6 | NOVEMBER 25 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

H

ow is it that what should 
be a Jewish cause par 
excellence has been 
reduced to a parochial story of 
seemingly marginal interest to 
the Israeli public?
Some back-
ground. In 2013, 
Israel declared 
that it had fulfilled 
its historic mis-
sion of bringing 
the entirety of 
Ethiopian Jewry 
to Israel. In ret-
rospect, it turns out that that 
declaration referred only to those 
whose Jewish lineage was mater-
nal. It did not take into account 
those of patrilineal descent, 
nor the thousands whose close 
relatives were already here but 
who had inexplicably been aban-
doned.
Two years later, in response to 

appeals based on humanitarian 
considerations, the Israeli gov-
ernment decided that it would 
allow all those of Jewish ancestry 
to be brought to Israel if they a) 
had first-degree family in Israel 
requesting their reunification, b) 
had arrived in Gondar or Addis 
Ababa prior to 2010, c) appeared 
on the community’s membership 
list and d) declared their inten-

tion to convert to Judaism.
That 2015 decision has yet to 
be fulfilled, though it included 
the stipulation that its imple-
mentation was to begin within 
four months and completed 
within five years. In fact, the first 
of the new immigrants would 
only arrive in 2017, and, in the 
intervening years, only a fraction 
of those supposedly eligible to 

make aliyah have actually been 
allowed to come.
As the Council of Ethiopian 
Kesim and Rabbis in Israel, the 
local leadership of the commu-
nity in Ethiopia and prominent 
activists for the cause all estimate 
that there are another 14,000 
who meet the criteria for ali-
yah already approved, even the 
recent government resolution to 
expedite the arrival of an addi-
tional 5,000 would leave many 
more than that still stranded. 
 In addition to which, it 
appears that no date has yet 
been set for the beginning of the 
operation, nor any plan yet in 
place for its execution. Hence the 
demonstration. Given the broken 
promises of past governments, 
there is understandable — even 
if not justified — suspicion 
regarding the reliability of this 
one. 

essay
You Really Should Have Been There 

After 20 years of false hope for those awaiting aliyah in Ethiopia; we must 
make their cause our cause, stop standing on ceremony and bring them home.

Dr. David 
Breakstone 

The author at the 
demonstration for 
Ethiopian Jewry.

1942 - 2021

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