The Human Spirit: Know where you’ve come from  

By Barbara Sofer

Ayano, 32, was left behind with his grandmother when his mother crossed the treacherous Sudan desert on their aliya journey, and didn’t arrive until 1991, when was 10.

“Know from where you’ve come, and you’ll know where you going. That about sums it up,” said Mutti Ayano, who is just back from a visit to Ethiopia, where he was born.

We’re sitting in the library with his fellow travelers, 11th- and 12th-grade students from the residential Youth Aliya village of Meir Shfeya, near Zichron Ya’acov.

Most of the students at the table, like him, are of Ethiopian Jewish origin. There are a handful of non-Ethiopian students who joined the group. Ayano is their madrich (counselor), and he’s the only one who really remembers life in the Ethiopian village of his childhood.