Civil war in their homeland prompted many Ethiopian Jews to seek refuge in Israel, and rescue programs, including Operation Moses in the mid-1980s and Operation Solomon in the early 1990s, helped grow the Ethiopian-Israeli population to 150,000 people. While younger Ethiopian-Israelis are taking advantage of the opportunities available in modern Israeli society, many of the community’s older members lack formal education and have difficulty communicating in Hebrew.

The Ethiopian-Israeli elders originally worked in agriculture, as did their forefathers. When they came to Israel, their physical connection to the land was broken, but many longed to renew it. In 2016 Prof. Alon Samach, of the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, created a unique, mutually beneficial encounter between experienced Ethiopian-Israeli farmers and future agronomists. He was allocated a plot at the Faculty’s Joseph Marguleas Experimental Farm and recruited eight Ethiopian-Israeli retirees. Each retiree was allocated a 25-meter strip where they grow crops.

Today approximately 40 farmers regularly work the land and participate in a weekly workshop where they share their knowledge with, and get help from, first-year Israeli undergraduates and international master’s students studying with the Smith Faculty of Agriculture.