Falashas - the uncompleted rescue
A year after Operation Moses, those eight thousand Ethiopian Jews who had been rescued from famine-stricken Africa have, to a great degree, adjusted to life in Israel. Their welcome from ordinary Israeli citizens was warm and sincere. With the help of many proffering hands the transition from a kind of stone-age technology to that of modern Israel has been achieved with relative ease. But the conflict that still exists between the orthodox rabbinate and the Beta Israel has not been resolved so readily, nor does it appear likely to be. The orthodox rabbinate still insists that ritual immersion for any Ethiopian Jews contemplating marriage is an absolute necessity to rule out any possibility of illegitimacy. This stunning insult to the Beta Israel brought them a sense of despair about where they truly belonged, and it brought them out into the streets in protest. Previous to that, and still ongoing, are protests related to the plight of those of their brethren still left to languish in Ethiopia. The government of Israel appears to be willing to do little to establish an open diplomatic dialogue with the government of Ethiopia to facilitate the transfer of those remaining Ethiopian Jews to a safe place of refuge.
The Canadian Association for Ethiopian Jewry (CAEJ) has been working diligently on behalf of Ethiopian Jews since their plight became public knowledge, a scant half-decade ago. For Ethiopian Jews, besides sharing the misery of starvation and disease made endemic by the severe drought conditions last year, had to face additional traditional hardships in the Ethiopian community; they have long suffered from anti-Semitism, and until relatively recently were not permitted to own or work the land, while at the same time their places of worship were closed, and their schools and language faced active threats to their survival. CAEJ canvasses fellow Jews to make the plight of the Beta Israel known, and to raise funds to both assist these people in their mountain and farming communities, and help spirit individuals and small groups out of Ethiopia.
In the 1990s, Israel had signed a formal education exchange program with Ethiopia. Selected Ethiopian youths were sent to Israel for education, as teachers. One of these young men also became actively engaged in smuggling his compatriots out of Ethiopia with the considerable assistance of funds raised in Canada. When this became known, Ethiopia reacted by placing a warrant of arrest on the young man's head, and he fled to Israel for sanctuary.
This same young man, Baruch Tegegne, now operates a halfway house at Ramat Gan, and is an Israeli citizen. He also frequently visits Canada, as he is funded through CAEJ. Several weeks ago, Baruch accompanied a CAEJ delegation which presented a petition to Ambassador Stephen Lewis, and to enlist his support for Ethiopian Jews.
On Baruch's return to Israel, however, he soon discovered that the Foreign Office was furious, accusing him of treachery. He was called on the carpet at the Foreign Office, and required to promise no further such actions be undertaken on pain of expulsion. This kind of embarrassment to the government of Israel is not taken lightly. Similarly, Ethiopian Jews in Israel have embarrassed the Israeli government by marching and picketing before the Knesset. They want to know why it is taking so painfully long for their parents, their wives or husbands, their siblings, to join them. They know how desperate the situation is, and are keenly aware that while they are 'safe', the lives of their loved ones hang in the precarious balance of time. They want to know why Israel sits and does nothing. And as far as Israel is concerned, this is a poor way to demonstrate gratitude for Operation Moses. Wait, Israel cautions; wait! We have not forgotten, we will not forget; we are exploring other, diplomatic channels - wait.
Unfortunately, the estimated eight to ten thousand Ethiopian Jews still left in Ethiopia and in camps in the Sudan are comprised of the elderly and infirm, children and young women. To continue to delay is to consign them to a certain death. In Gondar the Beta Israel are caught between the crossfire of insurrection, thanks to Eritrean and Tigrean rebel strongholds nearby. They are so famished that seed for crops is being consumed to stave off starvation. They are ill, in a country not equipped to provide medical care. There have been murderous rampages in Tigre Province where pockets of the Beta Israel have been tortured and killed. There is the everpresent threat of conversion, intermarriage and total assimilation. For these people, there is no time; there is no such thing as patience. "Trust us" is meaningless without evidence of action.
Yet Israel sits, waiting.
If it were left to the average Jew, either from North America or Israel this tortuous dilemma would not exist. How a tight, and virulently-opinionated group of ultra-orthodox Jews from within Israel and without can muster enough pressure on the government of Israel so that this situation can prevail, is something that only official Israel herself knows the answer to. But the results of this happen to be something that all Jews will have to live with.
The former chief rabbis of Israel finally declared themselves satisfied that the Beta Israel were Jews, possibly the descendants of Dan, one of the ten tribes lost during the Assyrian conquest millennia ago, and Menachem Begin earnestly tried to help them and promised official Israeli sponsorship. Little did it seem possible then that the ultra-orthodox could exert such a powerful negative impact.
Although the government of Ethiopia recognizes family reunification as a legitimate exit reason, and many Ethiopian Jews left in that land claim a family member abroad, this is simply not permitted to occur. For all intents and purposes, legal emigration for this people is forbidden. Israel, could, if she truly wished, reach an amicable, quiet solution to this problem. Ethiopia places no value on its Jewish population, but it was badly embarrassed in the aftermath of Operation Moses (and the subsequent much smaller Operation Joshua) when the news media of the Arab world ridiculed it and accused Ethiopia of providing future human fodder for the Israeli armed forces (which then, presumably, would march against Ethiopia's Muslim allies and neighbours).
Pressure by groups such as CAEJ and AAEJ for the Israeli government to attempt to institute a governmentally-sponsored, discreet family reunification program has been ineffective. In fact, Israel, backed by the American and Canadian Jewish Congress and Zionist groups has seemed to do its utmost to undermine even those humanitarian initiatives which AAEJ and CAEJ have engaged upon in Ethiopia. Funds collected through the Congress ostensibly for Ethiopian relief have been said to be used for other purposes. Israel continues to insist that she will act on this matter in her own good time and in the most appropriate avenue. She maintains that while diplomatic communications are currently underway, due to the extreme sensitivity of the situation, no hint of these negotiations can be made public. And to CAEJ and other questioners the official stance remains "trust us".
We cannot give details, Israel's spokespeople in Canada and the United States tell concerned North American groups, but plans are underway, and we must proceed with caution. Yes, we do intend to patriate Jews from Ethiopia, but any public disturbances which you indulge in will create an aura inimical to the outcome which you fervently desire. So - trust us.
It was the outrage of North American Jews, and the pressure placed on Israel in the United States by Jewish groups and the United States Congress (which passed a resolution in support of the transfer of this group of Jews to Israel),forcing Israel in the wake of disastrous news of mass starvation coming out of Africa to launch, with the United States, Operation Moses which rescued some 8,000 Jews from the Sudanese refugee camps where they were starving. That covert operation became public through a news leak at a high Israeli government level, creating a furor in the world press, and forcing the miscarriage of the plan before it was completed. The casual nature of the disclosure by two high-ranking officials on two separate occasions could have been no mere accident. Strange that at that time, during very sensitive operations, Israel herself felt no compulsion to remain discreet.
Continued pressure, however, from both its American ally and Jewish groups, forced Israel to participate in a second rescue mission, Operation Joshua; but this time a scant 800 Jews were rescued. The thousands remaining after the initial aborted rescue had begun to make their weak and weary way back to Gondar, and many had died both in the camps and on their homeward trek. This is the tarnished record that we are cautioned to trust.
Religious sages have long argued the legitimacy of Ethiopian Jewry. "Could people with such unrelievedly black skin be Jewish?" Well, that's clearly racist, so let's re-phrase it. "Could people so long removed from contact with other branches of Jewish populations have remained undilutedly Jewish?" To ensure that the purity of their commitment to Jewishness has not been compromised at some point in the murky past, might it not be expedient to demand of these dark-skinned refugees some symbolic cleansing? Say a mock circumcision (of a people already circumcised) or a mikvah immersion (of a people whose custom long embraced this tradition)?
The accusation once levelled, must be reckoned with and Israel does respond to her accusers. Hotly, the denial springs back, and circumspection is the order of the day. We hear rumblings and mumblings of how difficult it is for people from an culture to be established and assimilated into another, totally alien culture. which really does not answer the question - why? Why are black Ethiopian Jews different?
Israel insists upon its right to take such initiatives as and when it will, when and if it is suited to the greater purpose and good of the State. The State forgets, alas, the premise upon which it was founded. The State forgets, alas, that without its people it has no existence. The State, alas, forgets its desperate responsibility to Jews in need of succour. The State has become in and of and for itself, its perpetuity, and not for its peoples.
We now have thousands of Ethiopian Jews in Israel learning new customs and reconciling their dreams of their biblical Homeland with the reality of what has confronted them. We have now thousands of Jews facing the official demand of a mikvah to 'validate' and 'prove' their Yiddishkeit.
CAEJ has been busy, sending medical teams, drugs, seeds, clothing and other relief supplies to these desperate people. Oxen, seeds and other hard goods offer some hope and the scant wherewithal to exist, but even CAEJ recognizes that this is merely a stop-gap measure. They have stepped up their lobbying, vainly trying to persuade Israel. And still, to no avail.
The scope of the problem inherent in this neglected tribe's continued existence in its bitter homeland is such that it can only be handled and solved by direct government action to save this endangered people.
Don't we care?
****************************************************
"Time is against us. Every year, every month, every day we lose our young people ... if the Jewish people ... do not act quickly to help us come to Israel, then God forbid ... we might disappear." Yona Bogali (a leader of the Ethiopian Jewish community)
c. 1986 Rita Rosenfeld
published in Outlook, Vol.24, No.3
Update:
During the Ethiopian civil war, about 10,000 Falashas from the Gondar region of Ethiopia were airlifted (Sept., 1984-Mar., 1985) to Israel. A second airlift of more than 14,000 occurred in May, 1991. Ethiopia subsequently agreed to permit Israel to evacuate those still remaining, and by 1999 the last remaining practicing Jews, from the Quara area of Ethiopia, were flown to Israel, bringing the total there to over 70,000. About 26,000 members of the Falash Mura seeking to immigrate to Israel remained. Questions concerning the faith and sincerity of these families by Israeli officials resulted in the slow processing of their immigration requests. Roughly a third of the group ultimately immigrated before the Israel immigration program ended in Aug., 2008. From Encyclopedia.com
No comments:
Post a Comment