8 | NOVEMBER 25 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

In the meantime, those 
praying for an airlift to Israel 
are facing an increasingly vol-
atile security situation as the 
civil war raging in the country 
closes in on them, while, of 
course, also contending daily 
with abject poverty and serious 
health issues, exacerbated by the 
COVID-19 economic fallout.
So why the delay? Clearly 
there are those in positions of 
power who do not want them 
here at all, arguing that it is not 
Israel’s duty to open its gates 
to non-Jews, nor is it Israel’s 
responsibility to shoulder the 
social and economic burden of 
absorbing them.
A rather spurious position 
under the circumstances. 
Though indeed the prevailing 
rabbinic opinion is that those 
awaiting permission to come are 
for the most part not halachically 
Jewish, the overwhelming major-
ity of the community’s members 
maintain a strictly traditional 
Jewish lifestyle and 95 percent of 
them convert under the auspices 
of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate within 
a year of their aliyah.
Furthermore, this is no lon-
ger an argument that any of us 
should countenance. It is far too 
late, and completely irrelevant, 
to ask if those awaiting aliyah 
in Gondar and Addis Ababa 
are Jewish, because what clearly 
isn’t Jewish is sustaining people’s 
hopes for 20 years, tearing fam-
ilies apart and then reneging on 
promises to reunite them out of 
concern for polluting the Jewish 

gene pool. An argument, by the 
way, never raised in regard to 
the more than half of the immi-
grants from the FSU who have 
arrived over the past few years 
who are also not halachically 
Jewish and who overwhelmingly 
do not convert, but who never-
theless are welcomed — as they 
should be — with open arms.
Besides, anyone not convinced 
that these Ethiopian immigrants 
are bona fide Jews even after 
their conversion need not marry 
them. As to those who are afraid 
that 14,000 more mouths to feed 
and souls to house will break the 
economy of our 9-million strong 
Start-up Nation, well, I’
d suggest 
taking a look at the state bud-
get just passed and calculating 
how very little of the earmarked 
“coalition funds” it would take to 
absorb them.
The ongoing procrastination, 
then, in bringing home the 
remnants of Ethiopian Jewry 
should be a cause for profound 
embarrassment, and their aliyah 
a cause we should all embrace. 
This is not a peripheral paro-
chial issue, but a national moral 
imperative. The plight of those 
left behind is a blight on an 
otherwise stellar chapter in the 
annals of the Zionist enterprise, 
and it is our collective respon-
sibility to right this wrong — as 
one. If Israel’s social fabric 
cannot be woven seamlessly 
of strands of black and white, 
it may well unravel altogether. 
None of us should be prepared 
to tolerate any longer a situa-
tion in which Israel remains in 
the business of tearing families 
apart. 

Dr. David Breakstone recently 
completed a term as deputy chair of 
the executive of the Jewish Agency 
for Israel. He previously served as 
deputy chair of the World Zionist 
Organization and conceptual archi-
tect and founding director of the Herzl 
Museum and Educational Center in 
Jerusalem. 

A woman at the 
demonstration

Yiddish Limericks

Chanukah

We add a lichtl yeder nacht
It’s ein, tzvay, dri, until it’s acht.
Ich hob azay lib the Chanukah food
Dos vareme latkes, they taste so good.
Nu, kum arayn, ess vos ich hob gemacht.

lichtl: little candle
Ein, tzvey, dri: one, two, three
Acht: eight
Ich hob azay lib: I love so much
Dos vareme latkes: the warm latkes
Kum arayn: come in
ess vos ich hob gemacht: eat what I made.

By Rachel Kapen

Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving Day
A shaynem dahnk we’ll say.
Far alle gutte zakhn nisht ein, nisht tzvay.
Far yingalakh un maydalakh, far alle zisse kinderlakh
Nisht nor haunt, but every day.

A shaynem dahnk: a nice thank you
Far alle gutte zakhn: for all the good things 
Nisht ein nisht tzvay: not one, not two 
ingalakh un maydalakh: little boys and little girls 
Far zisse kinderlakh: for sweet children 
Nisht nor haynt: not only today.

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