The TROD | Ethiopia, Israel & South Africa

Jerusalem & Tel Aviv, Israel – Donisha visits with Rastafarians living in the Kibbutz Tze’eelim aka “Jamaica in the Desert”. She searches for the truths behind the Rastafarian references to the Star of David; in legends, which state that one of the 12 ancient Hebraic tribes may have been Black. She grapples with the Israeli struggle for their homeland vs her own Rastafarians desire for repatriation to Africa? Although the Rastafari livity in Israel is not a religious phenomena it is a value system espousing peace, love, unity and socialist elements that draws inspiration from the songs of Bob Marley.

Sheshemane, Ethiopia — Ethiopia is to Rastafarians what Mecca is to Muslims. Donisha visits Sheshemane, where many Rastafarians aspire to return. In 1948, Emperor Haile Selassie granted the land as a gesture of acknowledgement to Rastafarians. Few have actually made the journey and fewer still have settled there. Donisha explores this incongruity with some of the brethren now living in Sheshemane. If few Rastas have repatriated themselves physically, can ‘returning to Africa’ be a metaphysical state rather than geographical one?

Cape Town & Kynsna, South Africa — The Judah Square Rastafarian Community is one of the largest and most organized Rastafarian communities in South Africa. Judah’s Square is the venue for the annual Rastafarian Earth Festival. Donisha experiences, first hand, the effects of Reggae and the Rastafarian Movement on an international community. Her grandfather’s music often called attention to the political strife occurring during the Apartheid years in South Africa. How does the Rastafarian community in Kynsna come to the terms with the legacy of Apartheid?