OPERATION TZUR YISRAEL

In October 2020, Resolution 429, pushed through by Tamano-Shata, outlined what would become Operation Tzur Yisrael, granting 2,000 Ethiopians entrance to Israel by that December through ‘family reunification.’ This made way for Ethiopian Jews, already in Israel, to unite with their first-relation family members back in Ethiopia, who Israel did not recognize as Jewish. However, the residency status of those immigrants was contingent on attendance in, and successful completion of, Orthodox conversion courses once in Israel, a stipulation that started in previous operations.

A month later, tensions between the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the leaders of the country’s Tigray region exploded into violence. Fighting there killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions and spiraled into a humanitarian crisis before the two sides agreed to a truce last November.

A year after the start of the Ethiopian civil war, the Israeli government announced that a continuation of the Operation would begin in 2022, set to bring in another 3,000 people.

While some were forcibly converted to Christianity and have since returned to Judaism — like Jewish communities in Germany, Iran, Spain and Portugal — it is the Ethiopian community that has been singled out for draconian verification measures and waiting periods when it comes to their desire to emigrate.

Of the Ethiopians immigrating in the past three years, the overwhelming majority have done so via ‘family reunification.’ However, in the instances of Ethiopians Jews arriving to Israel via the Law of Return, unlike Ukrainians, there has been no accommodation allowing for the establishing of eligibility upon arrival, even during the recent Ethiopian Civil War.

THE ‘MAMTINIM’

Ethiopian Jews, who have applied to enter Israel through family reunification, are encouraged to relocate to Gondar or Addis Ababa and wait — sometimes for decades — waiting for their names to be called. Israel has a name for these Ethiopians, ‘mamtinim’, or "those who wait."

Jewish Agency centers in the area provide a place for prayer and sometimes food, but they must find and pay for their own housing. To supplement whatever local work they can find, they sell their homes and belongings. Some receive remittances from relatives already living in Israel. When the money runs out, or they can’t find work, they return to their villages.

Jeremy Feit, ​​the president of Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry, a group that provides humanitarian relief, says that the average Jewish family in Gondar, a city in northern Ethiopia, waits 17 years to immigrate to Israel. In summer 2022, his organization distributed food aid to Ethiopians in Gondar and Addis Ababa, who, according to him, “are living actively Jewish lives, attending synagogue and sending their children to Jewish schools.”

ON ARRIVAL

On arrival in Israel, Ethiopian immigrants entering under the family reunification law are bused to absorption centers, some in the far reaches of the country, like Beit Alfa and Tzfat. Like all Jewish immigrants to Israel, the Ethiopian immigrants receive temporary financial benefits. But, uniquely, the Ethiopians’ cost of housing in the center is deducted from their benefit package. Inside, they are assigned apartments and must also provide their own food.

By contrast, Ukrainians Jewish immigrants fleeing the Russian invasion have the option of staying in all-inclusive government-funded hotels for two weeks (though Israel was previously offering stays of one month), with no deduction to their immigrant benefit packages. Multiple aid organizations and volunteers help them settle into their new lives in Israel. They also offer help in finding long-term apartments, mostly in Israel's central cities like Haifa and Jerusalem.

ROOT CAUSES OF DIFFERING TREATMENT

Efrat Yerday, the chairwoman of the Association of Ethiopian Jews, believes the disparity between the two groups is rooted in race. “Israel, like the rest of the world, usually prefers white people over brown and black people,” she said. The reason for that, she added, is because Israel “uses diaspora communities to promote its demographic interest,” and that the claim “fits in opposite ways to [former] U.S.S.R. immigrants and Ethiopian immigrants,” supporting the inflow of the former, and stymying the latter. Asked about claims of racism, a spokesman for Israel’s newly elected Ministry of Aliyah and Integration said that they had no comment.

Ayalin-Gorelik, who came to Israel at age four with her family from Ethiopia, before the airlifts, and with the help of an American aid group, specifies, “The establishment, which does not recognize us as Jews, this is what started the whole story of systemic racism.”

CLANDESTINE FLIGHT FROM TIGRAY

Filmon Atalay is among the 60 Tigrayans that were brought to Israel via Sudan on a secret Mossad mission in July 2021, and who said in an interview in August 2022, "we stepped over bodies to save our lives on our way to Sudan.” He recalls not being provided with much at his absorption center, and that he had to start life over from zero. 

Shortly after the group arrived, their Judaism was challenged at a governmental level, in the media and in public demonstrations, accusing them of exaggerating the level of danger they were fleeing. “Instead of receiving us with blessings, they received us with hatred,” said Atalay.

ISRAEL, NOW

On Dec. 29, 2022 Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as Israel’s prime minister, in a right-wing coalition in which his Likud Party is the most moderate member. Minister Tamano-Shata was then replaced by Ofir Sofer, a member of the Religious Zionist Party. The coalition is considering restricting the Law of Return’s eligibility criteria from “child and grandchild of a Jew” to just “child.” This would require the person requesting citizenship to prove Judaism in the first generation, through a parent, rather than allowing it to be proven more broadly, two generations back.

The proposed change to the law would still be less strict than Law of Return eligibility requirements for Ethiopians, who are required to have proof of a Jewish mother (rather than also allowing paternal proof in first generation), and whose eligibility checks are handled and verified directly by the Ministry of Interior — the highest level of scrutiny — rather than the Jewish Agency. 

As of July 2023, Operation Tzur Yisrael is nearing its end. The resolution that allowed for the Operation’s creation stipulated a limited number of Ethiopian immigrant entrances, and the new government has not authorized any more. The final flight is scheduled for the week of July 10th.

Though the war continues in Ukraine, the Israeli government has recently stopped granting free hotel access to Ukrainian Jews escaping the war. However, they can still claim Israeli citizenship through the Law of Return.

The waves of mass hunger and persistent displacement still resonate from Ethiopia’s recent war; and sixteen months on from its start, mass displacement, death tolls and tragedy continue to rise in Ukraine. The Institute for Economics and Peace published their Global Peace Index in June 2023, which revealed that in 2022 alone, there were “more than 100,000 deaths in the war in Tigray in northern Ethiopia,” and in Ukraine there were “at least 82,000 conflict deaths.”