BACKGROUND I THE ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA Metropolitan Detroit District Who Is A Jew' A Sticky Issue For Ethiopians THE MOST EAGERLY AWAITED MUSICAL EVENT OF THE FALL SEASON PLAN NOW TO ATTEND: Sunday, November 4, 1990, 7:30 p.m. Masonic Temple Auditorium FOR RESERVATIONS PHONE 569-1515 or write to the ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA Zionist Cultural Center 18451 W. 10 Mile Road, Southfield, MI 48075 Rabbi M. Robert Syme, President Metro Detroit District Sidney Silverman, National President, ZOA O •41 'NM Jewish Community Centers Youth Games General Membership Promotion Save Up To $125 • • • • Pools Tracks Courts Reduced Rates on Classes & Programming August 1 - September 15 down, balance in 90 days must not have been a member in past year 1 /2 For more information contact membership 661-1000, ext. 265 Pg Imp 42 FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 1990 A MasterCard V Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (JPFS) — The Jewish Agen- cy is cooperating with the E- thiopian government in a program to rehabilitate Christian Ethiopians of Jew- ish descent, according to Israeli diplomatic sources here. The program, which "peace activist" Abie Nathan is said to have offered to help fund, will in- volve the resettlement of up to 2,000 Christians of Jewish origin in areas near their original villages. Several thousand mem- bers of formerly Jewish families are now in Addis Ababa, where they arrived in the hope of being allowed to go to Israel. Having sold their property and livestock in order to make the journey from their villages in the north, they are now stranded in Addis Ababa, after having learned that they do not qualify for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. The question of their sta- tus is one of the stickiest problems that Israeli offi- cials here have faced during the last few months. Israelis, Ethiopians, and American volunteers have been working desperately since May in an effort to pro- cess and sustain the 15,000 Jews who have poured into Addis seeking to rejoin their families in Israel. Israeli. and Jewish Agency officials have been refusing to include Christianized Jews in some of their assis- tance programs (medical treatment is one exception), which are meant for families waiting for their requests to emigrate to be processed by the Ethiopian government. Israeli officials fear that if monetary grants are extend- ed to the Christians of Jew- ish origin already staying in the capital, thousands more would arrive from their villages. According to some estimates, at least 50,000 E- thiopian Christians can le- gitimately claim recent Jew- ish descent. In a 1960s decision, the Israel High Court ruled that Jews who had chosen to practice a different religion were not eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. Beyond this legal restriction, Israeli govern- ment officials suspect that the Ethiopian government would be unhappy if the Israeli presence here at- tracted another major influx of Ethiopian villagers to Addis. While the Ethiopian government has agreed to permit Ethiopian Jews to re- join their families in Israel, they were not pleased when the trickle of Jews arriving here significantly increased last May. Most Ethiopian Jews feel strongly that the Israel government should allow the Christians of Jewish descent to immigrate. "They are our blood," an Ethiopian Jewish elder said. "They are part of us." For Ethiopian Jews, fami- ly is of central importance, "We are tough during the day, but we cry at night." Micha Feldman and their sense of familial ties extends back several generations. Many of the Christianized Ethiopian Jews were converted to Christianity only 20 or 30 years ago. Ethiopian Jews also point out that their Christian relatives converted under conditions of extreme duress. Jews were not allow- ed to own land in Ethiopia until the socialist revolution in 1974. For some villagers, conversion was the price they had to pay for economic survival, which for the im- poverished Jews often meant physical survival as well. In small villages in the more remote areas of nor- thern Ethiopia, Jews may have converted out of a need to form mutual defense pacts with their Christian neighbors. Isolated Jewish communities were constant- ly vulnerable to physical at- tacks in Ethiopia as elsewhere. Ethiopian Jews claim that they maintained close rela- tions with their Christian relatives even after they had converted. "It is true that we did not marry their chil- dren," they said repeatedly, "but they did not marry [mainstream] Ethiopian Christians either. They married only among them- selves, because they wanted to preserve their Jewish identity and blood." The Christian Jews gave up most Jewish practices — they cooked on Shabbat and ate non-kosher meat. "But when a Jew had to flee from