Ethiopian Jews - Gondar (Ethiopia)
© Eitan Simanor
In the year 2000 Israel was drown into a harsh controversy around the right for the Falashmuras Ethiopian Jews to migrate to Israel and become Israeli citizens as part of the law of "the right of return" which grants israeli citizenship to any Jew who wishes to settle down in Israel.
The Israeli authorities claimed that all Ethiopian Jews had alerady been brought to Israel during the Moses and Solomon operations in '79 and '89. But through a Zionist American NGO a group of about 20.000 people claimed that they were forced to convert to Christianity in the former decades. They also claimed to have stayed faithful to Judaism and that members of their families were already in Israel.
Somehow most of these people had been gathered into two main compounds in Addis Ababa and in Gondar (Northern Ethiopia). The american Zionist NGO cared for most of their need but conditions were hard and basic. The aim was to lobby the Israeli authorities into granting them citizenship.
In April-May 2000 I spent the Passover Jewish festival in Gondar, with these people.