JERUSALEM: Hundreds of Ethiopian Jews call on Israeli government to airlift the remaining community in Africa

Record ID: 455363

  • Title: JERUSALEM: Hundreds of Ethiopian Jews call on Israeli government to airlift the remaining community in Africa
  • Date: 20th August 2008
  • Summary: MORE OF DEMONSTRATION
  • Embargoed: 4th September 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVAAU211QM8MQL6SEM4JAXFIRLH8
  • Story Text: Hundreds of Ethiopian Jews held a protest in Jerusalem on Sunday (August 17) over a government decision to cease immigration of the remaining community in Ethiopia.
    Crowds of protesters marched to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office, holding posters and photographs of relatives back in Ethiopia.
    Calling on the government to airlift approximately 8,700 people remaining in Gondar, Ethiopia, protesters waved banners reading 'Bring them home!' Tens of thousands of practising Ethiopian Jews or Falashas, meaning "outsiders" in Ethiopia's Amharic language, were airlifted to Israel in dramatic, top-secret operations in the 1980s and 1990s after a rabbinical ruling said that they were direct descendants of the biblical Jewish Dan tribe.
    In 1998 the Falashas had been brought to the Jewish state, however a new ruling determined those who have immediate relatives in Israel could immigrate, but it stopped short of recognising them under the 'law of return' which gives Israeli citizenship to any Jew from anywhere in the world.
    Israel has now finalised a list of relatives that will be allowed in, leaving thousands behind in Gondar's sprawling camp and surrounding villages.
    Chairman of the Ethiopian Coalition in Israel, Avraham Negosse said due to Israel's decision families had been separated.
    "We are demonstrating here against the government's decision to stop the immigration, Jewish immigration from Ethiopia. We are calling to the government not to stop the Jewish immigration from Ethiopia and let families be reunited, mothers, children, brothers and sisters are divided and stopping the Aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel) at this moment when families are separated is a crime against Zionism," he said.
    Israeli border policemen confronted protesters at a main Jerusalem junction, preventing them from marching any further. At least a handful of protesters were nailed to the ground and detained.
    Many people in Gondar's camps have waited for years in cramped mud shacks with no running water or basic sanitation, relying on food donations to survive.
    Israel has criticised volunteer groups and charities that have supported the camp, saying false hopes had been raised in thousands of Ethiopians -- many of whom have no connection with the Falashas.
    The Falashas have been an isolated group ever since they emerged in the region in pre-Christian times.
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