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Israel’s first cabinet member of Ethiopian descent, Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata, arrived in Ethiopia on Saturday night to spearhead the airlift of 500 members of the Jewish community to Israel this week.
Up to 14,000 people with Jewish roots are waiting in Ethiopia to come to Israel, but the government approved air travel of just 2,000 in January 2021, despite the pandemic and the recent outbreak of war in the northern region of Tigray.
“One of the national goals that I set myself as minister of immigration and absorption is to end the saga of those who wait in Ethiopia, an injustice that has been crying out to the heavens for decades, causing the separation of families and inflicting emotional damage on those struggling to reunite with their loved ones, ”Tamano-Shata said after his departure from Israel.
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“Five hundred of our people will now be privileged to fulfill the vision of our ancestors to reach Jerusalem,” he said, adding: “The government of Israel cannot abandon and neglect our brothers and sisters who have been waiting in Ethiopia for years and years. This injustice must end and I will continue working until the last of those waiting make aliyah and are reunited with their family.
About 9,000 of potential immigrants have been waiting 15 years or more to immigrate, local activists say. About a quarter of that number, located in the capital Addis Ababa, has been waiting for more than 20 years, they say, while the rest, in the city of Gondar, have been holding out for 15 to 20 years.
Illustrative: Israeli women from the Ethiopian Jewish community pray during the Sigd holiday marking the desire to ‘return to Jerusalem’, as they celebrate from the top of a hill in the holy city overlooking the Temple Mount, Nov. 16 2017 (AFP Photo / Gali Tibbon / Archive)
The coronavirus hit the group especially hard economically, sources told The Times of Israel. Work has dried up and food is scarce, with prices rising from 35 to 50 percent; Families in Israel who have previously sent money to their relatives are struggling to get it due to their own COVID-19-related issues, and philanthropic organizations have less ability to collect donations due to the pandemic.
“I am currently pushing for a complete and quick solution for those who wait with a framework that will soon be presented to the government of Israel,” Tamano-Shata said. “It moves me to return as a government minister to the country where I was born and left at the age of three in Operation Moses, this time to carry out a national mission on behalf of the government of Israel.”
The clashes between the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in the north-west of the country claimed its first victim from Gondar’s Jewish community on November 12: Girmew Gete, 36. He had waited 24 years to emigrate to Israel.
Since the outbreak of violence in Tigray, more than 40,000 in Ethiopia have fled the violence into eastern Sudan, and rockets have landed on Eritrea’s capital Asmara and Ethiopian cities outside Tigray, raising fears. that the conflict can escalate. Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed, including at least 600 civilians who, according to Ethiopia’s rights watchdog, were massacred in the city of Mai-Kadra.
The Israeli government’s policy on the immigration of Ethiopian Jews in recent years has been riddled with abandoned commitments. In 2013, the Jewish Agency declared an end to Ethiopian aliyah, prompting protests from Ethiopian lawmakers and community members in Israel. In November 2015, the government approved the decision to airlift “the last members of the community” waiting in Addis Ababa and Gondar to Israel within five years.
Since that decision, however, only 2,257 Ethiopians have been brought in, according to figures from the Jewish Agency.
Members of the Ethiopian Jewish community await the prayer service before attending the Passover seder meal at the Synagogue in Gondar, Ethiopia, on April 22, 2016 (Miriam Alster / FLASH90).
Approximately 140,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel today. Some 22,000 were flown to Israel during Operation Moses in 1984 and Operation Solomon in 1991, mainly from the Beta Israel community.
While Ethiopian Jewish immigrants from the Beta Israel community are recognized as fully Jewish, Ethiopian immigrants who belong to the smaller Falash Mura community must undergo an Orthodox conversion after immigrating. The Falash Mura are Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity, often under duress, generations ago. Some 30,000 of them have emigrated to Israel since 1997, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Because the Ministry of the Interior does not consider the Falash Mura to be Jewish, they cannot immigrate under the Law of Return and therefore must obtain special permission from the government to move to Israel.
Sue Surkes and agencies contributed to this report.
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