Avi Bram

Immigration challenges

Six-year-old Biniyam Tesfahun with his family shortly before being transported to Israel for heart surgery. (photo by Basleel Tadesse)

Last month, while Israel was still in lockdown, an urgent flight from Ethiopia arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport. The airport was closed and incoming commercial flights had been banned in an effort to contain coronavirus infection rates. The privately chartered plane, sponsored by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, taxied onto the tarmac in the early hours of Friday, Feb. 12, carrying some 296 Ethiopian Jewish olim and six children in need of heart surgery.

One of those children was Biniyam Tesfahun, a 6-year-old Ethiopian-Jewish descendant who had not been granted aliyah by Israel. Doctors had discovered a rare congenital defect a month earlier that had produced a hole in his heart. The Israeli nonprofit Save a Child’s Heart had secured seats on the plane for five Ethiopian children and there was room for one more. But about a week before the flight was to depart, the family received word that the Ministry of the Interior had denied a visa.

Word spread quickly within the Ethiopian community in Israel.

Israelis began posting the news on Facebook sites, anguished that the child could die without treatment. Readers in the United States, Britain and Ethiopia stepped in to write articles and post pictures calling for the government to grant aliyah for the little boy and his family.

In no time, the news reached the office of the minister of immigration and absorption, Pnina Tamano-Shata, who insisted the surgery was an emergency and urged the Ministry of Interior to reconsider its position. A day before the flight was to take off, Biniyam’s parents were told the request was approved. The boy and his family would be issued a 10-day permit for medical treatment in Israel.

“It was all very dramatic,” said Avi Bram, who works for the Gondar, Ethiopia-based aid organization Meketa and helped coordinate the family’s transport to the airport. “None of the family is on the aliyah list, and they have not been given any permission to stay,” but the airlift was finally allowed.

Biniyam’s story, which has now traveled around the globe and been published in multiple languages, is a testament to the bond between the 150,000 members of Israel’s Ethiopian community, the Beta Israel, and the roughly 7,000 descendants still living in Ethiopia. It’s a connection, said Uri Perednik, that dominates the consciousness of many Ethiopian-Israelis on a daily basis and impacts their lives. Perednik serves as the chair for the Struggle for Aliyah for Ethiopian Jewry (SAEJ), a nonprofit organization based in Jerusalem that advocates for the repatriation of the Beta Israel to the Jewish homeland.

Perednik said what happens to the family members in Ethiopia economically and socially continues to have a direct impact on the community in Israel. He added that some of the Beta Israel have been waiting decades to be reunited with their family members. “They are torn between Ethiopia and Israel,” he said. “They send half of their salaries to Ethiopia for their families there.”

The coronavirus pandemic shutdown last year and the growing civil unrest in Ethiopia have only exacerbated concerns. “Now people also have smaller salaries or no salaries because of the COVID economic situation in Israel. So it is very tough on the families,” he added.

Ethiopian-Israelis continue to be among the lowest-paid workers in the country. A study by a media outlet (2018) found that almost 70% of Ethiopian-Israelis work junior positions to cover their household expenses, in a country that has the seventh-highest cost of living in the world (2019). For new arrivals from Ethiopia, that economic disparity can be a Catch-22, as they find they are now the major breadwinners for two entirely separate households.

Absorption challenges

Tamano-Shata, who was appointed in 2020 to direct the country’s immigration and absorption programs, says improving economic opportunities for immigrants starts with equipping them with better tools. Tamano-Shata, who arrived in Israel at the age of 3 during the 1980s Operation Solomon airlift, is the first Ethiopian-born woman to hold a Knesset seat. She understands well the challenges that Ethiopian Jews face as new citizens.

Over the past year, her ministry has restructured several core services of the country’s immigration program. She has expanded Hebrew language study for immigrants from one-and-a-half years to 10 years to help new citizens gain competency in Hebrew. Language barriers, said Tamano-Shata, are “shared [by] all olim from all over the world – those who speak English, Amharic, French, Russian, Portuguese and more.” Studies in Israel have shown that language fluency often affects employment opportunities.

Tamano-Shata has also drafted a five-year plan for “optimal integration” of new olim and targeted benefits, tax breaks and housing assistance that can help new immigrants get started when they begin looking for a new home.

photo - Minister of Immigration and Absorption Pnina Tamano-Shata, second from the right, greets Ethiopian olim as they arrive in Israel. In November 2020, Tamano-Shata announced the planned aliyah of 2,000 olim from Ethiopia, and her ministry recently reached that target — Minister of Immigration and Absorption Pnina Tamano-Shata, second from the right, greets Ethiopian olim as they arrive in Israel. In November 2020, Tamano-Shata announced the planned aliyah of 2,000 olim from Ethiopia, and her ministry recently reached that target. *(photo by Naga Malasa/Ministry of Aliyah and Integration)*

Perednik said the government has been trying for years to address immigrant housing shortages, which are exacerbated by a national housing crisis. “There have been a few housing programs by the government that were supposed to help young Ethiopian families move to better houses,” Perednik said, but “nothing has really changed.” There is hope that Tamano-Shata’s efforts will finally help the situation.

In 2016, Tamano-Shata gained notoriety as a junior Knesset member for calling attention to discrimination against Ethiopian-Israelis. Her calls led to changes to the way racial discrimination is addressed within the halls of the Israeli government. They helped open a national dialogue about racial profiling and discrimination, problems that Perednik said still continue today.

Jewish identity in Israel

Israeli author Rabbi Menachem Waldman agrees that racism is a problem in Israel. In his opinion, the greatest obstacle that the Beta Israel face is how they are perceived by other Israelis. Waldman is the author of 10 books on Ethiopian Jewry. At present, he serves jointly as the manager of Israel’s absorption program and rabbi for the Jewish communities in Ethiopia.

Waldman said the main obstacle that Ethiopian-Israelis continue to face is “their Jewish identity and their colour.” He said, even though rabbis ruled decades ago that the Beta Israel were Jewish and should be allowed to immigrate as Jews, Ethiopian-Israeli citizens continue to face scrutiny and disbelief that they are “100% Jewish.”

The more recent immigrants were required to undergo conversion as a condition of aliyah and are frequently subjected to additional scrutiny when they apply for marriage. Waldman said he believes this type of stereotyping is harmful to new immigrants. “It [leads] to racism,” he said.

Ethiopian-Israelis face economic challenges, he added, but, still, in his view, it is the constant questions about the authenticity of their Jewish identity that pose the greatest risk. “If he is a strong Jew, like other Israelis, he can overcome the difficulties,” said Waldman. “But, if he [is led to believe] that because he is Black he isn’t like other [Israelis] … it [can sow doubt] in his life in Israel.”

Tamano-Shata’s proposed changes to the immigration and absorption programs take some of these concerns into consideration. She said the government continues to make amendments to the ulpan program, which aids in the successful integration of new immigrants. She also advocates that “education, [innovation] and role models are undoubtedly significant and important tools” when it comes to overcoming prejudice.

There have been recent advances when it comes to a broader acceptance of Beta Israel traditions and customs, which generally date back to pre-talmudic times and are not widely understood by many Israelis. In 2008, the Sigd festival was formally recognized as a national holiday. While the festival has changed dramatically since its early days in Ethiopia, there are signs of a growing appreciation of the holiday in Israel, which occurs 50 days after Yom Kippur. According to Beta Israel beliefs, it is the date when God was first revealed to Moses.

In 2020, then-deputy minister Gadi Yevarkan proposed that Sigd should become an integral part of Israeli Rosh Hashanah celebrations, and celebrated by all Jews. The yearly attendance of the festival by the prime minister and other dignitaries has helped publicize the significance of the holiday and, in turn, encourage better acceptance of the Beta Israel and their traditions in the Jewish homeland.

Jan Lee’s articles, op-eds and blog posts have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, Times of Israel and Baltimore Jewish Times, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.

Ethiopians’ long road home

Israel’s Operation Tzur Israel, bringing olim from Ethiopia to Israel, began Dec. 3. (photo by Kassaw Molla)

It’s been almost 40 years since Israel coordinated the first airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1984. The Beta Israel people, a citizenry of more than 100,000 at the time, were facing starvation in the midst of Ethiopia’s civil war. By the end of Operation Moses, some seven weeks and 30 clandestine flights later, more than 8,000 men, women and children had been airlifted to Israel. Since that time, Israel has rescued more than 30,000 Beta Israel from northern and central Ethiopia.

The impetus for saving Ethiopia’s fractured and often-persecuted Jewish populations goes back to 1921. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the then-Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, made an appeal for Jews to rescue the “holy souls of the House of Israel” from “extinction and contamination” in Ethiopia. His urging would be repeated by numerous other rabbis, including a former Sephardi chief rabbi, the late Ovadia Yosef, who, five decades later, declared the population eligible for aliyah to Israel. Nonetheless, there are thousands of Ethiopian families still waiting for their turn to move to the Jewish homeland.

Descendants of Beta Israel

The Jewish enclaves of Gondar City and the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa are home to the descendants of those first refugees of the 1980s and 1990s: grandchildren and great-grandchildren, fathers, mothers and children who were born while their parents waited for Israel to fulfil its stated promise to provide a new home. Their primitive living conditions, say aid workers, are often the product of circumstance. In a 2014 interview, Rabbi Sybil Sheridan (now Romain), a co-founder of the aid organization Meketa, told me that the Beta Israel moved to Gondar City from their ancestral farmlands decades ago due to persecution, with the implicit understanding that their next home would be in Israel.

“They gave up their things, they gave up their jobs, they left thinking they would actually be on the next plane,” Sheridan said. For many, those years of waiting for the next plane have resulted in a week-to-week existence, hinged on the assurances of a future that will reunite them with their now-Israeli families.

In 2003, the Israeli government announced that 20,000 Jews would be allowed to move to Israel, but that plan was later dropped when the Ethiopian government objected to the mass emigration. In 2015, when it became evident that Jewish populations were still at risk from persecution, the Knesset declared it would rescue 9,000 Ethiopian Jews, and would complete the airlifts by 2020. Fewer than 1,000 individuals have been admitted during that time.

In October 2020, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced that 2,000 olim would be airlifted to Israel by the end of 2020. The deadline for Operation Tzur Israel (Rock of Israel) has been extended to the end of January 2021, and is gradually being fulfilled. Last month, roughly 700 olim arrived from Gondar and Addis Ababa. Another two airlifts this month have brought the total to roughly 1,500.

photo - Israel’s Operation Tzur Israel has brought approximately 1,500 Ethiopians to Israel so far — Israel’s Operation Tzur Israel has brought approximately 1,500 Ethiopians to Israel so far. *(photo by Noga Melsa/Ministry of Absorption and Immigration)*

Family members and aid groups in both countries say the 2,000-person limit is not enough. Those waiting in Israel to see their relatives say they are worried for their families’ safety with the risk of civil war and the coronavirus pandemic. Aid organizations argue that the country’s economic shutdown in March is still causing widespread unemployment. While Meketa and Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry (SSEJ), two aid groups that work to support the communities, have been shipping in food to the community synagogues, they warn that families are still at risk from famine.

Avi Bram, a trustee for Meketa, said conditions in Gondar are worrisome. “The community is in a very bad situation. Many, not all, but many are in a very, very poor and unsettled standard of living, especially now because of the pandemic.”

Bram said the original mandate of Meketa, which was established in 2013, was to reinforce independence for the community through training, conversational Hebrew classes and small business micro-loans. It was never designed to be a supplemental food program. But the aid is critical at this time. “It fills a humanitarian need,” he said.

SSEJ representative Jeremy Feit said the organization does what it can to support impoverished members of the Addis Ababa community. It arranges medical assistance for children under 5 and seniors, and hot meals for malnourished children and pregnant and nursing mothers.

“The end goal of the work is to limit needless suffering and deaths, while urging Israel to evaluate their claims and allow those eligible to make aliyah as soon as possible,” said Feit.

photo - Aid groups Meketa and Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry provide emergency food to Ethiopian Jewish communities waiting for aliyah — Aid groups Meketa and Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry provide emergency food to Ethiopian Jewish communities waiting for aliyah. *(photo from Meketa)*

Mengistu (no last name given), who lives in Ethiopia and has relatives in Israel from a previous aliyah, said the communities are facing increasing danger. “On one side, there’s coronavirus,” said Mengistu. On [another] side there’s the war,” coupled with endemic unemployment and famine.

According to Mengistu, the changing criteria for airlifts are only inciting more stress at home.

“[They] said they would bring 2,000 people at the end of this year,” Mengistu said. “We don’t know if they applied their decision [because] every time they decide [on a quota], they change it.

“So, who are they going to bring? Are they going to bring children? Are they going to [separate] brothers and sisters and leave [some] with their parents? Two thousand people, it’s nothing,” Mengistu said, “compared to the [actual number of] the people still in Ethiopia.”

A stalwart proponent

In May of last year, Pnina Tamano-Shata was appointed minister of absorption and immigration by the Likud-Blue and White coalition. The 38-year-old Ethiopian-born Israeli came with life experiences that made her an ideal candidate for the position. She and her family had immigrated during the 1980s rescue Operation Moses, during which an estimated 4,000 refugees died en route. She knows firsthand the conditions that today’s Ethiopian Jewish communities are forced to endure while they wait for aliyah.

She also isn’t bashful in her support for immigrant rights or services. In October, she negotiated an agreement with the Israeli nonprofit Shavei Israel to airlift approximately 700 Bnei Menashe Jews from North India. As part of the agreement, Shavei Israel would cover all transportation costs. The new immigrants will quarantine at a moshav before settling into their new homes and reuniting with their families.

photo - Israel’s Minister of Absorption and Immigration Pnina Tamano-Shata — Israel’s Minister of Absorption and Immigration Pnina Tamano-Shata is the first Ethiopian-born woman to hold a Knesset seat. *(photo from Ministry of Absorption and Immigration)*

As well, she has put forth a vision and a budget for how to finally resolve the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia.

In August, Tamano-Shata proposed a plan that would allow, in her words, for Israel to “close the camps” in Gondar and Addis Ababa. Approximately 4,000 of 8,000 olim would be airlifted to Israel by year-end and the rest would follow by 2023. The NIS 1.3 billion ($380 million US at the time) proposal received support from all sides but was never adopted. The Netanyahu government later endorsed a limit of 2,000 by Dec. 31, with assurances of more immigrants at a later date.

Still, Tamano-Shata says she is committed to seeing the aliyah to its end. “[To] my dismay, we were unable to approve the national budget which was supposed to include the outline for the aliyah of those remaining in Ethiopia,” Tamano-Shata told the Jewish Independent in a recent email interview. “However, this does not prevent me from continuing to push for a comprehensive solution for this issue.”

To Mengistu, like many in Ethiopia’s Jewish enclaves, Tamano-Shata’s words are a hopeful sign. “Because now the help for the aliyah is Pnina,” said Mengistu. “She’s one of us. So maybe she will understand the situation and the [reason for] the protests [in Israel.] Maybe things will change.”

With Israel now set to face a fourth election in just two years, Tamano-Shata’s future as the next minister of absorption and immigration is yet to be determined, but her motivation to see the end of what is arguably Israel’s greatest humanitarian crisis remains firm. In 2016, the then-new minister was recognized by humanitarian activist Martin Luther King III for her efforts to establish better protections for Ethiopian immigrants in Israel. Last year, she toured the Addis Ababa enclave and handed out baskets of food to residents. She said she is committed to the rights of Israel’s olim, “despite the policies of lockdowns, shutting of flights and closing of the skies that exists in many countries due to COVID-19.”

At this point, all eyes are on Tamano-Shata. Few doubt that she will meet her stated commitment of 2,000 olim by Jan. 31. But can she, as well, engender better trust between Israel and those waiting for aliyah?

In a recent interview for the podcast One Jewish Family, Ambanesh Biru, former chair of the Gondar Jewish community, summarized the views of a hopeful community that knows its safety may rest in the Israeli government’s understanding of their predicament.

Don’t forget about the Ethiopian Jewish community, said Biru, “especially those [anticipating] aliyah. Because all of the Jews in Gondar and Addis Ababa came from villages expecting they would be going to Israel right away, not to live in Gondar [for the rest of their lives]. So, if anybody comes and talks about aliyah from Israel, please do your best [to follow through].”

Readers can learn more about the Gondar and Addis Ababa communities at meketa.org.uk, ssej.org and jewishagency.org/ethiopian-aliyah-explained.

Jan Lee’s articles and blog posts have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, Times of Israel, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.