Ethiopian Superhero In Israel

A lot of people think of Israel as a solitary outpost of Western-style democracy in the Middle East. What they don't know is that Israel is one of the most racist places on the planet Earth. Never mind the clashes between Palestinian nationalists and Israeli Defense soldiers, an unspoken and unacknowledged war is being waged upon people of African descent in the State of Israel by the Knesset and it never makes headlines.

My name is Abraham Baruch and I'm a young man of Ethiopian and Filipino descent living in the City of Tel Aviv, Israel. I was born in this very town to Elias Baruch, an Ethiopian Jewish father who did Aliyah from Durame, southern Ethiopia in his youth, and a Filipino Christian mother, Richa Aquino, who moved to the State of Israel as a refugee after years of indentured servitude in the City of Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Yeah, from the get go, I seemed destined to lead a complex life.

I recently returned to Tel Aviv after three years spent in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. I acquired a bachelor's degree in business administration from Carleton University and now I'm working on getting my Master's degree in business at Tel Aviv University. I love Canada and studying abroad but it's too damn expensive for my liking. Besides, a part of me missed home, even though there are certain things about Israel that rankle me, both as an Israeli Jewish citizen and as a human being.

Earlier, while walking out of my folks house in Ramat, one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in metropolitan Tel Aviv, I got dirty looks from a pair of policemen. Apparently, this isn't the sort of neighborhood where they'd expect to see someone like me casually strolling down the street. Lucky for me, all they did was stare disapprovingly before driving off. I shook my head in disgust as I watched them go.

Why is that, you may ask? I'm six-foot-three, lean and athletic, with golden brown skin, thick sideburns and a puffy afro. My features are a rugged ( and dare I say handsome ) blend of East African and Asian, thanks to my rather unique parentage. I do have Black blood in me and it always shows, no matter what. Wouldn't have it any other way.

"Bram, stop daydreaming and pass me the Pepsi," my girlfriend Amina Zahoud says, snapping me out of my reverie. We're at Gelila's Corner, a Falasha restaurant located near the University of Tel Aviv campus. At this hour of the day, it's packed with people. I like Gelila's because it's full of clients from all over. Israeli Jews, Arab Christians, Arab Israeli Muslims, even a few Africans along with Ethiopian Jews, the majority of the restaurant's patronage. I nod at Amina, and smile as I hand her the bottle of Pop.

Amina rolls her lovely golden brown eyes, sighs and takes a sip of Pepsi, to which I've carefully added three shots of bourbon thanks to my trusty flask, which is always on me. I look at Amina as she gulps it all down, and smile. My lady does like her liquor. Standing five feet ten inches tall and quite curvy, Amina is exotically beautiful, with her dark bronze skin, long and curly black hair and hypnotic emerald eyes. The lady is half Moroccan and half Lebanese, born and raised in Jerusalem. Amina's family is Muslim, but she considers herself Agnostic, whatever that means.

"Careful not to get drunk my dear," I say, shaking my head while gently laying my hand on Amina's. Defiantly Amina bats my hand away, and doesn't set down the bottle until it's empty. When she's done, Amina burps loudly and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Classy woman, isn't she?

"I'm Arab, honey, and we can hold our damn liquor," Amina snaps, and a waitress passing nearby shoots her a look of disapproval. I wonder if Amina is going to get up and get in the waitress's face. Amina likes to cause a scene. Sometimes it's fun to watch. I remember that time she got into a catfight at school. Campus police had to get involved, and one of them ended up with a black eye. As Amina's father, Ibrahim Zahoud, is a wealthy Israeli Arab politician and prominent businessman, the matter was dropped. This time, though, Amina ignores the waitress and focuses her lovely eyes on me.

"Bram, you haven't been the same since you got back from Ottawa," Amina says, licking her full lips, a gesture I found distracting. If only you knew, I thought darkly, while something in me stirs. Amina crosses her shapely legs, and I can feel myself harden. Only what I feel isn't mere desire. The dark hunger rises within me, and I will myself to be calm.

"A lot happened while I was in Ottawa," I say wistfully, and in spite of myself, powerful memories drag me into the not so distant past, a time in my life I'd rather forget. In the summer of 2011, as a wide-eyed twenty-year-old, I decided to study in Canada after completing the mandatory two-year training that all Israeli Jewish citizens must do. It's a rite of passage for us. Any Israeli Jew must be ready to fight to defend the homeland at a moment's notice.

I served in the Israeli Defense Forces, entering the military as an idealistic youth and then exiting it two years later as a battle-scarred and embittered young man. What happened? A change came over me, not due to the horrors of war, but something else entirely. The way Israeli Jewish soldiers of European descent treated me, as a young man of partial African descent, was worse than anything the Palestinians who hate us could have done to me.

I got called the N-word, and had horrible racist epithets scribbled on my belongings. I was told to "go back to Africa" by a racist captain, Lionel Rosenthal, and when I told this American-born Jew to go to Hell, I actually got punished for it. The IDF is no place for an Ethiopian Jewish man, for they seem to hate us even more than they hate the Arabs. After two years in the Israeli military, I'd grown so disgusted with my countrymen that I opted to study in Canada, at the Israeli government's expense, of course. Anything to get out of Israel.

"Israel hates and fears the Black man far more than the Arabs," my Pop was fond of telling me, while recounting incidents of racism from his youth. My father, Elias Baruch, moved to Israel from Ethiopia as a young man. Like me, he served in the IDF and grew disgusted with Israeli politics and the hidden but ever-present racism that all people of African descent living in Israel face daily.

I went to Ottawa, Ontario, to study and explore the world outside Israel. What I found was more than I bargained for. While on the Carleton University campus, I met an old man named Arthur Sunukkukau, a professor of sociology at the school and a rather prominent member of the Algonquin people of Ontario. I took a sociology course because I needed an easy elective, and the old man and I bonded.

For we were both outsiders on this very diverse yet at times covertly hostile university campus. Canadians are a friendly bunch usually, but as any Native will tell you, polite racism is still racism. Just because you're seemingly accepted doesn't mean you truly belong. As a dark-skinned young man with a foreign accent at Carleton University, I definitely ran into my share of oddballs who didn't care for me in the least.

"Watch your back around these people my young friend," Professor Sunukkukau said to me as we sat in his office, having sandwiches. I nodded and smiled, feeling a strange kinship with this wise old man. It's weird, eh? A biracial man from Israel and a Native man from northern Ontario bonding on a Canadian university campus. I supposed stranger things have happened. Little did I know that Fate had much stranger things in store for little old me....

For the remainder of my time at Carleton University, I was Professor Sunukkukau's good friend, and he was my mentor and benefactor. I was fond of the old man, for I hadn't made a lot of friends at my new school. Carleton is diverse, full of students from Africa, the Arab world, South Asian nations and even a few Latin Americans and Caribbean people. In this diverse world, as the unlikely son of an Ethiopian Jewish father and Filipino Christian mother who later embraced Judaism, I stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb.

All the Jewish students at school were white, and quite a few were deeply critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians. I served in the IDF and bear no hatred toward any Palestinian. Nor do I condone everything the Knesset does. However, I do believe that Israel has a right to exist. One of the Jewish students, a blonde-haired gal named Sharon Rosenberg, clashed with me when I brought up the issue of the forced sterilization of Ethiopian Jewish women through use of Depo Provera by the Israeli government.

"You need to stop talking about that shit," Sharon said to me one time, at a meeting for Jewish students at Carleton. I schooled her on how wrong she was and the others in the group didn't care much for me or the inconvenient truth I shared about our Jewish homeland. Palestinians aren't the only people that Israel treats like dirt. We Ethiopian Jews are treated far worse than the Arabs in Israel because the European-descended Israeli Jews seem allergic to our skin tones. Of course, the world doesn't want to hear about that.

"I'm leaving this club of bigots," I said, and walked out on the Jewish Students Association of Carleton University. I could feel Sharon's angry eyes on me as I exited the room, never to return. When I shared this with Professor Sunukkukau at his house in Nepean, the old man was quite sympathetic, and lent me an ear as I vented. I went on and on about my frustrations with my new Canadian friends.

"You believe in justice and for this you will always clash with those who don't," Professor Sunukkukau said, gently stroking his goateed chin, and I nodded and sighed. I wasn't really listening. My mind raced as I thought about Sharon Rosenberg and the other Canadian students willful blindness when it came to acknowledging Israel's mistreatment of its African-descended citizens while in the same breath, they bitched and moaned about the rights of Palestinians.

"The world cares about everything except what happens to people of African descent," I said sadly, shaking my head. Professor Sunukkukau looked at me and smiled faintly, then I finally sat down. I'd been pacing up and down his small living room for a while and finally felt tired, I guess.

"What if I could give you the power to do something about it?" Professor Sunukkukau said, looking at me with those penetrating eyes of his. I crossed my arms and looked at him. For a moment, something unexpected and dare I say dangerous flickered in his eyes, and I swear, they changed color, from dull brown to bright yellow.

"What do you mean by that?" I said, a strange calm coming over me even as I noticed a shift not only in Professor Sunukkukau's demeanor, but his whole appearance. The professor isn't a large man. He's about five-foot-eight, and maybe two hundred pounds, with dark bronze skin, brown eyes and long black hair streaked with gray, always tied in a ponytail.

"The power that only I can give you," Professor Sunukkukau said, smiling wickedly. He fixed his yellow-eyed gaze on me and for some reason, I did not flinch. I knew that something strange was happening but I wasn't frightened or anything. If anything, I was fascinated. I've always been strange that way. People tend to react with shock and fright in certain situations. I tend to stay calm. My mother always thought my lack of emotional response was due to something being wrong with me. I always dismissed such statements. I am only me, I guess.

"Tell me more about this power," I said, nodding at the Professor, whose broad grin threatened to split his rugged, weathered face in half. Leaning back in his chair, his voice noticeably deeper than before, the old man smiled and entwined his fingers, flexing them before gripping the arms of his chair. I could tell that my reaction pleased Professor Sunukkukau.

"The power of the Wendigo is an awesome thing, " Professor Sunukkukau said, and then he threw his head back and laughed. Moments later, a startling change came over him. The average-sized, mild-mannered Native man in the tacky old gray business suit morphed into a towering, gray-furred, muscular, man-like yet undeniably inhuman monster with bright yellow eyes, sharp claws and fangs. Roaring, the monster howled and came for me. What happened after is a blur, but I remember that I did not scream.

When I awoke to consciousness, I was...changed. "Welcome to a new world my son," Professor Sunukkukau said gently, standing over me. I rose to my feet, a dark anger rising within me as I remembered what he'd done...what he'd become, right there in his living room.

"What did you do to me?" I asked, looking at him. Professor Sunukkukau smiled and gently laid his hand on my arm. When he touched my bare skin, images flashed through my head. I saw the Prof's monstrous alter ego running through the woods, chasing after a pair of young men, white guys with the look of Oilmen about them. The monster found them and devoured them.

"You devoured these miners," I said, glaring at Professor Sunukkukau in shock, and the old man smiled and nodded. He licked his lips with a tongue far longer and more prehensile than any normal guy's tongue could ever be, and this time, his smile showed a mouth full of curving white fangs. Shrugging, he casually admitted to what he'd done.

"Two Oilmen who ventured near my ancient domain in Alberta three days ago paid the ultimate price," Professor Sunukkukau said, grinning. He told me that he thoroughly enjoyed the kill and that these two Oil guys proved to be quite tasty. When he spoke, with a kind of near rapture in his voice, I swear he was reliving the experience. In fact, I knew he was. For some reason, this didn't disturb, disgust or shock me. Hell, I felt envious.

"I'm so damn hungry," I said, and Professor Sunukkukau nodded, and took me to his kitchen. He showed me a fridge full of deer meat. I sniffed it and smiled with contentment. I pick up a piece of meat the size of my fist, and eat it. It tastes wonderful. I eat another, then another. Raw meat now tastes delicious to me, and most normal foods taste like cardboard. My system has changed. I am no longer human.

"I have much to teach you, " the Professor said, and he grabbed a deer leg, ripped it apart with his sharp teeth, and bit into it. We ate in silence, two predators dining in a suburban house in Nepean. Not far from the university campus where we met. My world changed that night, but come to think of it, I embraced the change more willingly than most people would have.

Professor Sunukkukau warned me that only certain people had it in them to become Wendigo. "Those who lack remorse," the old said simply, and I smiled knowingly. My whole life I'd been different from most people. I've always been bold and impulsive, fearless, and utterly unconcerned about the consequences of my actions or their effect on other people. More than once my dear old mum called me a sociopath.

Come to think of it, I was a problematic youth but I've since learned to control myself and channel my dark urges into beneficial outlets. That's why I'm a business student. Profit is a remarkable, emotionless and straightforward goal, wouldn't you see? I finished my meal, and looked upon Professor Sunukkukau, now my instructor in more ways than one.

"I've been alive for six hundred years and might live a thousand more thanks to the old Wendigo who shared his blood with me as I did with you," Professor Sunukkukau said to me. We stood on a hilltop, in the woods of northern Ontario, separated from the nearest human being by more than thirty miles. All around us, nothing but trees and animals, nature at its finest.

"Let us hunt," I said, and the Professor nodded in agreement. Morphing out of our human visages and into our superhuman forms, we loped along in the forest, moving faster than the human eye could see. Something truly glorious comes over me when I'm transformed. I love becoming something stronger and faster, wild and free, powerful and dangerous, but also, strangely enough, utterly at peace.

That night, the Prof and I hunted deer, and tore apart a large buck, feasting upon its flesh by the pale moonlight. Afterwards, we resumed our human forms, and lay side by side, naked and covered in deer blood and gore. "I love being a Wendigo," I said to Sunukkukau, who nodded in agreement. He looked at me with lust in his eyes, and I grinned wolfishly.

Moments later, the Prof and I were going at it. I lay on the soft grass as Sunukkukau got between my legs, and grabbed my long and thick, dark cock. "Nice," the old man said, then began sucking my dick with gusto. I lay there and relaxed as this ancient and nearly immortal inhuman entity and fellow switch-hitter sucked my dick until I came, then drank my masculine seed.

"Wonderful," Sunukkukau said, smiling as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand after drinking my cum. Feeling aggressive, I grabbed him and put him on all fours. Spreading Sunukkukau's butt cheeks wide open, I inserted my hard dick in his asshole.

Gripping his hips tightly, I began to fuck him. The old Native man groaned sharply as I rammed my dick up his ass. I love the feel of a tight asshole on my dick. Hard and fast I pumped into him, our howls of pleasure echoing in the night as we fucked passionately. Morning found us stark naked, soaked in blood and cum.

"You're a magnificent Wendigo my pupil," Professor Sunukkukau said, and kissed me on the lips. Grinning, I returned his kiss, then gathered my clothes before putting them back on. Sunukkukau parked his Toyota near the woods, and we had to walk two hours before we found it. After running on all fours as a primordial immortal beast, I hated moving slowly like a human.

In our Wendigo forms, we're superhumanly strong and fast, able to regenerate, and we cannot die naturally. We stop aging the moment we become Wendigo and we are immune to all diseases and toxins. However, in human form, we're as vulnerable as anyone else. And just as slow. I revelled in my new state. Professor Sunukkukau taught me much about it. We were good friends and lovers throughout my stay at Carleton University. We hunted together, fucked together and had a lot of fun. Then I graduated and returned to Tel Aviv, Israel. I do miss those halcyon days in Ontario, though.

"Stop daydreaming," Amina's sharp voice shrieks, snapping me out of my blood-soaked and lustful reverie. I look at her, my gorgeous Arab Israeli girlfriend, and for a moment, I say nothing. Instead, I give Amina Zahoud a smile a shark would recognize. The predator's smile. Amina stares at me, and the intensity goes out of her gaze.

Even in human form, when I look at people, they have trouble holding my gaze. Is it because I'm a sociopath who once started fires in my parents basement for kicks as a youth, smoked and fucked around a lot? Or is it because I'm the latest member of the Wendigo species, a race of nearly immortal, inhuman creatures that have existed among the Native peoples of North America since time immemorial?

Whatever it is, it's working. Amina smiles and entwines her fingers with mine. "Let's leave this bogus place," she says, and with my superhuman senses I detect a change in her body chemistry. When a woman is horny, she releases a faint pheromone-like scent that human males can't perceive because they're so dull and limited. Fortunately for me, I'm not a human male. Amina is in heat, practically, and needs to be fucked. This looks like a job for me.

We're about to leave the restaurant together when I overhear an off-duty member of the Tel Aviv District Police say something quite interesting to his colleague. "Three of my men's bodies have been found and I honestly don't think the Palestinians did this, it looks like the work of an animal," the man all but shrieks, his nervousness adding a wonderful lilt to his voice.