Israel can be proud of its Ethiopian Jewish record

By H. Applebaum

SAN DIEGO — Thousands of Africans, sick, malnourished, and frightened, were huddled together on the floor of the hold, and many died on the trip. It wasn’t the hold of a 19^th century slave ship, but a plane that had been stripped of seats to accommodate more people. It was May, 24, 1991, and Operation Solomon was underway.  Rather than being bought, sold, and exploited by Arab traders and European slave-masters, these Africans were being saved by Israel from starvation and persecution.

The Beta Israel (House of Israel) were being rescued from an Ethiopian civil war and a drought that caused mass dislocation and starvation.  When the “Black Jews,” as they were called, fled Ethiopia, no other country but Israel, offered to take them. Yet the countries of the world gathered in Durban, South Africa in 2001 to condemn Israel as a racist regime at the U.N.’s World Conference against Racism.

The Beta Israel trace their ancestry to Menelik, son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon.  With the rise of Christianity in Ethiopia, in the 17th century, they were compelled to accept conversion or death. Jewish customs were forbidden, their land was confiscated, and many were sold into slavery.  The Beta Israel fled to remote villages where they were forgotten by the world until they were re-discovered at the beginning of the 20^th century.  In Ethiopia, they were called “Falashas,” a derogatory Amharic word that means stranger.

In 1984, 4,000 Ethiopian Jews died as they traveled on foot through the desert from Ethiopia to Sudanese refugee camps. 8,000 were saved by Israel in an airlift called Operation Moses.  Many children, sick and malnourished, died in the camps or during the flight to Israel, and it was reported that their parents brought their bodies down from the aircraft with them.  When the elders of the Beta Israel set foot in Israel, they kissed the ground.

When Prime Minister Shimon Peres held a press conference announcing the rescue, he probably thought the world would applaud Israel.  Many countries did, but Sudan immediately killed the airlift, ending it prematurely, because of its Arab allies.  More than 1,000 Ethiopian Jews were left behind, and about 1,000 so-called “orphans of circumstance” were separated from their families.

Operation Solomon re-united those children with their parents and rescued the remainder of the Ethiopian Jews.  It allowed 14,324 Jews to make aliyah, leaving with just the clothes on their back.  They got no compensation for the property they were forced to leave behind, yet Ethiopia demanded and got close to 30 million dollars from Israel.

Between 1990 and 1999, 39,000 Ethiopian Jews entered Israel.  Israel housed, clothed and fed the refugees, and provided education and job training.  Families that twenty years ago lived in African villages without electricity or running water are now attending graduations for their children and grandchildren.   Ethiopian Jews have integrated well into Israeli life; they are store owners, doctors, nurses, professors, lawyers, and army colonels, and a Miss Israel beauty pageant winner.

Speaking at the annual state ceremony in memory of the Jews of Ethiopia who died en route to Israel in the 1980s – which coincides every year with Jerusalem Day – Prime Minister Netanyahu lauded the community and its contribution to Israeli society, and described their aliyah as a critical chapter in the story of the State of Israel.

“You were determined, you did not give up the dream you preserved for 2,500 years to return from foreign lands to the Land of Israel,” said Netanyahu, noting that the entire country “mourns the massive loss and heavy price you and your loved ones paid. It was a journey of suffering in which you fought for your lives.”

All of Israel’s accomplishments in rescuing and supporting the Beta Israel were denied though, as the countries of the world gathered to condemn Israel as “racist” at the U.N. World Conference Against Racism in 2001 in Durban, South Africa.  Today the “Zionism is racism” trope has become a world-wide campaign to demonize and delegitimize Israel.  Unfortunately, it’s not just Arabs and Europeans, but Jewish groups too, like The New Israel Fund (NIF,) and the Israel Religious Action Center, an arm of the Reform Movement in Israel.

NIF funded Adalah, an Arab rights organization, which played an active role in the hate fest against Israel at the U.N.’s conference in Durban.  The Human Rights Defenders Fund (HRDF,) also financed by the NIF, called Israel “racist,” “murderous,” and a “temporary Jewish Apartheid state.”

Recently, as protests and riots broke out in the wake of an altercation between a police officer and an Ethiopian youth, these groups, who oppose the current government, exploited the situation.

“We support the protestors and we stand with all Israelis struggling against racism and police violence…. It’s an unacceptable pattern of racist violence,” said Mickey Gitzin, Director of New Israel Fund, three days after the incident.  Statements like that spurred on rioters who threw rocks, vandalized and burned cars, blocked roadways, attacked policemen, and caused scores of injuries.

Now, more than a week later, the official statement reveals that the policeman in question did the right thing by protecting his three children, one an infant, from rock-throwing teenagers.  He fired into the ground and the bullet ricocheted into one of the teens, an Ethiopian Jew, killing him.

Most Ethiopian Jews are productive members of Israeli society.  The statistics alone prove how well they have integrated:

*  the percentage of employed Ethiopians increased from 50 to 72 percent between   2003 and 2015.

*  the percentage of women in the work force grew from 35 percent to 65 percent in a decade

*  90 percent of Ethiopian Jews have a high-school education, similar to the 93 percent of the overall Jewish population.

Israel is rightfully proud of how it has welcomed the Ethiopian Jews.

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Applebaum is a freelance writer based in San Diego