With the final planeload of Ethiopian immigrants scheduled to land in Israel next month, advocates of Falash Mura aliyah are hoping a last-ditch intervention by Israel’s prime minister will extend immigration rights to thousands more.
Former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Meir Shamgar held a closed-door meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in late May in a bid to convince Olmert to order immediate screening of an additional 8,500 to 8,700 Ethiopians for immigration eligibility.
Also, a coalition of advocates is petitioning Knesset (Parliament) members, rallying American Jews and filing lawsuits to force Israel to take in thousands more Ethiopian immigrants.
“Experience teaches us that when the Israeli government says no, when we, the members of the community, do not give up, we prevail,” said Avraham Neguise, an Ethiopian aliyah advocate and director of South Wing to Zion, an Ethiopian-Israeli group.
“There are 8,700 Jews left behind,” said Neguise. “I hope that the prime minister will check this situation and make the right decisions, and not make another mistake.”
The campaign, launched several months ago, has taken on renewed urgency after several court rulings rejecting the advocates’ petitions, the termination of United Jewish Communities funding of aid activities in Ethiopia and the imminence of the planned end of mass Ethiopian aliyah.
With more than 17,000 Ethiopian immigrants having come to Israel since Ariel Sharon’s government decided to expand mass aliyah from the country in 2003, the aliyah appears finally to be at its end.
Israel’s Interior Ministry, which was responsible for verifying who was eligible for immigration, several months ago finished going through a list of potential Ethiopian immigrants dating to 1999. That list is now closed, according to ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad.
The UJC announced recently it had exhausted the $71 million it had raised and was ceasing its funding in Ethiopia. The national arm of the North American network of local Jewish federations had pledged $100 million to Ethiopian immigration and absorption as part of Operation Promise.
The Jewish Agency for Israel, which coordinates the Ethiopians’ immigration and absorption, anticipates the final flight of Ethiopian immigrants will arrive in Israel in early July.
But the coalition of activists pressing for additional Falash Mura aliyah says there are another 8,500 or so Ethiopians that the government should screen for eligibility.
The activists say these were people on the 1999 list who remained in their rural villages rather than migrating to the Ethiopian cities of Gondar and Addis Ababa, where most petitioners congregated while Israel reviewed their cases and where they received aid.
Israeli courts have rejected this argument. They ruled that the government fulfilled its commitments dating back to the 2003 government decision and that the 8,500 Ethiopians represent a new group.
Nevertheless, the coalition of activists is pressing on with its campaign, which began last December.
“I know people have concerns that there’s no end to this, that this is an indefinite extension, that they’re not really Jews,” said Irwin Cotler, a former Canadian justice minister and an advocate for Ethiopian aliyah.
“Our entire position rests on two points: One, that there’s a finite, definite group of 8,500,” he said. “Two, we’re not saying the 8,500 should be brought. We’re saying the 8,500 have a right to have their eligibility determined according to law.”
At the heart of the controversy over Ethiopian immigration is the fear that mass aliyah will continue without end. Israeli officials declared Ethiopian aliyah over on several previous occasions, only to begin it anew after public campaigns for its extension.
In 2003, the government decided to verify eligibility of an additional group of Ethiopians, subsequently capping the number. The decision reflected desire to bring Ethiopians with Jewish roots to the Jewish homeland and to limit immigrants to those with legitimate Jewish links.
Unlike the Ethiopians who came to Israel in Operations Moses and Solomon in 1984 and 1991, respectively, the Falash Mura were not practicing Jews until recently.
That has made it difficult to ascertain their claims of links — either by heritage or marriage — to Ethiopians of Jewish ancestry whose progenitors converted to Christianity more than a century ago to escape economic and social discrimination.
To be eligible for immigration, the Ethiopians must demonstrate that they have close kin in Israel and a maternal connection to a Jewish line — or are married to someone who has. The Falash Mura must also agree to embrace Judaism as a condition of their aliyah.
Some observers, including veteran Ethiopian immigrants, have warned that Ethiopians with dubious claims to Jewish ancestry are exploiting the system to escape Africa’s desperate poverty.
But advocates of the Falash Mura say that except for a few isolated cases, those coming to Israel have legitimate Jewish links.
Meanwhile, Jewish aid funding to Ethiopia is drying up. The North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry, which funds aid and education in Ethiopia, says it will stay the course, but its sponsors are pulling out.
“The truth is, we just don’t have the money,” said Jim Lodge, vice president of the Israel and Overseas division at UJC, one of NACOEJ’s main sponsors.
NACOEJ’s director of operations, Orlee Guttman, said the group will rely on grass-roots support if necessary.
As for the uncertain future, the Ethiopian director of the aid compounds in Gondar, Getu Zemene, shrugs. “We will continue what we are doing,” he told JTA.
JTA correspondent Ron Csillag contributed to this report from Gondar.
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