(Breaking my own rule again:) common knowledge about... you guessed it

[roga]

Couldn't resist this: minisinoo wrote a pan-Indian version, and here's the original post, and coffeeandink has composed a link list of the various follow-ups

Comments

[bironic]

This is fascinating -- I'm so glad you wrote up answers, and in such detail. I only knew about four, which is kind of shameful. :/ (11 was easy since we learned about the Ethiopian Jews in Hebrew school -- though not the recent history of emigration to Israel via the Sudan -- and most of my American-Israeli friends/acquaintances are originally from Russia.)

[roga]

I learned about Operation Solomon when I was in Hebrew school - well, private Jewish school - too, because it happened when we were living in the US. I remember being really proud of it, because my uncle was a Hercules pilot and he flew one of the rescue planes.

And my Jewish American RL friends are the same. It's funny, when I was road-tripping last year, one of my companions was a girl from Russia who'd made aliya in 1990. Along the way, we met an American girl, whom we discovered was Jewish, originally Russian, and moved to the US in 1990. They both spoke great Russian and English/Hebrew (one well, the other less), came from very similar backgrounds, and - you could just see where the paths they took in life separated, how a chance decision by any government official could have made the two of them switch places.

[bironic]

Oh, nifty.

Pee ess: For a Jewish person to immigrate to Israel. The word itself means "to rise" or "ascension". The opposite, for a Jew who lives here to leave Israel for good, is yerida - "to descend" -- the seed of an SGA story, mayhap?

[roga]

Oh, did you have to say that? Really? Did you have to?

[bironic]

*innocent look*