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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