The seething anger of the Falash Mura immigrants at the absorption centers at Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar boiled over last Thursday, with a demonstration by dozens of members of the community at the kibbutz entrance, in which they called upon the centers' directors to resign. "We're living like animals," said one of the Hebrew signs they held up. Others read: "No money," "No food," "No counselors."

Ever since, the pastoral calm that once surrounded the center has evaporated. The adults have stopped coming to ulpan classes. The children are being kept home from school some of the time. The olim gather in little groups in the yard and the tension in the air is palpable. An attempt by staff members to talk with the protest organizers went nowhere. "We'll fight until we die," says Pikadu Almanir, one of the young people leading the struggle. "Everyone here, the directors of the ulpan and the staff, the people on the kibbutz - they treat us like garbage. They've got old and sick and hungry people here. And they do as they like because we don't know how to speak the language."

Observing the struggle from the outside are the people of Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar, whose community took in the immigrant families from Ethiopia. This week, kibbutz members expressed satisfaction at the work done by the police on the morning of the demonstration, saying they did a fine job of directing traffic. On that chilly and gray morning, most didn't bother to stop their cars and ask what all the fuss was about. "It didn't interest me," the kibbutz secretary, Gal Sa'ar, said this week. "Not at all. The police informed us the day before that there was going to be a demonstration. I didn't really inquire why. It didn't disturb the traffic. The police made sure that the traffic kept flowing."

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A light rain falls on the dozens of Falash Mura who are waiting in the parking lot of the absorption center. Five hundred olim live here, in two absorption centers (Ayelet Hashahar, which is run by Yigal Ziskind of the Jewish Agency, and Hagalil, run by Dorit Heiman), in row upon row of old studio apartments. For kibbutz members, the olim are a business matter. Period. "Like the cows in the cowshed," Sa'ar explains by way of comparison. The kibbutz receives a monthly rental fee of NIS 2,500 per room from the Jewish Agency. There are 200 rooms. "It's a stable business," says Sa'ar. Anyone looking for a trace of ideology or Zionism here will find instead a bleak and complex reality.

Mandabru Alazeh, a leader of the protest, wraps himself in a traditional Ethiopian white scarf as protection from the wind. "No one wants to listen to us," he says. "We want someone from the Jewish Agency to come here and sit down and talk with us. But no one comes. No one cares. We've spoken to our counselors but they don't relay our requests. When we demonstrated on Thursday, lots of journalists from the television channels came. We thought that they'd show people our distress. But they didn't show anything on television. No one knows."

The guard stationed at the place comes over to Mandabru and asks him to have this conversation outside the absorption center. Within seconds, the atmosphere heats up. Dozens of the olim raise their voices, protesting in Amharic that they refuse to leave. "The directors don't want you to see or hear this," says Mandabru, acting as the spokesman for the group thanks to his command of Hebrew. "But we'll stay and talk here." He points to two benches beneath a tree.

He came to Israel a year and ten months ago from Addis Ababa. A young man who wears a large skullcap, he is married and the father of an 18-month-old boy. He, his wife and their young son, and Mandabru's 14-year-old brother all live in one room. There's a double bed below the window, with a crib next to it, and the teenage boy sleeps in a Jewish Agency-issue bed placed against the opposite wall. The other wall holds a sink and a cabinet, a stovetop for cooking, alongside a stand with a television, an electric kettle and a few dishes. The little remaining space in the center of the room holds a small table and a couple of stools. "This is how we live," says Mandabru.

Empty refrigerators

For the next two hours, he gives me a tour of the rooms in the absorption center. Each one is home to an entire family. Signs of neglect are everywhere. The paint is peeling, the carpets are worn and stained - remnants of better days when these rooms were part of a guest house for tourists. The kitchens - a sink and burners atop a flimsy cabinet - are supposed to serve all the cooking needs of families of four, five or six. The overcrowding is severe and the refrigerators are practically empty. A container of hummus here, a few slices of bread there, a bottle of orange juice. The main food is injera, Ethiopian bread, which is baked from a special type of flour called teff. In each room there is a sack of flour. No fruit, no vegetables, no dairy products.

"We want a new administration, for the two directors, Dorit [Heiman] and Yigal [Ziskind], to be replaced," explains Mandabru. "And the counselors, too. The counselors, whose job is to translate for us. No one translates for us. They treat us with contempt. And we can't talk with the administration. Requests that are made to them are ignored. Everyone here has a problem and it doesn't interest them. People go to the hospital without translators. Sometimes people are hospitalized and no one from the center comes to visit them. They don't care. Look how we live. There's no money for food. I get NIS 1,800 from the National Insurance Institute, and after I pay for rent, electricity and water, I have just NIS 1,000 left to live on for the whole month. It's not enough. And everyone has the same problem."

The olim - especially the more veteran among them who no longer receive "absorption basket" benefits (which are provided for just one year), and get only a small monthly income allowance from the NII, with the amount dependent on the size of the family and generally ranging between NIS 600-800 per family - say they are left with just a few hundred shekels to get by on.

"A 25-kilo sack of flour costs NIS 340," explains Mandabru. "That's enough for 10 days, but we try to stretch it out to two weeks by eating just a little. We'd like to eat Israeli food, but we don't have the money for it."

Like many of his friends here, his days are idle. He completed his 10 months of Hebrew ulpan classes many months ago. "We just sit here all day warming up in the sun," he says.

Why don't you go out to work?

Mandabru laughs. "Work where? Who would hire me? Work in what?"

The center's administrators have their offices in a few cement-block buildings nearby. A meeting between the two sides that was held a few days before the demonstration was broken up by the group of young people leading the protest, a group the administration refers to as "the agitators." Since then, there has been no contact between the parties. Yigal Ziskind, an educator and the center's director, is deeply hurt and disappointed. "Emotionally, we took it very hard," he says. "The staff here invest a lot of time and attention and emotion in the olim. I'm talking about people who come in on weekends and holidays. During the war, we lived here with them. And now it's like they're spitting in our faces. To come and say that there's hunger here? I'd like to see one person who's going hungry."

Ziskind and his staff say that agitation on the part of the young people began about two months ago following the suspension of one of the center's religion teachers. The teacher was suspended for 30 days, in a joint decision with the Education Ministry, for inappropriate behavior. Ziskind believes that the teacher is behind the young people's revolt. The Jewish Agency says that what's happening is due to "manipulation," and due to the activity of Avraham Nagusa, a Falash Mura community leader and the chairman of an organization that works to bring the Falash Mura to Israel. On Sunday, Nagusa organized a demonstration in front of the Interior Ministry, which he says is delaying the immigration of the olims' relatives. The Jewish Agency says Nagusa is working "to stir up the young people in the absorption centers." [The Falash Mura are descendants of Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity who are now returning to the practice of Judaism - eds.]

Mandabru and his people aren't very concerned with how it all began. And they say there is no connection between the teacher's suspension and their plight. They say the situation speaks for itself. "Just look and see," says Pikadu Almanir.

Like Ziskind, Bruria Avraham, who has been the housemother here for six years, doesn't understand where all this anger is coming from. "They come here to a very well-organized home," she says, rejecting the complaints about the crowded rooms. "They get a refrigerator, a bed and mattress for each person, with three sheets and three blankets and pillows. Also, a radiator and a gas stove or burners. Dishes, silverware, pots. They get an apartment. I buy them all the food for the first days, which is meat and flour and rice and popcorn and all the vegetables that they like, which are cabbage and hot peppers and garlic and onions. And also all the cleaning products. And right away they receive instruction on how to use everything."

"For six years we've been considered one of the leading absorption centers in the country," adds Ziskind. "And not just because of the treatment of the olim or because of the staff, but because of the place. This is a very tranquil, green and pleasant place. The buildings are nice. For six years they were very happy here."

Two rooms are a luxury

Netara Lakau, 50, and his wife Baladash, don't think that the place they live in is so nice. The couple, who have been in Israel for 15 months, have four children, ages 2, 10, 12 and 17. The eldest lives at a boarding school. Netara displays the NII stub that shows his income to be NIS 1,500. After paying for rent, water and electricity, he has less than NIS 1,000 left to live on. He gives me a tour of what the administration describes as "two apartments that were connected." This amounts to two rooms with a bathroom and shower.

The poverty is quite evident. Netara opens the fridge. The shelves are empty. He is holding his young son who stayed home today due to illness. "What do you give the child to eat?" I ask the mother. Baladash shrugs and points to a jar of chocolate spread that she keeps on top of the refrigerator. "The kids come home after school and want to eat," she says. "There's no money to buy with, no food to give them." The bedroom contains a bunk bed, a double bed and a crib. There is barely room to move. Netara shows me his clenched hand, which he cannot open due to an old injury he suffered back in Addis Ababa. "I need medical aid but no one helps. I was told to go to a doctor. I need a translator. Because of my condition, I can't work either. The people from the ulpan are waiting for us to buy an apartment and get out of here. Where will the money come from? I don't have money to buy food for the children. They want us to save? Save how? The staff are distant. They don't tell us good morning, or ask how we're feeling, or how the kids are doing. Now we're demanding that people from the Jewish Agency come here and talk to us."

Despite their poor state, the two rooms inhabited by Netara and his family are considered a luxury among the olim. Down the hall is the apartment of the Adala family, who have been in Israel for a year and a half. Almiyut is 34 and his wife is 26. They have three children, including a baby, and all live in a single room. The room contains four beds and the same sort of kitchen we've seen in the other rooms. Shoes are piled up in the bathroom ventilation space. There's no place else for them. Adala takes a few slices of bread from the refrigerator. That's all there is. "We're glad that the children go to kindergarten and to school," he says. "There they get more food than they get at home."

Adala also complains of an impossible financial situation. He says that after paying rent, all he has left are a few hundred shekels. A few months ago, his wife gave birth. He says they received no assistance from the center. "No one explained anything to us or helped us with anything. They just didn't care."

His daily routine is monotonous. After the children leave for school, Adala, who completed his ulpan classes a few months ago, goes to the synagogue, where he meets other people from the community. "At noon I go home and eat injera, and at four I go back to the synagogue. When the kids come home they eat injera. And in the evening we eat injera, too. Sometimes with a little sauce. I'm always hearing people say - What do we want ? What we've got here is more than what we had there. It's not true to say that."

Tarik Chakul pulls me to her room. She is 22 and the single mother of a 4-year-old girl. She locks the door behind her. She has been here for five years. Three years ago, her family left the center, and she remained in the room with her baby. In the words of the administration, Chakul is "a squatter."

"I want them to help me," she murmurs. "Look," she says. "This is a room without electricity. Only the light works." She pulls an old radiator out from the corner of the room. "If I plug this in the whole room shorts out." She demonstrates. She goes over to the refrigerator. "See for yourself," she urges. "It doesn't work. It just sits here. Nothing here in this room works. In the morning my daughter wants a hot drink and I can't boil water. I've asked them to fix the electricity, but no one has come to fix it." She bends down to the carpet and lifts up torn pieces, revealing heaps of sand and dust underneath. Above the dresser is a small photograph of a little girl lighting a menorah. The picture was taken at the girl's nursery school during the recent holiday. "When I want to heat up food for her, I go to the neighbors." The desperation in her voice is unmistakable. "I want a home. My parents live in Haifa in a small apartment with a lot of other relatives. I can't move there with my daughter. I want to work. But I can't. No one helps me. I'm asking for help. Can you help me?"

'Tarik Chakul is a squatter'

Ziskind and Avraham can't believe that this young woman has the nerve to complain. "Tarik Chakul is a squatter," says Ziskind. "She took over the apartment and because we don't want to cause a scene we've turned a blind eye. She's a classic example of an olah who arrived in Israel five years ago, came to the end of her eligibility after a year and a half, and because of the sensitivity to the press and the media, we've allowed her to be here. She shouldn't be here. She already used up all her rights here. She's here at the taxpayer's expense."

Avraham: "Why doesn't she go to work? Her daughter is in nursery school from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon. She's 22. She's young and healthy. Why doesn't she look for work? She ought to go to work. Why don't they go to work? I'll tell you - It's because they're not consistent. They don't get up on time. They don't want to work. Then they cry that there's no work. That's just not possible. If they go to the employment office, they'll get work. They work for a few days until the employer gives up on them."

Avraham, the housemother, opens some closets in her office. "See how many sweaters are in here," she urges me to take a look. "Whenever a child comes here his mother leaves here with several sweaters, to keep them warm. And look," she starts pulling food products out of the closet, "here are the lentils that they like. Sugar, cookies, flour. Was there ever a time when someone said they didn't have something and we didn't give it to him?"

Ziskind: "The money they receive, from the absorption basket and afterward from the NII allowance, is supposed to be enough for them to support themselves. To pay for rent, electricity, water, food and clothing. I'm telling you unequivocally - there is no problem of hunger here. No one is starving here. And if someone needs something, there's a warehouse from which we give food, and if someone hasn't received their money yet for some reason, we'll pay for it and give him the food right then so that he can get along."

"They receive the absorption basket budget and we try to teach to use the money wisely," explains Avraham. "But what happens is that they send all the money to their hungry families back in Ethiopia and so they don't have money left for themselves. We give them guidance on how to divide up the budget properly. But it often happens that they've sent too much to the family in Ethiopia and then, that month, we organize donations. Just look what I have in my office - sugar, oil and flour. They save the money. Often, women come to me shouting: 'My husband doesn't give me money, I have no money to buy with, he only gives me a little.' I'll say: 'How much is a little?' and then they open their purse and we start to count the bills - and there's a hundred, or two hundred or three hundred, sometimes even a thousand. And that's not enough for bread and milk for two small children?

"I'm sure that when you opened the refrigerators they may have been empty, but there were also bottles of beer and arak. If there's money for beer and arak, then there's money for milk and bread. It's a question of priorities. That's the point."

At the end of 2000, after many discussions on the kibbutz, a decision was made to close the failing guest house near the kibbutz entrance. A few months later, the rooms were rented to the Jewish Agency. The income from the rental of the rooms accounts for between 15-20 percent of the kibbutz's income. People on the kibbutz say the arrangement was a "last resort."

Chill wind

The olim are very conscious of the chill wind blowing toward them from the kibbutz. "On the kibbutz they don't like us," says Mandabru. "They think we're animals. Whenever anything gets broken, they blame us. Anything that's stolen, they blame us. We aren't even allowed to go in the swimming pool. I've never been in their dining hall."

The most recent crisis revolved around the kibbutz's computerized switchboard that operates the smoke detectors in the rooms of the olim. A month ago, unknown persons broke the switchboard. The kibbutz members demanded NIS 3,000 to repair the damage. At a meeting of all the olim, the center directors asked to know who was responsible for the damage. The olim refused to cooperate. The administration did not relent and decided to divide the payment among the olim. This incident poured more fuel on an already raging fire.

"It won't help them to just let it go," Ziskind explains. "They have to understand that you don't vandalize. That you can't go around breaking things and expect someone else to pay. And the whole earth shook over the NIS 6 that I decided to collect from each person in a family. The elders of the community came to talk to me and said, 'Why are you taking so much money?' And I will collect that money."

"It's impossible to form connections with them," says Carmela Brantz, a member of the Friends of the Absorption Center and the person responsible for fostering a relationship between the kibbutz population and the olim. "The thing that really makes it hard for us is the difference in culture. It's the dirtiness, if you'll pardon me for saying so. It's the scrounging in the garbage cans. They go through our garbage, looking for food and clothes."

What do you mean by 'dirtiness'?

"They come out of the grocery store, buy something and toss the garbage on the ground. So in the absorption center they try to educate them, but then those people leave and a new group comes. They come into the yards and take things. Let's not say steal. They take. They're dazzled by things we have. In the first years, it was terrible. Not a single bicycle on the kibbutz was left intact. It definitely makes it hard to accept them. But we all know that it has an important value. An economic value for the kibbutz."

Do you know what they're demonstrating about?

"No. Does it have to do with the kibbutz? Is it against us? I'm an idealist and think that we should do everything to give them the best possible feeling here. Now I also work with the children, for Yigal. I teach a little. The kibbutz has to live somehow. I think that the kibbutz could have done a little more in terms of helping their absorption. There are all kinds of little things - like extending hospitality, an invitation, but I don't want to be critical."

Aren't you the one who is supposed to be in charge of joint activities?

"Yes, and we did start a program together with the group of youths, but right then the war broke out and since the war we've all been occupied with other things. Including me, and I wanted to really work on this connection. We're still pulling ourselves together."

By the way, why can't they come in the swimming pool?

"It's not the kibbutz that decided, it's the Jewish Agency. The Jewish Agency cannot take responsibility for them because they don't know how to swim. What would happen if someone drowned? Who would get blamed?"

"In the beginning, it was awful," says Avraham, the housemother. "They would go into yards and wreck things, because that's what they were used to. They go into yards and pick fruit. Some kibbutzniks would pick all the fruit before it was ripe just to stop the olim from coming and wrecking their garden. They trespassed. We have talks with them about not stealing and so on."

"We're learning to live with it," says Gal Sa'ar, the kibbutz secretary. "It's not easy for us. It's been five years now. For the kibbutz members, there are difficult things, points of friction. All of a sudden they have to lock up everything so it doesn't get taken away. These are things that we on the kibbutz are not accustomed to. Then there's the littering. They'll just buy a popsicle and throw the wrapper on the ground. What can I tell you?"

Have you tried talking to them? Tried to invite them over, to bridge the gap?

"In the beginning, when they first came, we tried to form a connection, we invited them over for some holiday, but they put a stop to that pretty quickly, because they're into becoming religious and they see us as a secular society. Our holiday celebration isn't good enough for them. Our synagogue isn't suitable for them. So it took us exactly six months to understand that they'll live their lives and we'll live ours. That's the situation."

Mandabru concludes the tour with the rooms where the elderly live. Here we find Amara Almiyahu who had surgery a few months ago and is lying under blankets. His wife says that no one from the center has ever come to visit or inquire as to how he's doing. We meet Gadeef Chakul, who is blind and lives in terrible filth, and Falak Asarsa, who lies under a blanket, shivering from the cold in her dreary room. Mandabru says she has been here for two years.

Avraham opens her datebook. "Look at this - I deal with all of their health problems. You can see the name of the escort and the people he accompanies to the doctor. They receive an escort in the first months since they don't know the language. And we also use our judgment when there are people who have been here a year or two or three, and are older and have no one to help them get to the hospital, so we still provide an escort. They say we leave them alone at the hospital? That's totally untrue and unfair. What kind of surgeries haven't we provided? Eyes, teeth, you name it. You know that there's a limit, too. There are people who have been here three years and don't know a word of Hebrew."

On Monday of this week Ziskind called a meeting between him and the olim in an attempt to "bring the saga to a close." "I told them - we're your best friends. What are you doing? I'm not going to say that things aren't hard for you, but you're hurting the best friends you have."

"People left in the middle," says Mandabru. "At that meeting, Yigal was mad, he didn't understand why people were protesting. He didn't offer us any solution."

On Tuesday morning, Mandabru and his cohorts went to the local police station to obtain a permit to continue demonstrating. "The next demonstration will be in Nazareth, in front of the Jewish Agency offices," he says. "Nothing is over yet." W