From the Liveblog of
Monday, August 14, 2023
No extraction mission planned for Ethiopians with Jewish roots, minister says
Cnaan Lidor is The Times of Israel's Jewish World reporter
Aliyah and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer says there is no extraction mission being planned out of Ethiopia’s Gondar for locals who say they have Jewish roots.
Sofer says this, according to the Ynet news site, in a meeting with activists working to increase immigration quotas from Ethiopia following their protest rally yesterday in Jerusalem, in which hundreds of Israelis of Ethiopian descent demanded that more people be let into Israel from the African country in light of fighting between rival factions in its northern provinces.
“Today proves that we are not brethren,” the Struggle to Bring the Jews of Ethiopia, an unofficial alliance of activists, says in a statement following the meeting. “Those who airlifted 200 Israelis out of Ethiopia while leaving thousands in Gondar, at the center of the inferno of war, are directly responsible for their fates.”
Last week, Israel extracted 204 individuals that the government say are either Israelis or eligible to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return for Jews and their relatives.
Ethiopia has thousands of people who say they have Jewish roots but are not eligible to immigrate under that law. That group, known as the Falash Mura, is descended from Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity under duress in the 19th century.
The Falash Mura stayed behind in Ethiopia as Israel extracted in the 1990s and 1980s what is widely seen as the main and oldest Jewish presence in Ethiopia, known as Beta Israel. In 1992, Beta Israel Ethiopians living in Israel began lobbying for their Falash Mura relatives who had stayed behind to be allowed to immigrate.
In a statement about Sofer’s meeting, his office sidesteps the issue by referring only to immigration under the Law of Return.
“Any further claim of eligibility to make aliyah to Israel under the Law of Return will be thoroughly checked and handled,” his office says. Sofer heard the issues raised by the activists for Falash Muraa immigration “and replied that the subject is being examined seriously and will be treated in an orderly fashion,” Sofer’s statement says.
