A flight carrying 65 Ethiopian Jewish immigrants is scheduled to land in Israel on Tuesday, bringing an end to official aliyah from that country.
The majority of the new immigrants from Ethiopia arrived in 1984 (Operation Moshe) and in 1991 (Operation Shlomo). The Ethiopian community reports there are thousands or even tens of thousands of Falashmura remaining, people whose ancestors were Jewish but they abandoned their faith, but over the past decades, many have returned to Yiddishkeit. This however has not been received as acceptable criteria to be considered Jewish.
The government criterion determines one’s Jewishness if he/she can prove one Jewish parent. This would make one eligible for aliyah, and then one would be compelled to undergo conversion.
A government decision was made in 2003 that when the aliyah from Ethiopia reaches 35,000, the doors would be closed. This number will be reached with the arrival of the 65 on Tuesday. Interior Ministry officials explain that none of the remaining Falashmura succeeded in meeting aliyah criteria.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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19 Responses
Falashmura practiced Christianity.
Once one decides that they are Jewish in accordance with halacha (of matrilineal descent from a known Jewish woman), and they have given up avoda zara (Christianity), and (from our perspective) returned to being Shomer Mitzvos, why should they be treated differently than any other Baal Tseuvah? Indeed, the zionist government actively looks for Aryans with minimal Jewish ancestry, and zero interest in yiddishkeit, and recruits them to come to Israel. From our perspective, the focus of aliyah should be on mitsvos rather than skin color, which is the main reason the powers that be object to the Falashmura (along with the fear they’ll be Shomer Shabbos and Shomer Kashrus and further undermine the secularity of the state)
akuperma: They aren’t Baalei Teshuva. They go through a conversion process. Their maternal descent, is not known to be straight Jewish.
#2.
Bravo!! Bravo!!
Straight to the point with much tact!!
lesschumras —
Thats your presumption. I’m not familiar who provides the conversion services or how they ascertain its appropriateness. Perhaps you can fill in some details. But I do know many of the Gedolim don’t accept the claims that they are maternal descended Jews.
“If they were to undergo a geyrus under chareidi auspices” (your words) I don’t see any problem.
The color issue seems to be a chip on your soldier. I’ve never mentioned anything about color, and you seem to know that is an issue. Why is color an issue?
I was in Israel 3 weeks ago and visited the Zahal Absorption Center. The Ethiopian immigrants I met appeared to be very pleased in their new homeland.I wish them a happy, healthy life….
We have very close friends that are Ethiopians and live in the Flatbush area with their children. They told us that living in Israel was difficult for them since they were not treated like fellow Jews. They were converted properly, even though the grandfather was a Rabbi from Ethiopia. Discussing the fact that
they were highly insulted when they were told that they must convert,stating that they kept Shabbos, Kashrut, Mikveh and learning Torah better than many so called Jews living in Israel. But….when it came to the Army and reserve duty ALL ETHIOPIANS were treated like all Jews, while defending the Land…
Truly a mixed message.
the acursed government undermines hashem’s holy torah not only with its existence, but its tota abandonment of what makes one jewish al pi halacho – one jewish parent means nothing, there must be matrilineal descent. it’s ironic that they’re so libera when it comes to women’s rights and pritzus, but when the torah gives something as important as yiddishkeit to women – that they ignore?!! As Horav Avigdor Miller Ztvk’l said, the state of israel is the worst thing that ever happened to klal yisroel…may moshiach come and demolish this monstrosity, which now has gerim sheker – not to mention the horrors done to the taimanim, innocent pure neshomos, one of the strongest mesoras in klal yisroel, stripped of their kedushah, shaved of their peyos and beards, forced to leave their seforim in teiman, forced t abandon yiddishkeit..a taimani friend of mine told me about how the tzionim, shem reshoyim yerkav, wanted to counteract the religious school the taimanim made in their neighborhood, so they made a mixed swimming pool in full view of the yeshiva, amking the bochurim who were sitting in kedushas hatorah fall prey to pritzus..that made them go off the derech – they’re using tumah just like the romans!! wake up sand stop wanting to show ‘solidarity’ and ‘support’ of this governemt full of mushchosim!
Thank You Matisyohu!
Brace and prepare yourself for the zionist onslaught. Be brave! Continue standing up for Kavod HaTorah!
#12 Matisyohi28 is right, Y.S.Vezichrom.I know I am one of those BTs.But The N.K. is 100 times worse, those Jewish fakers in religious garb,who kiss Jewish Murderors,Ghinom for the NK
The Ethiopians themselves don’t hold that they’re Jewish- and don’t want them coming.
joseph,
marranos also practiced christianity, but they were still jewish in their hearts. do you know exactly what the falash mura had to go thru?
I believe the conversion is because of a safek as to whether they are of matrilineal descent. A more formal conversion process is needed for the Falashmura since they had stopped observing halacha (in any form), unlike the normal Ethiopians who are treated like any frum person who discovers a possible non-Jewish ancestor in the matrilineal line (a frequent occurance in B.T. yeshivos). In all fairness, increasingly the same approach will be needed from all non-observant western Jews as it is becoming increasingly difficult to determine if they are of matrlineal Jewish ancestry (very hard to tell if one’s family has been “frei” for 100+ years).
For your info, the following is true.
A very well known gadol, in order to dispell all uncertainties, got up in front of the entire shul and said “They are just ___s”. Some people were upset, but the point was well made. They are simply not Jewish, and there is frankly no reason to think that en mass, a huge group of poverty/war stricken people are so leshem shomayim, especially when the religios zionists are actively encouraging it so that they can be a part of the ingathering of the exiles. No hos that for hock? But it is true. So it’s all good, no more flights of goyim to Israel to lie there.
lesschumras — I find it tedious to respond to the same phrase reworded multiple times. Nevertheless, mass conversions have no place in Judaism. If a group of people practiced Christianity for hundreds of years, some vague claims to be somehow Jewish related (lacking direct maternal descent) is no reason to accept mass conversions. This applies to any group, including the so-called crypto-Jewish Spaniards who claim to descend from Marranos.
lesschumras – as you know, israel acknowledges patrilineal descent, and that is found very eplicilty in this law – they want jews to make aliyah, so they allow who they consider jews to make aliyah.
14 – NK is way off, but they are not murderers like the zionists. These people have a shita that was rejected by all of klal yisroel, including the satmar rov zt’l. Basically, they think that since the shvuous were yereg velo yaavor(like the maharal says in netzach yisroel), giving back the land entirely is a chiyuv. If we would be able to dissolve the medina, we would, but the problem is – and this is what the satmar rov said – it will be a huge sakanah for klal yisroel, and so we are left with distancing ourselves in every possible way from zionism, and praying for moshiach to come and peacefully destroy the medina.
NK is basically a group of people from various backgrounds, some viznitz, some young israel(not too surprisingly), and others(i heard once that some come from talmidei hagra); they think that if they show the world that zionism is not judaism, we’ll be able to live in peace under arab rule – this is wrong, and dangerous, but they do have good intentions and have actually saved some jewish people from being killed by arabs(a canadian arab lady received a letter from her daughter who was going to kill herself in a suicide bomb attack, before she realized that not all jews supported zionism, after meeting with NK., and there are other examples).
For the record, hugging and kising the enemy is found in the torah, with yaakov and eisav, so it’s not something that deviant – what is deviant, is their methods, and participation in such crazy things as a conference of holocuast deniers, also, their actions have made a chillul hashem, which depite their good inteitons, was made anywsaym, and the rule about CH is that it depends on how OTHERS view the action.
As a follow-up, the satmar rov was against protesting with the arabs, and would not allow such a thing – it flies in the face of a basic idea in satmar hashkofa, which is not to be meschaber with reshoyim even if something good will come of it, like what NK does(based on the alshich hakodesh). Also, the chillul hashem they(NK) make when they asssociate with reshoyim who want to murder yidden(even if their motivation is zionism) is inexcusable. That having been said, the Kashiu Rov supports some of them, and is their main daas torah – however, there are many branches of NK, and not all are the same – however when they started they had the support of many, yet they changed since the days of Rav Blau and are now not the same organization at all.