Falash Mura Aliya To End
The JTA reports:
…At issue is the number of Ethiopians eligible for aliyah.
On Feb. 14, the Interior Ministry said 6,899 legitimate petitioners remain in Gondar, the Ethiopian city where the vast majority of petitioners now live. Of those, 1,468 have been approved and will be brought to Israel in coming months. The number of eligible aliyah petitioners left in Addis Ababa is negligible.…
Both Ethiopian advocates … and the Interior Ministry base their numbers on a 1999 census conducted by a former Israeli official named David Efrati. That census originally counted some 27,000 Ethiopian candidates for aliyah, but the Interior Ministry said the list shrunk to some 17,000 once the Israeli government made clear its criteria for aliyah.
In intervening years the list has grown by some 3,000 as a result of natural growth, the ministry said.
In all, 11,264 Ethiopians have come to Israel since 2004, according to the Interior Ministry. This week’s move is a sign that the ministry is serious about its plan to end mass Ethiopian aliyah once all those eligible from the 1999 group are brought to Israel.
The controversy in Israel over the aliyah of these Ethiopians, known as Falash Mura, stems from lingering doubts over their Jewishness…
The Falash Mura claim they are descendants of Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity several generations ago due to social and economic pressures.…
Some veteran Ethiopian immigrants say the Falash Mura are opportunists or phonies exploiting the system to get to Israel, even though they have been accepted as Jews by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and the three major American Jewish religious movements.…
Something funny:
http://my.break.com/media/view.aspx?ContentID=137472
Posted by: JoeTheSymcha | February 15, 2007 at 09:41 PM
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Posted by: JoeTheSymcha | February 15, 2007 at 09:43 PM
Jerusalem Post: Discrimination Continues...
Posted by: Anonymous | February 27, 2007 at 07:13 PM