Israeli comic finds humor in hardships

From the Spartan Daily.

Israeli comedian and actor Yossi Vassa humored a crowd of around 200 students and community members Monday afternoon with a show about his 440-mile trek out of Ethiopia.

The show, "It Sounds Better in Amharic," has played to sold-out audiences during a Bay Area tour, according to Yarden Schneider, cultural director for the Israel Center of San Francisco, who organized the event.

The actor used jokes and comedy to compare Western Israeli culture to life in his Ethiopian village, comparing mathematics, rituals such as courtship and Jewish practices.

"The differences between Israel and Ethiopia can be confusing," Vassa said in his show. "It's not easy to flirt with a girl in the village."

Vassa said that in Israel, the first step during courtship is asking for a girl's phone number, followed by dating, marriage and divorce.

"They tell me it's no big deal," he said. "Try to do all that with no telephone."

Naama Shani, an Israeli student at San Jose State University, said she hasn't met many Ethiopian-Israelis.

"I really like the concept of bringing Ethiopians to Israel," Shani said.

The show turned to a more somber note as Vassa told the story of his emigration from Ethiopia to army staging camps in Sudan, which he wished could have been an eight-hour trip in a Ferrari. Instead he and his fellow emigrants had donkeys.

"During the day we had to hide from robbers and soldiers," Vassa said. "At night we walked quickly."

After three months of traveling by foot, Vassa said his family and others arrived at the Sudanese border where they were transported in a crowded truck to an army camp.

"Someone asked, 'what do we do now?' Wait," Vassa said.

After nine months and many deaths, including those of his grandmother and two of his brothers, the camp was "a city inside the desert that was one big graveyard," Vassa said.

Once in Israel, Vassa said he had other difficulties such as being a new immigrant, not having an Israeli name and struggling with school.

"I'm not going to call myself Anda Argi-it'll totally give away that I'm Ethiopian," Vassa said. He adopted the name Yossi because it was the name of the man who was in charge of assigning Hebrew names and who failed to give Vassa one.

In math class, the only thing that helped Vassa was envisioning sheep-five lines of three sheep each. When he got to fractions, "there were some hurt sheep."

"I'm torn between two cultures, between Ferraris and donkeys, between sheep and mathematics," Vassa said at the end of the hour-long show.

Abel Habtegeorgis, the African-American diversity advocate at Mosaic Cross-cultural Center, said he hoped the show would bring greater awareness between the Jewish and Ethiopian communities.

"He was able to take such a tragic story and make it into an inspirational comedy," Habtegeorgis said.

In a discussion after the show, Vassa said that even 20 years after his journey, it is still not easy for new Ethiopian immigrants in Israel.

Vassa said there's hope for blacks and whites to live together because "everybody feels Jewish."

Vassa immigrated to Israel in 1985 when he was 10 years old as part of an Israeli secret operation to evacuate Jews out of Ethiopia. The Israeli Defense Forces airlifted much of the Ethiopian Jewish population, known as "Beta Israel," out of camps in Sudan until Arab countries put pressure on Sudan to stop the emigration. Another effort in 1990 transported additional Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Three military operations evacuated an estimated 90,000 Jews out of Ethiopia and Sudan.

Vassa's performance was sponsored by the Jewish Student Union, the Ethiopian student group, Hashbesha, the history department, Mosaic Cross Cultural Center, the Israel Center of San Francisco, and Hillel International.