Helping The Falash Mura

by Ricki Lieberman

The Falash Mura are the Marranos of our generation (“Sad Ending To Rescue Saga,” Editorial, Oct. 16). According to Dr. Avraham Neguise, spokesperson for the community, there are 8,700 who remain in Ethiopia under desperate conditions, separated for years from their families as they wait to be checked by the Israeli government for eligibility to make aliyah. They are the final names on a 1999 list that was agreed to by the government and the community.

The rabbinate in Israel and around the world has concluded that the Falash Mura are Jews. What rational policy would check 3,000 of the 8,700 and not the remainder, some or even many of whom may not qualify to immigrate? But at least it would once and for all end their limbo, and bring to a close, with dignity and finality, the nearly 30 years of the Ethiopian aliyah.

Does anyone honestly think that if there were 8,700 educated Westerners waiting to make aliyah, there would be a moment’s hesitation about bringing them? Would you be swayed by wild accusations that there are millions and gazillions more?

That the Jewish Agency and the JDC dismantled programs and staff before the job was done is not the fault of the remaining Jews, but of the agency, JDC and elements in the Israeli government with an overt dislike of this aliyah. If the JDC is so financially strapped, let it divert funds from its programs for non-Jews in Ethiopia.

Is this what Zionism has come to? What happened to the ingathering of Jews from threatening and hostile environments? No other aliyah has been delayed or denied because of budgetary constraints.
There is a list of 8,700. The advocates agree that this is a finite list. Check them all. Bring those who qualify and finish already, quickly. The longer these present day Marranos linger in Gondar, living in abject poverty and dependence, the harder and more complicated their absorption into modern Israeli life and the greater the human and social costs.

Ms. Lieberman has worked with the Ethiopian Jewish community in Ethiopia and Israel.

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