NEWS I
Dealwith
the
Import
Specialists
Ethiopian Jewry Groups
Cautiously Optimistic
San Francisco (JTA) —
Israeli officials and groups
working on behalf of Ethio-
pian Jews are now cautious-
ly optimistic that Jewish
emigration from Ethiopia
will return to the relatively
high levels seen at the
beginning of the year.
"We are beginning to see a
breakthrough on the very
sad and dramatic story of E-
thiopian Jews," Simcha
Dinitz, chairman of the Ex-
ecutive of the Jewish Agency
for Israel, told delegates at-
tending the Council of Jew-
ish Federations General
Assembly here last week.
He pledged Israel would
use "every device available"
to bring Ethiopian Jews to
Israel.
Mr. Dinitz rep6rted that
two planeloads carrying ap-
proximately 100 Jews each
arrived in Israel this month,
and that the total could
reach 500 by the end of
November.
That is a big increase from
October, when only 58 arriv-
ed.
Emigration has been slow
since late June, when the
flow of Ethiopian Jews,
which had averaged 500 a
month for most of the year,
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was suddenly cut to a trickle
by the mercurial Ethiopian
government.
Nobody knows how many
Jews are left in Ethiopia.
But at least 20,000 have
made their way from their
homes in the northern prov-
ince of Gondar to the capital
city of Addis Ababa, hoping
to receive permission to join
family members already in
Israel.
They live in makeshift
housing amid crime, un-
sanitary conditions and
rampant disease. Many have
died after contracting such
common, treatable illnesses
as tuberculosis, pneumonia
and measles. In an effort to
address this situation, the
American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee, an
international relief agency
supported by the United
Jewish Appeal, set up a
medical clinic in Addis
Ababa in August, staffed by
doctors and nurses from the
United States, Israel and E-
thiopia.
Already, the improved
medical care has reduced the
mortality rate from 40
deaths in July to 17 in Oc-
tober.
It.
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Jerusalem (JTA) — A
potential powder keg was lit
last week in Moscow by the
Israeli minister of absorp-
tion, Yitzhak Peretz, who
claimed that 30 to 35 percent
of Soviet immigrants coming
to Israel are not Jewish.
"I am in shock," the min-
ister said, according to a
report Nov. 15 by Yediot
Achronot's Moscow cor-
respondent Amnon
Kapelyuk.
Following a visit to the
Israeli Consulate in the
Soviet capital, Mr. Peretz
said the problem neces-
sitates a change in the Law
of Return, which says any
Jew is entitled to Israeli
citizenship.
Soviet Jews have heavily
intermarried over the 70
years of Communist rule and
are frequently the offspring
of non-Jewish mothers,
which makes them non-Jews
as defined by the Israeli rab-
binate and Jewish tradition
apart from the Reform
movement.
The Reform movement ac-
cepts as Jews the children of
Jewish fathers and non-
Jewish mothers, but this not
accepted in Israel.
Mr. Peretz has long cham-
pioned changing the Law of
Return to say that a Jew is
one born of a Jewish mother
or converted according to
halacha, or Jewish law.
An independent member of
the present Likud-led
government, Mr. Peretz quit
the Orthodox Shas party last
year.
As interior minister in the
previous Likud-Labor unity
government, he defied
Israel's High Court of
Justice by refusing to
register as Jewish an
American immigrant con-
verted by a Reform rabbi.
But now Mr. Peretz is
complaining that not only
are non-Jewish members of
Soviet immigrant families
gaining entry to Israel, but
people with no family con-
nections whatever to Jews,
His statements drew angry
reactions from Labor
Knesset Members Arieh
(Lova) Eliav and Ya'acov
Tsur.