Ethiopian exodus ends, stranding Falash Mura

“YOU, YOU, YOU, FARANJI, FARANJI, FARANJI.”

These were the catcalls which greeted me last month as I exited the corrugated metal compound of the Jewish community center in Gondar, Ethiopia, and headed up the hill to the Jewish Agency’s headquarters, where I volunteered as a doctor for Jewish Health Care International’s Screening clinic. My mission was to screen those approved for immigration for acute and chronic illnesses and to triage them for further care on arrival to Israel.

Like those in the compound, inside, I was protected; outside, I was subjected to the vagaries of persecution.

Both the center and Jewish Agency’s compound are now closed, as the Israeli government ended its support with the last official airlift to Israel of Falash Mura, Ethiopians of Jewish descent, on Aug. 28.

Gondar was the refugee camp for Ethiopian Jewry, a way station for those waiting to immigrate to Israel. Many of those I met have been waiting for over a decade, having left their ancestral villages in the hopes of someday making it to the Holy Land.

The Falashas, or Beta Yisrael, an indigenous population of Black Jews of Ethiopia, maintained their separate identity in Ethiopia for two millenia, facing persecution, assimilation and forced conversions before most were airlifted to Israel in the 1980s and 1990’s during Operations Moses and Solomon.

The last remnant of 450 souls approved for immigration arrived in Israel on two Ethiopian Airline charter flights in a program dubbed by the Jewish Agency for Israel as “Operation Doves Wings.” In five hours flight time, they traversed 2,500 years, journeying from a primitive society to a highly technological one where they will trade mud huts and subsistence agriculture for modern cities and supermarkets, hand woven clothes for factory manufactured garments, and high illiteracy rates for regimented Israeli religious and secular schools.

In addition, these new immigrants will face discrimination and mistrust by those who feel that they are economic opportunists, compelled to officially convert to Judaism to maintain their right to stay in Israel. This is because unlike their predecessors, who left during Operations Moses and Solomon, those in this latest transport are not recognized as halachically Jewish. They are Falash Mura, or descendants of Ethiopian Jews, who in the 19th and 20th centuries converted to Christianity.

They are approved to enter Israel under the law of family reunification, but staying in Israel and obtaining Israeli citizenship is conditional on their conversion to Judaism.

This mass conversion is both controversial and unprecedented in the history of Israel. It goes to the heart of the “who is a Jew” question, posing an inherent challenge to the identity of the Jewish State; it also involves the State in a religious and personal matter — never before has the State been involved in facilitating religious conversions and traditionally, Jews discourage converts.

While their origins are obscure, a Jewish presence in Ethiopia was well established by the 4th Century CE when the Axumite Empire converted to Christianity and forced the Jewish population to retreat to the mountainous areas of Gojam, Lake Tana, Gondar and the foothills of the Simiens where they enjoyed a modicum of independence.

In the 10th century, a power struggle ensued and the Axumite dynasty was seriously threatened by a Jewish revolt led by Queen Yudit, who sought to return Ethiopia to its Mosaic roots.

Ethiopian lore traces the Falashas’ origin to the contingent of Jews who accompanied Menelik I, the son of King Solomon and Queen Sheba, back to Ethiopia after his sojourn in Jerusalem. The Ethiopians themselves venerate Solomon and Sheba, and Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity holds many similarities to Judaism. Despite this resemblance, when Christianity became the dynastic religion, those espousing different faiths, such as the Beta Yisrael or Falashas (a derogatory term meaning exiles or others), were persecuted.

Other traditions hold that the Ethiopian Jews hail from the lost tribe of Dan or are a remnant of Israel from Egypt or Yemen. What is indisputable is that they kept themselves separate and maintained Jewish traditions which pre-date the oral law.

In all, over 92,000 Ethiopian Jews have been brought to Israel from 1979 to today, an absorption which cost the State upwards of $500 million.

The first wave arrived in 1934 along with Yemenite Jews who emigrated through Eritrea and Sudan during the Italian occupation. From 1965 to 1979, a trickle were smuggled into Israel through Sudan and Europe.

Eight thousand more braved starvation and death en route, migrating miles on foot, escaping famine and civil war to reach refugee camps in Sudan before being rescued by Operation Moses in 1984-85. Another 14,000 or so were brought to Israel in 1991 in 36 hours of heroic flights during Operation Solomon when the government of Israel lubricated their release by supplying arms to Emperor Mengistu Haile Mariam.

These immigrants were recognized as Jewish by the Chief Rabbi of Israel in 1975, clearing their path for immigration under the law of return. The status of those immigrating now is murkier, as most of them are not yet recognized as Jewish.

Those who have at least one Jewish grandparent and relatives in Israel have been allowed to immigrate — but thousands more left their villages, farms and Christian faiths decades ago, making their way to transit camps in Gondar where they have been living as Jews. In Gondar they’ve been provided with free education, free food, free health care and institutional Jewish support in the form of a community center, Hebrew schools and a synagogue.

Over the past month, the Jewish Agency has been withdrawing from Gondar, closing its clinics, schools and infrastructure and turning these buildings and institutions over to municipal authorities. In a messy process, they’ve left 12,000 souls who now identify as Jews, longing for a reunification with their families and facing discrimination in their native land.

Asher Seyum, the Jewish Agency’s diplomatic attaché to Ethiopia, was pointedly resigned to the situation. Seyum, himself a Falasha who migrated on foot through the Sudan to reach Israel at the age of 13 during Operation Moses, said it was wrong to give them false hopes.

“Who told them they were Jewish, who put them on those lists,” he asked, continuing: Why didn’t they come earlier? We can’t let everyone in. There has to be an end.

The political decision to close the gates is understandable, as the government fears an endless flow of immigrants with no connection to the Jewish people, but common sense and Jewish ethics dictate that those who left their homes to live as Jews for up to 15 years should be allowed to make aliyah. A temporary reprieve has been granted to the synagogue so that it will be open for the Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe), but afterwards, the Torah will be retired or sent to Israel and the remaining Falash Mura will be left to languish in Gondar without support, with aliyah appeals taken on a case by case basis.

The Staten Island based author volunteered last month in Jewish Health Care International’s clinic in Gondar, Ethiopia and personally witnessed Operations Moses and Solomon.