people from the adjacent village came to us to harm Jews.

"I know the tears will stream down my face the moment that I land because everything I will feel will be a sensation of missing out—a huge missing out—that my father, may his memory be blessed, never managed to do his own personal exit from Egypt and come with us to Israel.
“I learned more from my mother than everyone. Without any diploma or training whatsoever but with the wisdom of life which she acquired, she succeeded in teaching me every day a new lesson about empowerment and faith. She moved to Israel with six children all on her own and the difficulties of absorption which she carries with her every day.

“In one of our conversations I asked her: ‘Mom, isn't it hard for you in this country?’

“She responded, ‘The yearning to come here was hard and agonizing, so everything is dwarfed.’

“My mother went through a life that was not easy and still she repeatedly says that for Israel she would do it all again. My grandma died a few months after my mother was born. Until she married at a very young age, my mother grew up with close family relatives. After she got married, she went to live with my father and together they brought ten children into the world. I was the youngest.

"My parents decided to pack up their small home in the village and head to the Land of Israel, but the physical and emotional difficulties, particularly of my father’s, stopped them and they returned to the village. My father got sick and my mother was compelled to look after him, the children and the house earnings together with my brother. Further up the road, my family and parents lost three children.

“But the dream of Jerusalem never faded. My brother, despite the slim chances, decided to make his way to Israel with other youths from the village and to ignore the rumors of the deaths of many who had embarked on the voyage and didn’t manage to survive the hunger and sickness.

"All this time we didn’t know what became of my brother and only when we got to Israel in 1991 did we have the privilege of meeting him. We realized that he was one of the few from the village who managed the journey. This emotional meeting was mixed with sadness because only then did my brother learn that our father had died earlier and did not manage to immigrate to Israel with us.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4948405,00.html