Background
- Over 35,000 members of the so-called Falash Mura* community have arrived in Israel since 1992.
(*Alternately: Jewish community that was not included in Operations Solomon and Moses)
- Israeli Falash Mura send their children to Jewish religious schools and continue to lead traditional Jewish lives.
- Over 98% go through a conversion before a rabbinical court in Israel. (See attached statement by Rabbi Amar as to the reason, although he holds that they are “absolutely Jewish.”)
- On February 16th, 2003, the Israeli cabinet voted unanimously to allow the vast majority of the Falash Mura to immigrate to Israel (with no numerical limit).
- The Ethiopian government has stated that it would have no objection to 2,000 Ethiopian Jews leaving monthly.
The Numbers
- There are 8,700 people in Ethiopia who may be eligible to immigrate under the Israeli government's criteria. These 8,700 are not new or “additional” to the community. These are the same people that NACOEJ and United Jewish Communities (UJC) have been advocating for since 2003.
- The case of the Israeli government’s refusal to even check the eligibility of the 8,700 is currently pending in the Israeli Supreme Court.
- In September 2007, a prestigious Public Committee for the Remaining Jews of Ethiopia was formed in Israel to persuade the current Israeli administration to implement previous government decisions relating to the aliyah of the Jews remaining in Gondar. The honorary President of the Public Committee is the highly respected former President of the Supreme Court of Israel, Meir Shamgar. The Committee also includes Elie Wiesel, former Justice Minister of Canada Irwin Cotler, Alan Dershowitz, the Chief Rabbi of Ethiopian Jews in Israel Yosef Hadane, former Supreme Court Justice Menachem Alon, former MKs Geula Cohen, Naomi Hazan and Hanan Porat and numerous other prominent Israeli spiritual and community leaders. In 2008, following the government’s decision to end the aliyah from Ethiopia, the Committee continued to be very active, calling for the government to examine the remaining 8,700 members of the community in Gondar to determine eligibility for aliyah.
- Under pressure, the government of Israel (GOI) recently decided to interview up to 3,000 people of the remaining 8,700 for eligibility for aliyah, under two conditions.
- They must be on the 1999 census list produced by David Efrati, formerly of Israel’s Ministry of the Interior.
- Interviewees also must have been living in Gondar for over a year.
These criteria, which severely limit the potential for aliyah among the remaining community, are not consistent with the government’s own policies. Until now, the government itself was
bringing Ethiopians to Israel who were on an updated 2003 list, which they refuse to use for the remaining community.
Additionally, Israeli government policy urged Ethiopians to remain in their villages rather than move to Gondar. Under this ruling, those who obeyed Israel’s orders are punished.
- There are two bills pending in the Knesset advocating interviews for the entire 8,700. The bills, brought by Member of Knesset Michael Eitan, and by Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai, passed 44-1 and 43-1 in a preliminary reading. However, three readings are required. The bills may be brought up again after the February elections.
- NACOEJ, the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry, which has been providing funds for food and education for the Ethiopian Jewish community in Ethiopia for well over a decade, has been constant in the numbers it presents as within the agreed-upon confines of a “cap” to aliyah.
- In October 2003, NACOEJ and the United Jewish Communities (UJC) agreed to propose a 24,000 number.
- In January of 2005, NACOEJ, the UJC and JAFI agreed to a revised number of 20,000 (taking into account 4,000 who had made aliyah in the intervening months).
- The 8,700 are part of the 20,000 number agreed upon by JAFI, UJC and NACOEJ.
- Most of the 8,700 have first-degree relatives in Israel.
- NACOEJ has remained committed to the number specified in the 2005 agreement. Moreover, in a 2007 binding agreement with the Ethiopian government, NACOEJ agreed to limit its assistance to the 8,700 people discussed above. Thus, it is clear that the concerns over “additional countless numbers flooding the compounds” are baseless, and are being advanced by people hostile to the completion of the agreed-upon aliyah of Ethiopian Jewry.
Falash Mura and Judaism
- Ethiopian Jews faithfully adhered to Judaism for many centuries despite great hardship. Over the past several generations, members of the Ethiopian Jewish community, the Beta Israel, were subjected to severe economic and social pressures. In response to these pressures, some made pro forma conversions to Christianity; they are referred to as Falash Mura. (Variants include Feles Mura, Ferris Mura, Falas Mura, and Falashmura.)
- Ethnically, they are perceived as Beta Israel, Jews.
- Religious leaders (Israeli Chief Rabbis, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform leaders in the U.S., Ethiopian Jewish religious leaders in Israel.) consider them Jews. Christian neighbors of Falash Mura in Ethiopian villages have considered them Jews, and as late as the 1990’s, some were locally persecuted as Jews.
65% of the Jews in still Ethiopia have first degree relatives in Israel; almost all of the rest have other close relatives in Israel.
They observe Jewish practices.
- They pray daily according to Jewish ritual.
- They celebrate the Sabbath and Jewish holidays
- They adhere to kashruth.
- They keep the laws of family purity (taharat hamishpacha).
- The children attend a Hebrew day school paid for by the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry (NACOEJ), where they are taught a full secular curriculum as well as Judaic studies. Strictly kosher lunches are provided. The religious school is under the supervision of a representative of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. The secular studies are approved by the Ethiopian Department of Education.
- Due to funding shortages, the school serves approximately only 920 students out of a potential 3,000.
- The following rabbis, institutions and documents support the aliya and absorption of the Falash Mura. Please see the attached appendix for the complete letters.
- Rabbi Kenneth N. Hain, President of the Rabbinical Council of America, the single largest American organization representing Orthodox rabbis in a letter dated January 19, 2000.
- The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Resolution on Beta Israel in Addis Ababa - passed by The USCJ Board June 2, 1996.
- Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
- Israeli Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.
- Former Israeli Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu.
- Rabbi Menachem Waldman, member of the Chief Rabbinate's Committee on Ethiopian Jews.
- Rabbi David H. Shloush, Chief Rabbi of Netanya and Director of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's Committee for the Spiritual Absorption of Ethiopian Jews.
- Testimony of the Rabbinical Court (Beit Din), established by The Chief Rabbinate of Israel to determine the religious status of the recent immigrants from Ethiopia (declares slanderous a JDC report accusing Falash Mura in Israel of practicing Christianity).
- Rabbi Jerome Epstein, Executive Vice-President of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
Current Life for the Falash Mura in Gondar
- The community lives under truly horrific conditions.
- US and UN relief agencies have found the conditions bad even by Third World standards.
- 94% of these families live below the World Bank's poverty line.
- 80% lack access to bathrooms.
- Children are the first to suffer from the consequences of malnutrition.
- NACOEJ provides funds for daily meals for school children.
- Until June 30th, 2008, NACOEJ funded the “Feeding Center for Children Under Age Six and Pregnant and Nursing Mothers”, and a monthly grain distribution to community members. Contributions to NACOEJ for this purpose were provided by UJC and Jewish federations, but stopped at the end of May, 2008, when the Israeli government announced that it was not interviewing anyone else for eligibility for aliyah.
- NACOEJ now assists this community with severely limited resources. The Jewish Agency does not currently provide any assistance to the community in Gondar; its humanitarian activities in Ethiopia are limited to a few weeks of assistance to a member of the community just before his/her to emigration to Israel.
- None of the children in the NACOEJ school has ever attended school before. Because of the NACOEJ school education, these children are far better prepared for absorption when they finally arrive in Israel. The program is extremely cost-effective, as it is far less expensive to provide basic education in Ethiopia than to provide remedial education in Israel.
|
