BY BOB STRAUSS >FILM CRITIC

I don't think anyone really knows how Ethiopia's millennia-old Jewish community got started. But things became especially bad for its thousands of members in the troubled African nation during the 1980s, and Israeli operatives decided to do something about it.

Dubbed Operation Moses, the covert exodus involved trekking hundreds of miles across hostile desert to refugee camps in Sudan. Many of the Ethiopian Jews, who are called Falashas, died along the way or in the squalid camps before Mossad could quietly airlift them out of the Muslim-ruled nation.

Many, however, made the escape. As did, apparently, some non-Jewish Ethiopians who also fled the fighting and famine at home. "Live and Become" is the complicated, sometimes overwrought but often quite moving story of one of the latter.

To be accepted on the flight to Jerusalem, the boy whom the Israelis will name Schlomo is ordered by his Christian mother to pretend to be the son of a Falasha whose own baby just died. Mom No. 2, well, coughs, so it's no surprise when Schlomo is "orphaned" shortly after reaching the promised land. Feeling doubly abandoned and disoriented in the modern country with its unfamiliar beliefs, Schlomo gets into fights and tries to run away back to Africa. But something in him also understands that he's lucky, and if the Israelis ever find out he's not Jewish, they'll grant his wish with swift dispatch.

So he learns Hebrew quickly and is adopted by a lovely young liberal couple, Yael (Yael Abecassis) and Yoram (Roschdy Zem) of French and Egyptian heritage. Both parents love the boy, but unlike many films that might have a similar theme, he tries their patience in serious ways, and the resulting resentment is not easily fixed. His integration into Israeli society is just as fraught, though also generally successful and sometimes funny. (Not religious themselves, his new parents assume Schlomo is and send him to Hebrew school, where the instructors learn not to ask him too much about the Torah.)

Of course, Schlomo faces racism in school and, as he grows, society at large. Now utterly afraid of being exposed, he seeks some refuge with a grumpy Ethiopian rabbi (Yitzhak Edgar, wonderful), who may be onto him and may care even less. When the daughter (Roni Hadar) of a bigoted white man falls crazy in love with him, Schlomo faces more confusion. Through all these personal trials and many more, the wider aspects of how Israelis regard their African brothers are succinctly and fascinatingly presented. So are the social strains various wars and intifadas put on the nation through the last decades of the 20th century.

But the focus remains, as it should, on Schlomo, who grows into a marvelously complex and conflicted being. Director Radu Mihaileanu worked with several trios of young actors before deciding on Moshe Agazai, Mosche Abebe and Sirak M. Sabahat to portray Schlomo as, respectively, a child, a teenager and a young man. Not only do the three Falashas bear seamless resemblances to one another, they effectively create a single, growing soul.

This movie, so dramatic and different from any other we've seen about Israel, may well have worked with three other actors. But it's hard to imagine it working as well.

Bob Strauss, (818) 713-3670

bob.strauss@dailynews.com

review>

LIVE AND BECOME

>Not rated: violence, nudity, language, racism.

>Starring: Moshe Agazai, Mosche Abebe, Sirak M. Sabahat, Yael Abecassis, Roschdy Zem.

>Director: Radu Milhaileanu.

>Running time: 2 hr. 15 min.

>Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Music Hall, Beverly Hills; Regency Rancho Niguel, Laguna Niguel.

>In a nutshell: Convoluted but engaging saga of an Ethiopian Christian boy who pretends he's Jewish after he's airlifted to a better life in Israel. In Amharic, French and Hebrew with English subtitles.