Memorial For 4,000 Ethiopian Jews Who Died On Way To Israel Inaugurated

Ynet reports:

"I have no idea where my mother is buried. Now I will be able to unite with her memory and the memory of my brother," Yaakov Gonchel, 29, who immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia in 1982, said Wednesday.

More than two decades after a large wave of immigration from Ethiopia arrived in Israel, a memorial commemorating the 4,000 members of the community who perished on the long journey to the holy land was finally inaugurated in Jerusalem.

The memorial was erected with the help of the Immigration and Absorption Ministry.

"This took many years, during which many people have not had a proper opportunity to mourn," Gonchel explained.

The mass departure of Ethiopian Jews from their country as part of the "Moshe Operation" began in 1983, when thousands started moving clandestinely towards the Sudanese border. During their journey and stay in temporary camps in Sudan they endured murders, rapes, diseases, robberies and hunger.

Some 8,000 were flown from Sudan to Israel in the framework of the "Moshe Operation".

Uri Rada, chairman of the Ethiopian Jews Remembrance Fund, who lost his mother on the journey to Israel, told Ynet: "This was a kind of holocaust for the Ethiopian community. Most of us don't talk about it to this day, because this is a very emotionally charged subject for the community."…

The number of EJs that tried to reach Sudan in 1983-84 is probably closer to 14,000. Hundreds died on the way, hundreds more in the refugee camps, and several thousand died trying to walk back to Sudan after Operation Moses was halted by the Sudanese government after leaks in the Israeli and American media. Those leaks are directly traceable to the highest levels of the Israeli government. Operation Moses stopped on Friday January 5, 1985 after then-PM Shimon Peres held a press conference confirming the airlift while nonsensically asking people not to talk about it. Sudan killed the airlift moments after Peres stopped speaking.

It is worth noting that the NY Times and Boston Globe both had the story of the airlift more than a month earlier. They held their stories on the direct request of the US State Department, convinced that publishing meant killing Jews. The Washington Jewish Week was then tipped by a person close to the Israeli leadership. It refused the Stae Department's plea and published the story. The NY Times and Boston Globe were furious, and published their stories. The airlift did not end because President Ronald Regan upped the amoiunt of bribe money the US was paying the Sudanese leadership. As long as Israel did not officially acknowledge the airlift, the Sudanese had enough cover to let the airlift continue. That is why Peres called his press conference, whose only possible purpose was to derail the airlift. Thousands more EJs died horrific deaths as a result of Peres' actions.

A lesson to be learned here is that the airlift succeeded because the US paid for them and backed them with the entire weight of the US Government, and that publicizing the airlift endangered lives.

Now imagine the airlift had worked this way: EJs airlifted from Sudan and taken to hotels in Cyprus, where they would have lived for a few days while undergoing a conversion process. From there, the EJs would have been flown to Israel. What kind of publicity would have been generated by dropping off starving, disease-ridden Africans in the middle of Cyprus (or Rome, another suggested location)? The airlift would have been leaked earlier and more EJs would have died as a result, probably along with a few Israeli agents.

Yet this insane plan (one, it must be stressed, that the government of Cyprus – and the Italian government – would not agree to) is the plan pushed by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in his responsa to me. When I received Rav Moshe's answer, I told him this would never work, that the plan was impossible. His response was that we should try and that it should be our first resort.

There is a lot one can say – little of it good – about the judgement of someone who suggests this type of Rube Goldberg behavior. (As, indeed, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef points out about Rav Moshe, in language no more polite than mine.) Yet Rav Moshe wanted them all rescued. He wanted them all educated in Orthodox Judaism lest they be lost to the Jewish people, and he forbade discrimination against them, especially discrimination based on skin color.

But the bottom line is clear. Many Ethiopian Jews died unnecessarily because of the actions of other Jews, and even more would have died if haredi rabbis had been followed. And, of course, almost no one cares about any of this.

Halakhic background on Ethiopian Jews can be found here. The Rebbe's letter to me on rescuing Ethiopian Jews is here, along with other documents of interest. Agudath Israel's attitude toward rescue can be seen here. And an interesting tidbit on haredim and Holocaust rescue is here.

Comments

[ed]

>Yet this insane plan (one, it must be stressed, that the government of Cyprus and the Italian government would not agree to) is the plan pushed by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in his responsa to me. When I received Rav Moshe's answer, I told him this would never work, that the plan was impossible.

Of course you said it wouldn't work. You have ZERO Emunas Chachomim.

[Shmarya]

The *HALAKHA*, ed, is to go to the biggest *EXPERT* and follow him, just as with illness one is *REQUIRED* to seek out the best doctor. Unlike you and your fellow infantile haredim, Rav Moshe made no claim of special knowledge or sainted decision making.

We are not allowewd to rely on miracles. Certainly, exposing a rescue operation staged in a hostile Moslem country to lots of extra participants and many more opportunites for leaks would have been just that.

[Shmarya]

Or, more clearly, no matter how much faith in God one has, one is forbidden to rely on miracles. The same holds true if one, in a modern-day version of Avoda Zara, substitutes "Chachomim" for God.

[avrohom]

it's high time that you con vert to your new religion and leave yiddishkeyt alone. You do not belong to the jewishpeople in any shape or form you whole goal is to denigrate all rabbis including those who empathized with the plight of ej. But since Reb Moshe did not want to increase assimilation (something that you could not care less about) he did NOT want to allow them to enter EY prior to a HALALCHIK CONvERSION.

You decry that these horrible events are the fault of the rabbis; but you wicked pig could care less for the expulsion of 9,000 and more jews from their homes and could not care less for thdeir deaths and suffering. it's like the rabbis say: those who merciful on those who do not deserve mercy are CRUEL TOWARDS THOSE THAT DESEERVE MERCY!

You at the height of the expulsion and after decried those who suffered terribly and still condemn them now. convert to the new religion as quickly as you can.

[Neo-Conservaguy]

A new religion like yours, Avrohom? What chutspa to equate in any way the two events of the rescue of the Beta Israel and the withdrawal from 'aza. The Beta Israel knew where the real country of Israel lay, and wanted to be taken there, not to some forsaken place that was ALWAYS considered chuts l'Arets.

[Shmarya]

avrohom writes: "You decry that these horrible events [i.e., the suffering of Ethiopian Jews in Sudan and Ethiopia in 1983-85] are the fault of the rabbis; but you wicked pig could care less for the expulsion of 9,000 and more jews from their homes and could not care less for thdeir deaths and suffering. it's like the rabbis say: those who merciful on those who do not deserve mercy are CRUEL TOWARDS THOSE THAT DESEERVE MERCY!"

So what you wrote is clear – in your eyes, Ethiopian Jews "do not deserve mercy."

What a sick person you are.

[Bozoer Rebbe]

Shmarya,

Mistakes were made, people died. On the other hand, many thousands were saved.

I can bitch about how the chilonim and socialists handled the exodus of sephardim in the late 40s and 50s. How kids were told "abba hu primitivi" by their teachers at secular schools where their parents sent them if they wanted to get jobs controlled by apparatchiks.

But the fact remains that Israel indeed took in the Sephardim, as it took in the Ethiopians.

Does it surprise me that Shimon Peres, a fools fool impressed with the sound of his own voice, screwed the pooch with his big mouth? But then Peres has always had a spotty record. He was Ben Gurion's hatchet man and even Ben Gurion said he couldn't be trusted. That's why he put Peres in charge of Israel's nuclear program. Peres knew how to lie, cheat and steal to get the needed technology.

neo conseerva guy,

you are all a bunch of pigs and mechutzafim who decry all people whjo belvie and practice yidishkeyt even when they have legitimate reasons and concerns and are interested in preservation of am yisroel without assimilation; while you who are so bleeding for all concerns that their common denominator is the deniggration of jewish principles, yet will condem jews who were idealistic enough to live in areas thast actually PROTECT ERETZ YISROEL and even if it may not be kodosh with kedushas erets yisroerl may still be ERETS YISROEL and actually when they lived there jews from TEL AVIV WERE PROTECTED but instead of your goyishe ideologies fo false idols and false peace you should have kept your mouth shut when speakibng about these settllers and their main ideal...at least you should have shown mercy that they were thrown out of their homes when NO GOOD HAS BEEN ACCOMPLSHED ONLY THAT HAMASTAN AND THEIR MISSILES ARE CLOSER AND ACTIVE AT ISRAEL THAN BEFROE...your stance clear show that you are a sick goyishe people who have cruel thoughts about your brethern and all your "bleding" about others is not due to your concern about others; but only to denigarate and to rebel any jewish position!

but do not worry, convert to your NEW RELIGION and yes all your beleifs belong to the new religion and then with youtr cross and other idols speak against all "rabbis" who oppressed the masses, so that then everyone will be able to clelarly identify you for the pigs that you are.