| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news and prophecy.
Showing posts with label Ethiopian Jews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ethiopian Jews. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
What is the Meaning Behind the Mezuzah? ✡ "Thou Shall Write Them" - ISRAEL365
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Gathering the Exiles: Israel Welcomes Ethiopian Jews
Gathering the Exiles: Israel Welcomes Ethiopian Jews
BEN GURION AIRPORT -- The final flights of an operation bringing Jewish people -- whose ancestors date to biblical times -- landed in Israel recently. It's one of the world's oldest Jewish communities, reaching back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
"Today we are witnessing history taking place -- the return of the last remaining remnants of Jewish Ethiopians to their Jewish homeland," Greg Masel, director general of Keren Hayesod, told CBN News.
The new immigrants arrived in Israel courtesy of Operation Dove's Wings. It's the final in a series of organized mass immigrations from Ethiopia that's spanned three decades.
"It's really closing a kind of a circle -- 30 years of operation after operation, of wonderful aliyah [immigration to Israel under the Law of Return] that [brought] Ethiopians to Israel. It's awesome," MK Pnina Tamano-Shata told CBN News.
Tamano-Shata is the first Ethiopian-born woman to become a member of the Israeli parliament. She arrived in Israel on Operation Shlomo (Solomon) in 1991.
"If I remember Operation Shlomo -- in 36 hours, 14,000 people," she recalled.
"The State of Israel does many wonderful things, and things very, very big because I immigrated at age three, and this time I returned as a Knesset member, a parliament member, this is a big pride," she said smiling.
Since 1948, the Jewish Agency, responsible for immigration, has helped more than 90,000 Ethiopians immigrate to Israel. Keren Hayesold has raised much of the funds.
"One of the basic missions of the State of Israel is to gather the exiles, the Jewish exiles here in Israel," said Yohanna Arbib Perugia, chairman of the World Board of Trustees of Keren Hayesod.
Known as Falash Mura or Beta Israel, many Ethiopian Jews adopted Christian practices over the years or assimilated into Ethiopian society. Israel, therefore, had to determine whether those applying for citizenship were really eligible to come to the land under the Law of Return.
"They're happiest and most grateful because they recognize that Israel is the only country in the history of the world to bring in blacks, not to be slaves, but to be brothers…and that's what they are. They're brothers, they're family," Rabbi Ari Abramowitz, director of Friends of Israel at Keren Hayesod, told CBN News.
For the past three years, the Jewish Agency ran a community center in Gondar, Ethiopia, which provided social and welfare services, plus Hebrew language courses and Jewish studies to prepare the returnees for their homecoming.
"They have a wonderful history, a rich culture, but they grew up in villages," Masel explained. "They grew up removed from 20th century, Western civilization, as we know it."
"We have Jews that have been separated for 2,000 years," Abramowitz said. "Imagine a family reunion after a 2,000-year summer camp! We come back with all the different culture and values and perspectives, and we're in this little land surrounded by enemies who want to wipe us out."
Though these last two flights mark the end of mass immigration from Ethiopia, the Jewish Agency will still help those eligible to immigrate.
And Abramowitz says there's more work to be done.
"There's plenty of Jews around the world who we have to still bring back," he said. "There's a lot more work to do."
Monday, January 14, 2013
Ethiopia's last Jews prepare for 'Promised Land'
Ethiopia's last Jews prepare for 'Promised Land'
Members of Falah Mura say they feel frozen in limbo, not quite at home in Ethiopia, eager to become Israeli, and suffering from long separation from family members who have already left
It was one of the most daring operations in Ethiopian history: Israel's 1991 airlift of Ethiopian Jews, when nearly 15,000 people were crammed into a series of non-stop flights lasting 36 hours.
AFP
|
Clutching only a few belongings, in planes with seats removed to make more space, they left a nation their ancestors had called home for two millennia for a land they knew only from scripture.
All that's left of Ethiopia's Jewish population, called the Falash Mura, or "wanderers" in Ethiopia's Amharic language – is expected to move to Israel over the next 18 months, the end of an ancient chapter of Ethiopian history.
"It is God's promise to us to go to the Promised Land and fulfill his prophecy... but that doesn't change the fact that I am Ethiopian," said Gasho Abenet, 25.
Ethiopia's remaining Falash Mura live in Gondar in the north of the country, supported by the Jerusalem-based organization The Jewish Agency for Israel, where many have waited for years to complete bureaucratic hurdles and win approval to move.
Many say they feel frozen in limbo, not quite at home in Ethiopia, eager to become Israeli, and suffering from a long separation from family members who have already left.
"Once... you're in this halfway status of being internal refugees, you're certainly better off in Israel than being internal refugees in Ethiopia," said Steven Kaplan, professor of religion and African studies at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.
Many Jews in Ethiopia – a small minority in a country where officially 62% are Christian and 34% are Muslim – say they have been misunderstood and even discriminated against.
Housing rents are arbitrarily hiked, some say, and many report name-calling from those who do not understand or accept Judaism.
"It is difficult to live here in Ethiopia as an Israelite because we get insulted," 22-year-old Amhare Fantahun said.
For Gasho, it means never feeling fully at home in the land of his birth.
"The life that we are living here is a nightmare, we can never settle," he said, donning a black and white skullcap and a Star of David pin.
Disputed roots
Despite their feeling of apparent transience, the history of Judaism in Ethiopia dates back about 2,000 years.The precise roots are disputed: Some say Ethiopia's ancient Jews – called Beta Israel, or "House of Israel" – are descendants of Jewish nomads who travelled first to Egypt, then on to Ethiopia.
Others say they are direct descendants of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon.
The Falash Mura, descendants of the Beta Israeli – many of whom were forced to convert to Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries – have observed a unique interpretation of Judaism for generations.
Practices include separating menstruating women from men and burying their dead in Christian cemeteries. They must learn Rabbinic law and Hebrew before moving to Israel.
In skullcaps and draped in prayer scarves, they gather every week in Gondar's makeshift synagogue, a corrugated iron shed painted the blue and white of Israel's flag, chanting verses from the Torah in Ethiopia's Amharic language.
The push to transport Ethiopia's Jews to Israel began in the 1980s, under Ethiopia's brutal Communist dictator Mengistu Hailemariam, who used Ethiopia's Jews as pawns and tried to trade them for weapons from Israel.
Many left Ethiopia illegally, travelling by foot to Sudan, where 20,000 people were eventually flown to Israel in Operation Moses in 1985, the precursor to the 1991 airlift from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
The airlift, known as Operation Solomon, came as Mengistu lost his grip on power.
There are about 130,000 Jews of Ethiopian descent in Israel today. By March 2014, the immigration of Ethiopia's Jews to Israel is expected to finish, closing an ancient chapter of Ethiopia's history.
Under Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie, departure for Israel was blocked as he said the country would lose a key cornerstone of its heritage.
"Haile Selassie said, 'If we did that we would lose one of the key elements in the Ethiopian tapestry. They represent a tradition that we all think we're descended from,'" said Stephen Spector, author of a book about the airlift.
New chapter
But for Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia Belyanesh Zevadia – who was born in Ethiopia and lived in Israel for 28 years – the end of the returns to Israel merely marks a new chapter in relations between the two countries."Maybe (we are) losing the culture, the Jewish culture," she said. "But there are so many of them coming back and investing here... so we are building the bridge between the two countries."
Gasho said the heritage lives on in other ways too, even though most of the Falash Mura have left the country.
"We Jewish who are living here in Ethiopia, we taught our wisdom and knowledge," he said. "Our culture is well understood throughout the community... learning, metallurgy, handcraftsmanship, it is all passed on," Gasho added.
At Addis Ababa's transit centre, where the Falash Mura gather before boarding a flight to Israel, new shoes and clothes are passed around as children play table tennis and table football under the beating afternoon sun.
Despite not knowing what to expect when they reach Israel, there is a sense of happiness from those about to leave Ethiopia for good.
"I am now going to be an Israelite," he added, smiling widely.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4329630,00.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)