One Day In May (1991)

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Click on the cartoon below to open a larger, more readable version of this full page Dry Bones Special:

1991 Dry Bones cartoon - the Miracle of the Ethiopian Aliyah

Click on cartoon for larger version

This is the 18th Anniversary of May 24 1991, when all of Israel was swept up in the witnessing of the miracle of the return of the Ethiopians to this, their ancestral homeland. Long prophesied in their and our holy books and traditions, the entire country was looking a Biblical miracle in the face. The cartoon page addressed the embarrassing question of how a secular nation can interpret a miracle.

As I often did, back in those days, I used a Doobie cartoon at the bottom of the page to deliver a wry observation so as to cut the overly saccharine sentiments of the cartoon above.

Labels: 1991, Aliya, Bible, Ethiopia, Ethiopian Jewry, Miracles, Olim, Tourism

6 Comments:

At 8:11 AM, Jonathan B. Horen said...: Wow, great 'toon! The Doobie below it would also have been appropriate (in a traditionally "black" type of Israeli humor -- there's another kind?) for a strip on the Gaza "evacuees".

Hey! חג שבועות שמח
At 8:56 AM, Anonymous said...: I love it. Give it to us Jews to rationalize everything other than what it was and still is...a miracle. Oy G-d loves us in spite of ourselfs.
Doobies comment is right on...Olim especially Ethiopian, English speaking, etc(except the Russians) get nothing but a hard time. The Ethiopians and others need to imitate the Russians...get government jobs and play favorites with their own. The Russians have an excellent mafia system...we need our own.
At 11:08 AM, Shimshon said...: Bones,

You didn't mention that Israel was even more swept up by, and terrified about, the even bigger miracle of the massive immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union, which was then at its peak. And that was the reason there were no "beds, meals or rooms" available for the Ethiopian olim as Doobie implied.

Unlike what Anonymous said above, the Russian olim DID have a hard time when they got here. But what they (and the Ethiopian olim) did was to accept the system and to learn Hebrew. Lo and behold, shortly thereafter they were a part of the system.

Many English-speaking olim do the opposite -- they reject the system, expect preferential treatment, and want to be given a job in English. Lo and behold, they are forever stuck outside the system and sit around complaining about it.

Israel is a country desperate for people who can speak multiple languages, especially Hebrew and English; for those English-speakers who have yet to bother learning the national language of Israel, I suggest you give it a try and check out the results.
At 7:06 PM, Anonymous said...: Hey U that posted#3!
I do know that it hard for you to believe but their is a very large group of Gentiles that Do Care and Love the Jewish People!
Bones! U bet! Them Bones (Dry Bones) on the wings of eagles is just one more prophecy of old that proves that the word is that of GOD.
No one killed Christ for He gave up His Spirit. O oh! Remember not all those that called themselves Christians actually were. The "one who flits" loves division until he sits in the temple and proclaims himself god. Jacob knows God!
At 2:33 AM, Carlos said...: The Doobie comment, so true but yet so sad.
At 10:03 PM, Anonymous said...: Hi Mr. Bones,

It was great to have met you in person on the beach, and I hope things work out between you and my dear friend Charles. You are as interesting in person as your cartoons are intelligent and humourous (sorry for all the U's - I'm a Canuck).

My kids loved the cartoon: it was nice of you to have taken the time to draw it. What a real mensch!

Keep up the great (and IMHO, important) "work."

Yours,

Chaim