Live and Become

In 1984 in a Sudanese refugee camp sheltering Ethiopians displaced by civil war and famine, the Israeli army has begun "Operation Moses"' airlifting thousands of Falashas, or Ethiopian Jews, to Israel. A Christian Ethiopian mother persuades a Falasha woman whose own son has just died from starvation, to allow her son to assume his identity. In tears, she orders her son to never divulge his secret for fear her will be returned, and tells his to "live and become". Renamed Schlomo, the boy is adopted by an adoring, liberal Israeli couple. However he remains an outsider, surviving only through his family's love. We follow Schlomo as he becomes a Jewish teenager and an idealistic young medical student. With the help of a local leader, he writes letters to his real mother back home and is forced to make the heart-wrenching decision about whether to admit to the deception that has shadowed his entire childhood.