An international operation conducted by the agunah department of the Rabbinical Court returned an Ethiopian woman to Israel who had been abducted by missionaries, according to a Kikar HaShabbat report. The woman’s husband and children were unaware of her whereabouts for three years.

The couple had made aliyah from Ethiopia and lived together in Be’er Sheva with their children, currently ages 7 and 13. Three years ago, the woman began showing signs of emotional problems, which got worse and worse until the husband was forced to leave.

Welfare authorities got involved and determined that the woman was incapable of taking care of her children and transferred their total care to the husband.

The husband opened a divorce file in the Rabbinical Court. Meanwhile, the wife’s mental health continued to deteriorate and the husband lost track of her whereabouts. Eventually, his divorce file was transferred to the agunot department of the Rabbinical Court, headed by Rav Eliyahu Maimon and Rav Alon Nagusa, head of the Ethiopian department for agunot.

It became apparent that the vulnerable woman was preyed on by Christian missionaries who promised to take care of her and help her but asked her to come live in a church in Jerusalem. Later, the missionaries brought the woman a plane ticket to Ethiopia where they settled her in a monastery.

The Ethiopian department for agunot began trying to gather information about the woman’s whereabouts, making two trips to Ethiopia for that purpose. However, all their inquiries seemed to be only leading them on a wild goose chase.

Eventually, they were able to garner additional information through using social media networks of Ethiopian olim which helped hone their search and they eventually located her exact whereabouts.

With the help of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the husband was sent to Ethiopia accompanied by a rabbi from the Ethiopian department for agunot. There, a meeting was arranged between the husband and his wife in a secret location to prevent the meeting from being thwarted by the missionaries.

At the meeting, it became apparent that the woman was taken to Ethiopia against her will and she was interested in returning home to Israel and reuniting with her husband and children.

The Israeli officials arranged for the woman to return to Israel and on Tuesday evening she landed at Ben Gurion and reunited with her children after three years.

Rav Eliyahu Maimon said: “Only a small part of the department’s activities can be publicized due to the various sensitivities in these difficult cases. I’m happy that another case was solved with the help of all our friends in Israel and abroad.”

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(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)