Y E A R

IN

The Dramatic Rescue
Of Ethiopian Jewry

I

n a 21-hour period in late
May, Israel did what it does
best: rescue Jews in peril.
With one extended swoop,
nearly the entire community
of Ethiopian Jews remaining in
that war-plagued African country
was plucked to safety in a top-
secret operation conducted with
military precision under the
tightest of security nets. Some 34
aircraft, packed with humanity,
made a succession of round trips,
and at one point a total of 28
planes were in the air at the same
time.
"Operation Solomon," as the
airlift from Addis Ababa to Israel
was dubbed, brought some 14,000
Ethiopian Jews to freedom, and a
new life in the Jewish state.
Moreover, this undiluted triumph,
at a time when Israel sorely
needed one, not only succeeded in
saving lives, but buoyed the spirits
of Israelis and reminded the world
of one of the Jewish state's central
tenets: that somewhere on this
earth, there is a haven for a people
who have been persecuted in too
many places and for too many
generations, that this refuge is
open to all Jews, regardless of their
country of origin or their politics
or their color.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir
was correct when he proclaimed,
"This is a great moment for all our
people."
For that moment, concerns about
the financial cost of the operation
and the long and difficult
absorption process that lay ahead,
were set aside as Israelis greeted
the bewildered newcomers with
singing, dancing — and a
spontaneous outpouring of gifts.
Throughout the country, people
brought clothes, furniture, toys,
pots, pans and other items needed
for the newcomers who arrived,
literally, with only the clothes on
their backs.

32

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1991

For the Ethiopian Jews, some
two-thirds of whom were children,
the deliverance resulted in a
dramatic reunion with relatives in
Israel, many of whom had been
rescued during Operation Moses
and Operation Joshua in 1984 and
1985. The journey was not only
from peril to safety, from exile to
home, but also from the 17th
century to the 20th century. Even
their religious practices, marked by
strict adherence to the Torah, set
them apart from other Jews
because the Beta Israel, as they
call themselves, have no rabbinic
tradition. For many reasons, their
absorption, in a country over-
loaded with new immigrants, will
be particularly difficult.
As a community, the Ethiopian
Jews living in Israel have many
single-parent families, high
unemployment, low earnings and
academic achievements, and they
tend to live together in ethnically
segregated neighborhoods. But the
hope is that at least the children
will have an opportunity to become
fully absorbed in Israeli life.
At year's end, a quiet agreement
was reached with Ethiopia's new
leaders to allow some 2,500
Ethiopian Jews left behind at the
time of the latest rescue to be
brought to Israel over the next
several months.
When the last plane arrives, the
rescue of Beta Israel, after
thousands of years of struggle in
Ethiopia, will be complete.
But one of the most enduring
images of the past year will always
be that of the inside of an Israeli
airplane carrying double its
normal capacity of passengers, a
symbol of Israel's particular
burden and triumph: that no
matter the strain and the
difficulty, Israel's commitment to
saving, and absorbing, Jewish lives
is unyielding and unsurpassed. ❑

R E V I E W