And Finally They Came

Israel’s leaders finally honor the thousands Ethiopian Jews who died on the way to Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Shay Shembal Wassa

And Finally They Came
Israel’s leaders finally honor the thousands Ethiopian Jews who died on the way to Israel
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

For the first time in Israeli history, Israel’s prime minister attended the annual memorial ceremony for the Ethiopian Jews who died while trying to get to Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Shaul Mofaz, the leader of the Kadima Party, Netanyahu’s new coalition partner attended. So did other politicians, including Israel’s Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Knesset Speaker MK Reuven Rivlin, MK Shlomo Molla – the Knesset’s only Ethiopian lawmaker – and Ethiopian Ambassador to Israel Yosef Hilawe.

Netanyahu spoke about the government’s controversial new absorption plan and said there is “no room” for anti-Ethiopian racism in Israel.

But the emotional highlight of the ceremony clearly came when a 40-year-old Ethiopian Jewish policeman spoke, Ruth Eglash of the Jerusalem Post reports:

…Emotions were further stirred during the event when Shay Shembal Wassa, who witnessed the death of seven family members in Sudan on his way to Israel, shared his personal story. The 40-year-old border policeman sobbed as he recalled how his mother, four sisters and two young nieces perished in a refugee camp in Sudan. Wassa said that the remaining family members have never quite come to terms with their loss and that they suffer the pain of that journey even today.

Overcome by emotion, Wassa could not finish his speech, which culminated in a poem written in his native Amharic and caused many members of the crowd to break down in tears.…

Ynet reported that Netanyahu got up from his seat and hugged Wassa.

4,000 Ethiopian Jews died in 1984 and 1985, either while fleeing on foot to refugee camps in Sudan, while in those camps, or when they tried to walk back to Ethiopia after the joint US-Israel rescue known as Operation Moses was abruptly ended after senior Israeli politicians from the National Religious Party and from Labor leaked it.

Conditions in the Sudanese refugee camps, which housed hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian refugees of all religions along with other East Africans, were horrific. Clean water was scarce. So was food. Antisemitism was rife. Young children were especially hard hit and many died. Because Jewish burial practices differ from Christian and Muslim practice, Jewish families were sometimes forced to bury their dead under the earthen floors of their small huts in order to avoid detection.

Israel’s government did not officially recognize the suffering Ethiopian Jews went through until recently.