The Unholy Battle For Ethiopia's Remaining Jews

Falash Mura fight among themselves as American and Evangelical aid groups and the Israeli government fight over aliya.

The unholy battle for Ethiopia's remaining Jews
By Gili Gurel • Ha'aretz

ADDIS ABABA AND GONDAR - Above the entrance to the synagogue in Gondar hangs a sign in Hebrew: "God the builder of Jerusalem will gather the far-flung of Israel." But no one enters the synagogue gates, at least not without authorization from Getu Zemene. His job is to ensure that no one he suspects of being a missionary goes in to influence the Falashmura community. 

The synagogue is run by the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry, which supports members of the Falashmura community in northern Ethiopia. NACOEJ, the main organization working among the Falashmura, is administering aid programs. In the past this was done with some cooperation from the government of Israel. 

Zemene, who heads the Ethiopian branch of NACOEJ, runs an office of 148 employees, chairs the community committee and is involved, on the organization's behalf, in ascertaining the connection to Judaism of the Falashmura who come to Gondar and ask for the organization's help while they wait for aliyah permits. NACOEJ, which aspires to bring the Falashmura to Israel, is supporting the community mainly by means of feeding projects, religious facilities, and Jewish and general education. 

The Falashmura problem was created after the vast majority of Ethiopian Jews were brought to Israel in Operation Solomon in 1991. The Falashmura, descendents of Jews who converted to Christianity in the 19th century and for the most part stayed in close touch with Jews, remained behind. In Israel, the Chief Rabbinate ruled that they are "totally Jewish," but demanded that they undergo conversion in order to dispel any doubt. 

In 1992 a ministerial committee decided to allow their aliyah, not under the Law of Return but rather in the framework of family reunification. Since 1991 some 45,000 Falashmura have come to Israel, where they now constitute about half the people of Ethiopian origin in the country. 

In the past year, following a government decision, their aliyah has almost completely dried up, while thousands await immigration permits in Addis Ababa and Gondar. However, this week Interior Ministry representatives who were sent to Ethiopia in the summer will return. According to the director of the ministry's population registration and status department, Amos Arbel, they will bring back with them about 2,500 immigration applications for in-depth appraisal in Israel, though the number might well grow because, says Arbel, "At the moment we aren't limiting the submission of applications." 

In his book "Zionism Upended" (discussed in the article "They'll say I'm a racist" by Nir Hasson and Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz English Edition, October 29, 2009), former Jewish Agency emissary Ori Konforti accuses NACOEJ of creating a false representation of devoutness and poverty in order to increase the flow of donations, and also of deceiving the Falashmura themselves, who believe that affiliation with NACOEJ will bring them to Israel. 

NACOEJ and the other organizations involved in bringing the Falashmura to Israel have denied these accusations, but some of them are again cropping up among organizations in Ethiopia. 

In recent years at least two rival groups to NACOEJ have emerged, the founders of which are mostly people whose connection to Judaism NACOEJ does not recognize, and whose applications for immigration the Interior Ministry has refused. It should be noted that in the past Zemene, too, tried to emigrate to Israel, but his application was denied. 

The first of these organizations, Elroi Israel, was established in 2006 by a number of people who had been rejected by NACOEJ. Its headquarters, in a building painted blue and white, is decorated with Israeli and Ethiopian flags. According to one member of the board of directors, Kassaw Mola, 500 families staying in Gondar are registered with the organization. Mola says that the organization's main aim is indeed aliyah, but "in the meantime it is necessary to create jobs and not be dependent on donations from NACOEJ." 

NACOEJ headquarters in New York refused to respond to claims raised in this report, or to reply to questions from Haaretz concerning its activity in Ethiopia. Repeated phone and e-mail queries were ignored by the organization's director general Barbara Ribakove and her staff. 

In the capital Addis Ababa, where NACOEJ has ceased its activity, operates the Displaced Jewish Development Association established by Getnet Mengesha, who was also refused permission to immigrate and is one of NACOEJ's severest critics. Mengesha operates a clinic, vocational training center and farm, and says 376 families are registered with his organization. 

Funding for its activities comes from a messianic evangelical organization, Jewish Voice Ministries International. JVMI casts no doubt on the Judaism of the Falashmura. On the contrary. According to the organization's Internet site, it is dedicated to "proclaiming the Gospel of Yeshua (Jesus) to the Jew first and also to the Nations throughout the world," in the best evangelical tradition: via television broadcasts, festivals and humanitarian and medical aid. 

Shortly after Yom Kippur, JVMI conducted a medical aid campaign on the outskirts of Gondar, a walking distance from the area where the Falashmura live. The delegation took over a hotel at the edge of the city, and long lines stretched outside its entrance. Order was maintained by local ushers alongside smiling Americans equipped with walkie-talkies, identification tags and glittering blue-and-white Star of David symbols. 

In the operations room, things were run by Cheryl Schang, JVMI's vice president of global outreach. "We came here by chance, after we started working in Addis with Jews whom Israel doesn't recognize as Jews," related Schang with tears in her eyes. "There was a big meeting and people stood up and spoke about the despair, hunger and sickness. They begged us to help them and said everyone had forgotten them. We are here to show them this isn't true, God has not forgotten them. He is here with them." 

According to Dr. Everett Holley, the global outreach department's medical director, during the course of one week in Gondar about 5,000 patients were treated. These were patients of various religions, but Jews were given preference. According to Holley, "they fear that if they receive healthcare, even a pair of glasses, from a non-Orthodox Jewish person, then they will be barred by the Israeli government from returning to Eretz Yisrael." 

Schang claims NACOEJ is threatening the Falashmura that it will not let them emigrate to Israel if they connect with messianic organizations. Mola adds that Zemene forbids his people from receiving medical help at the American center. "Zemene has said that the doctors' task is convert the patients," says Mola. "He has punished people who went to get treatment. He took away their ID card in his organization, he took their children out of the school and he didn't even give them flour. Only after they made a public apology did he restore everything to them." 

Zemene denies this vehemently: "I have never threatened anyone and I have never punished anyone. The Jews have no contact with the missionaries. They don't go to their clinic because they know that at the clinic they preach Christianity. If they wanted to go to the clinic I could not stop them from going, nor did I have the right to do that." 

Who are the Jews, according to Zemene? 

"People who have passed the investigation and hold NACOEJ ID cards," he says. 

Arbel of the Interior Ministry says that medical care or help from a Christian organization do not disqualify a person from immigrating to Israel, but added that "if he or members of his family engage in missionary activity, this is a consideration in the discussion of his application." 

From time to time staff members enter the operations room and report to Schang on problems that crop up. She pulls out money for medications, finds out how much an operation costs at the local hospital, and makes sure that the generator has been repaired. The head of the "prayer team" comes in all bright-eyed: "I have a Jew here who has just been saved," she says, meaning that he has accepted Jesus as the Savior. "To whom should I refer him for further religious guidance?" 

After the treatment, which is given free of charge and with no prior obligations on the patient, they can enter the adjacent prayer room. Dr. Holley says that only about 10 percent choose to do this. An American worshiper and an Ethiopian worshiper, who also serves as the translator, flank each patient who enters the room. They hold him warmly and pray for him, and with him. 

"Lots of miracles happen here," whispers Schang in awe. And indeed, the JVMI Internet site is full of stories of miracles and wonders, of blind people who began to see and tumors that disappeared. True to the evangelical heritage, which places great importance on Jews accepting Jesus as the messiah, Schang explains that "we don't want Jews to change their religion. Being a Jew is the best. We believe in the Jews and we support them." 

Coincidentally or not, two weeks ago the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee reopened a clinic in the area where the Falashmura live. According to JDC assistant executive vice president Amir Shaviv, the clinic was opened at the request of Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who has also given the organization a list of 9,300 people entitled to treatment. Perhaps it is possible to deduce from this Israel's intentions regarding the Falashmura. 

The main accusation against NACOEJ is that the organization is encouraging ceaseless internal migration of Falashmura from their villages to the city of Gondar, in the hope of emigrating to Israel. Organizations that support immigration claim that only a few thousand potential immigrants remain whereas their opponents, among them Konforti in his book, say it is a bottomless pit. 

Zemene denies this. He says that registration closed a year ago, and since then no more people have come from the villages. Only 8,700 are now waiting in Gondar for aliyah permits, says Zemene, and another 3,300 whose applications were refused are still there, hoping for another chance. According to him, most of them have close relatives in Israel. 

"NACOEJ has never gone to the villages to encourage people to move, and it's not going to happen either," says Zemene. "It's the families in Israel that are urging them to live near the Jewish Agency offices, in order to accelerate their aliyah." 

However, NACOEJ's opponents say that it is continuing to encourage people to move to Gondar. "NACOEJ gives them a ID card," explains Mengesha. "The villagers think the cards are from Israel and that means they will emigrate, so they tell their families to come." 

The transition from an agricultural village life to a city and the need to rent an apartment for an unknown length of time create economic distress. The people who are waiting support themselves by selling their possessions, with money sent by their relatives in Israel and by day labor that isn't always available. Until a while ago NACOEJ helped by means of distributing food, but in the past year it has had to reduce its activity due to a lack of donations. 

Currently the organization is operating, in conjunction with the Ethiopian government, an elementary school attended by 1,100 children who also study Judaism and Hebrew at the synagogue. The organization provides one meal a day to the students, and according to Zemene for many of them this is their only meal. 

"The goal is to emigrate to Israel," says Zemene. "NACOEJ's aim is only to support them in the meantime and prepare them for life in Israel, by means of education, both general and religious." 

Recently NACOEJ embarked on an initiative aimed at improving the community members' chances of integrating into the labor market in Gondar, by purchasing tools for them. The tools will afford them an advantage in the eyes of the contractors who hire workers on a daily basis. 

The two organizations opposed to NACOEJ have made their main goal the development of economic independence, though it is not clear to what extent they are able to fulfill this. The Elroi organization has thus far not succeeded in getting enterprises off the ground in Gondar, and it is not clear what the fate of Mengesha's organization in Addis Ababa will be after he resigned because of an ideological dispute. 

"People think that activity of this sort [for building economic independence] is liable to sabotage their aspirations to emigrate to Israel, because if they improve their lives the Israeli government will say they are okay, they don't need to make aliyah," says Mengesha.