The Hullegeb Festival: Breaking out in song

It never fails to surprise when some community or other, of a particular cultural-ethnic hue, struggles to find its place in the fabric of Israeli society. After all, isn’t this country the quintessential melting pot? Isn’t almost every Israeli a mongrel cocktail of roots? 

Other than the “samech-tettim” – an acronym for sefaradi tahor (pure Sephardic) which indicates a personal timeline that takes in expulsion from Spain in the wake of the Inquisition and, hence, their centuries-long residence in this part of the world – we are all from somewhere else, probably within the last two or three generations. So, why is it proving so tough for Israelis from an Ethiopian backdrop to become fully integrated into society here?

That testing conundrum has been high on the agenda of Confederation House and its CEO-artistic director Effie Benaya, at least for the past 11 years. The 12th edition of the Hullegeb Festival is close on the horizon. Due to take place at various venues around Jerusalem December 22-29, the event offers another opportunity to get a handle on what artistic members of the Ethiopian community have to offer us, across a range of disciplines.

If Ayala Ingedashet is anything to go by, acceptance by Israelis at large is not far off. The 43-year-old singer, who has a guest slot with the Ground Heights Ethiopian groove-based band, at Confederation House on December 27 (8:30 p.m.), has been strutting her stuff up and down the country for the past decade and half, and taking in musical theater exploits.

To date she has released just one album, with a second in the works, although that relatively meager output should be tempered by the fact that she is a mother of three, and has done her fair share of live appearances over the years. There have also been a number of singles and video clips put out there.

Born in Ethiopia, Ingedashet remembers nothing of her country of birth from her very earliest years, at least consciously, as she made aliyah with her family at the age of only two. However, many years after coming here she got the chance to reconnect with the spirit and energies over there, and enhance her cultural baggage with some contemporary and traditional sounds, colors and vibes.

That comes over palpably in a song she put out a couple of years ago called “Bashechunah Mimul” (In the Neighborhood across the Road). The video clip shows Ingedashet traveling around Ethiopia, and enjoying every single minute of it. “‘Bashechunah Mimul’ was made when I went back to Ethiopia for the first time, for three days,” she explains. It was a robust and emotive experience for her. 

“Those three days felt like two years, in terms of what we managed to get done and the power and the experiences I had there.” It was, she says, a true homecoming. “I felt like I belonged there. Before I went I was worried that I wouldn’t feel a connection to the place and the people, but the connection was immediate.”

Therein lies much of the crux of her life in these here parts, and what she endeavors to impart in her professional work too. She crossed a formative learning curve during her brief sojourn in Ethiopia, nearly four decades after leaving. “Connecting with people who are different from you – I went back to Ethiopia as a very modern person – suddenly this simple place, the simplicity and the otherness, the difference came across in the way people looked at me.” A switch clearly needed to be flipped. “I had to change the way I looked at the people and the things around me. I adapted myself to them. I wanted them to feel comfortable with me. It was all down to the way I looked at them, and was sensitive to everything around me.” It was a two-way street, particularly from the younger and nonjudgmental crowd. “I got so much back from the people there, especially from the children.”

One really caught Ingedashet’s eye, and heart. “In the clip you can see a little girl in a green dress. That was the strongest connection I had for a long, long time. The girl just appeared there from somewhere, and just stood there in her green dress.” That moment was a true epiphanous juncture in the singer’s life, and a powerfully emotive one too.

“I looked at her, and she looked at me. We couldn’t take our eyes off each other. Suddenly I burst out crying, like I’d never cried before in my whole life. I cried from pain, sadness and excitement.” It was as if Ingedashet had slipped through a time warp. “I felt that that girl was me, in a different time. I saw all my childhood and youth, and all the years of my life until that moment, it was all there in that moment.”

As warm-ups go there can’t be many more effective than that lachrymose lacuna. “I don’t know what the little girl thought but she just kept on looking at me,” Ingedashet recalls. “I went up to her and hugged her. And then we went straight into the clip. I had a sense of closure.”

CONSIDERING HER start in life, it is difficult to see how she could achieve any sort of standing in the mainstream Israeli entertainment sector. She and her four sisters grew up, in a religious single-parent family, in Ashdod. As a teenager she began showing signs of musical talent and she joined a local choir at the age of 14. The choir director was impressed with her vocal abilities, and he later suggested Ingedashet try out for an IDF band. It was a giant leap into the unknown, “I had no idea even what an IDF band was,” she laughs.

Ingedashet also received a helping hand from someone much closer to home. “My mother went with me every step of the way. She was amazing. She saw that I could express myself through music. She was the first person who really believed in me”

And so the shy youngster from Ashdod stepped out into the glare of the pluralist world of the IDF. She never looked back, in more senses than one. “I went through all the auditions and I was gradually drawn into a completely different society. I left the religious way of life. I wore pants, for the first time in my life, when I did my basic training. I was really scared of going home wearing army pants. But my mother was so happy for me.”

Ingedashet was duly accepted for an IDF band, the first from the community to achieve that. “That was special for me. I became familiar with a new world, a free world. I was so curious and I met all these people who were so different from me, who attended art schools and that sort of thing. That was very alien to me.” Years later, in 2009, she sang the national anthem at the Maccabiah Games.

She took to the troupe and her new way of life like the proverbial duck to water. “I really enjoyed my army service,” she laughs. “I learned as I went along.” She did more than alright. “I discovered that the others were also interested in me. Instead of being the different one, I became they special one. People really noticed me and appreciated me.”

She also got into pop, rock and jazz. “We didn’t listen to modern music at all at home. I suddenly heard all these different styles, and singers like Whitney Houston – she was a real inspiration for me – Mariah Carey and [late jazz diva] Billie Holiday. I really grew and developed.”

By now it had become clear that Ingedashet was blessed with an innate ability to float to the top of any deep end she was thrust into. Shortly after completing her army service she was introduced to the world of theater when veteran rock musician and educator Yehuda Eder asked her to audition for the Little Tel Aviv musical. “I told him I didn’t act but I’d come to try out.”

The autodidact in her, once again, came to the fore and she was duly accepted for the proffered role. “I couldn’t believe it,” she exclaims. “There I was in the national theater company surrounded by all these seasoned professionals. Like in the army band, I just learned as I went along.”

She put out her first, eponymous album in 2007 with the help of rap act Mooki and Piloni. “I worked with them and they introduced me to the whole reggae culture. People thought I’m black so I must be into reggae,” she laughs. “But I wasn’t up till that point.”

It is generally a good idea for a musician to put a stamp on their efforts by having an album out there for the world to see and hear. “I am very proud of that first record but I am at a completely different stage now, as a singer, as a person, as a mother of three children.”

She is also excited about the upcoming Hullegeb gig. “Ground Heights are such a great group,” she says. “[Vocalist] Hewan Meshesha and the rest of them, they don’t play around with egos. They are so together. It is so much fun working with them.”

Ingedashet hopes the continuing success of the Hullegeb Festival helps to get the word out there, about what the Israeli-Ethiopian community has to offer this country. “I don’t think about the color of my skin. I believe music can heal the world, and change perceptions of black people. We need to teach our children to love people, to respect and accept others.”

Elsewhere on the Hullegeb festival program there are the likes of internationally renowned vocalist Ester Rada, rising star Aveva Dese, the Beta dance ensemble and veteran jazz-blues saxophonist and vocalist Abate Berihun.

There is, indeed, a lot to hear and see from our Ethiopian community.

For tickets and more information about the Hullegeb Festival: *6226*, (02) 539-9360 ext. 5, tickets.bimot.co.il and www.confederationhouse.org/en/