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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| 17, 000 Ethiopians to immigrate to Israel |
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| Saffiyah |
| 02/20/03 at 18:38:52 |
| http://www.allahuakhbar.com/news_detail.asp?ID=916 In a reversal of policy, Israel has decided to 'allow' 17,000 Falash Mura - Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity - to immigrate to the Jewish state. The Cabinet decision came after a years-long battle by Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to reunite with their relatives, many banned from Israel because of their conversions. About 80,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel, many of them brought over in huge Israeli airlifts during times of crisis in Ethiopia in 1984 and 1991. Because they came from a nation that is technologically backward, many of the newcomers have struggled to adapt to the fast-paced, Western-style Israeli society. Family ties have been weakened in many cases. Children often adapt quickly to their new home, learning the language and the customs, leaving their parents behind. Ethiopian activist groups charge that the government has not devoted enough resources to solving their problems. There are also charges of racist behaviour against the dark-skinned Ethiopian Jews, who feel that they are directed to neighborhoods where the population is mostly other Ethiopians, and their children are segregated in schools. Israeli officials have admitted that they have failed to solve the problems of the Ethiopian Jews but insist that any singling out is done for the purpose of directing special services to the newcomers and their families. The case of the Falash Mura caused further friction, with some officials worrying that relaxing the rules about Jewish immigration might encourage other peoples with tenuous ties to Judaism to claim the right to immigrate for economic reasons. Also, they fear, another influx of an impoverished and undereducated people would further tax Israel's already overburdened social welfare system. Sunday's vote was unanimous, but Housing Minister Natan Sharansky expressed reservations because of the cost of taking in the Falash Mura, said his spokeswoman, Iris Goldman. As interior minister three years ago, Sharansky, head of a party that represents immigrants from the former Soviet Union, turned down many immigration requests from Falash Mura. Ethiopian immigrant activists charge that those arguments amount to racism. In recent years, some 18,000 Falash Mura have left homes in outlying regions of Ethiopia in anticipation of moving to Israel, and have rented mud huts near two compounds run by immigration activists in Addis Ababa, the capital, and in the northern city of Gondar. Some Falash Mura have immigrated to Israel, either by proving they have a Jewish grandparent, or under reunification laws if other family members had proved eligible for immigration. The Israeli Cabinet vote on the issue was initially before Jan. 28 elections, but was canceled when Israel's attorney general ruled the plan, initiated by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, could be considered electioneering. The interior minister, Eli Yishai, is from Shas. Yitzhak Sudri, a Shas spokesman, said the party's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, had decreed the Falash Mura converted to Christianity because of fear. "They lived double lives," Sudri said. "On the outside they lived as Christians, but internally they preserved their Jewish culture." Source: Middle East Daily |
| NS |
| Re: 17, 000 Ethiopians to immigrate to Israel |
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| Tesseract |
| 02/20/03 at 22:12:27 |
| Assalamu 'alaikum wa Rahmatullah, According to BBC, the figure is 20,000 (ethiopian Jews to immigrate to Israel). [url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2769453.stm[/url] The Israeli Government has announced that it will allow the immigration of another 20,000 Ethiopians of Jewish origin. Most of them are from the Falash Mura community, who were originally Jewish, but were forced to convert to Christianity in the 19th Century. The last mass immigration of Ethiopian Jews was in 1991, when Israel organised a dramatic airlift of 15,000 people who had fled fighting at the end of Ethiopia's civil war. 15,000 Jews were airlifted from war-torn Ethiopia in 1991 Israel had previously rejected requests for this new group to immigrate. But following the U-turn by the Israeli Cabinet at its weekly meeting, officials will now be sent to Ethiopia to organise the move. The move to allow the Ethiopians - 17,000 Falash Mura and 3,000 so-called Falashas - into the country was led by the religious Shas party, which holds the interior ministry. The BBC's Jerusalem correspondent James Reynolds says that previous immigration attempts by the Falash Mura have been hampered the fact that they have largely been unable to prove they are Jewish. The Ethiopians have been trying to use the "right of return" - an Israeli law which allows Jews from anywhere in the world to obtain automatic Israeli citizenship. DISCRIMINATION In January 3,000 Ethiopian immigrants demonstrated outside Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office to urge the government to allow their relatives to join them even if they could not prove they were Jewish. The protesters held up pictures of their relatives left behind in Ethiopia, claiming they were "victims of discrimination". Now Shas has decided that the community has retained its Jewish makeup - that it only converted to Christianity out of fear. The party has persuaded the cabinet that those who so desire should be allowed to settle in Israel. About 80,000 Ethiopian Jews already live in Israel. Our correspondent says they remain one of the poorest sections of Israeli society. Wassalam. |
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