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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