Assisting Ethiopian Jews in Israel--And in Ethiopia

What can you get your nieces and nephews for the 8th night of Chanukah--for $18? A board game? A couple of action figures? Or a month's worth of nutritious lunches for an Ethiopian child in Israel.

Celebrate the last night of Chanukah by giving a very special gift of tzedakah to a child, grandchild, niece, nephew or friend. When you give your $18 Eighth Night gift to NACOEJ, you honor a special child and help an Ethiopian child in Israel grow stronger and healthier.

"Last year, our special Eighth Night of Chanukah gift program fed almost 8000 nourishing meals to Ethiopian school children in Israel, " says Barbara Ribakove Gordon, Executive Director of the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry (NACOEJ). "This year, we're hoping to double that number!"

Just fill out the form at www.circus.org

BUT AREN'T ALL OF THE ETHIOPIAN JEWS IN ISRAEL?

Tragically, no.

According to Barbara Ribakove Gordon, "Thousands of Beta Israel--men, women and children--are still in Ethiopia, living and dying in fetid hovels in the capital city, Addis Ababa, or in a rural area of northwestern Gondar Province near an Israeli consulate... Almost all of them have close relatives already in Israel... some have children serving in [the Israeli army]."

Most of them belong to the community sometimes called Feles Mura. Their parents or grandparents made pro forma conversions to Christianity in times of starvation, the only way a Jew could get a piece of land to farm. Most of them never became practicing Christians, maintained Jewish practices and identity, their ties with their families--and called themselves Beta Israel, the House of Israel.

In recent years, many have been victims of violent anti-Jewish attacks by their neighbors. Others were desperate to return to Judaism and rejoin their families in Israel. They came to Addis or Gondar, believing they would be processed swiftly, and reunited with their families and their people. But the vast majority of them have not even been interviewed. And the famine in Ethiopia is growing worse. More than 18,000 Ethiopian Jews suffer, and wait.

In fall, 1999, Ethiopian community activists in Israel brought a lawsuit to the Israeli Supreme Court. The suit demanded that Ethiopians' petitions for aliyah be examined according to the same criteria and procedures followed in the rest of the world. The Ministry is currently receiving and reviewing applications for aliyah filed in Israel by Israeli-Ethiopians on behalf of their relatives in Ethiopia. (To date there has been no change in the unique policy of refusing to accept applications directly from Ethiopians in Ethiopia themselves.) The Ministry of the Interior has complained that they do not have enough personnel to examine all the applications now arriving from Israeli relatives of families still in Ethiopia, and cannot afford to hire additional help. Interior Ministry personnel have been recalled to Israel, leaving only one Interior Ministry official to deal with the thousands of remaining applicants.

In the meantime, the conditions in which the community exists are appalling.

While the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC or Joint) is providing limited medical care, and supplemental feeding for children in severe malnutrition, and the Jewish Agency is supplying plane tickets to Israel for those whose applications for aliyah are approved , the main source of aid is still NACOEJ which feeds about 3000 school children five days a week, provides them with education in accredited schools, employs more than 700 heads-of-household in an embroidery program in Addis Ababa, and offers adult education in literacy and a religious education program initiated some years ago at the request of Chief Rabbi of Israel. The communities in Addis Ababa and Gondar have built small synagogues for themselves, and hold daily and Shabbat services, attended by thousands who pray outdoors; simple shelters are used in the rainy season.

NACOEJ's programs in Ethiopia do not receive support from the major fundraising arms of the organized Jewish community. Continuation of NACOEJ's assistance depends solely upon direct contributions from individuals concerned with alleviating the desperate plight of the Beta Israel in Ethiopia.

What can you do to help?

Go to NACOEJ's home page at www.circus.org (from which material was obtained for this article) to send messages to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and to learn more about the Feles Mura and what you can do to support NACOEJ.