Page 28 - Issue 21
P. 28
The plane that Snait planned to board would have
been the seventh in an effort Israel has branded
Operation Tzur Israel. In 2 019, the Knesset resolved
to fulfill a 2015 resolution that promised the
thousands of Jews remaining in Ethiopia would be
allowed to make aliyah. Before the airport closure,
several hundred Jews from Ethiopia made aliyah in
Minister of Aliyah and Absorption Pnina Tamano-Shata on a visit
to Ethiopia as part of delegation leading Operation Tzur Israel.
the fall and winter of 2020.
The Ethiopian Jewish community has encountered
difficulties making aliyah for decades. Over the
years, voices from within the rabbinate, the Israeli
government, and even the Ethiopian Jewish
community in Israel have raised concerns that the
remaining Ethiopian Jews – most of whom were
converted to Christianity by force during the 18th
and 19th centuries – are not “real Jews,” but rather
Christians seeking to escape poverty in Ethiopia.
While similar concerns have been raised regarding
Jews from the former Soviet Union, most have been
