Israel Ethiopian Jewish immigration News Photos

Israel News Images Israel News Photos and Israel News Pictures of the Ethiopian Jewish immigration. By the mid-1970s, a severe mass hunger broke over Ethiopia, which got the Ethiopian government asking for help from the Western world, including Israel, and in this form the government eventually allowed the Jewish Ethiopians to immigrate to Israel .In the absence of full diplomatic relations with Ethiopia, The Israeli Mossad contacted officials in Sudan, which is adjacent to Ethiopia. Thousands of Jews from Ethiopia traveled by foot to the border with Sudan, and waited there in temporary camps until they were flown to Israel. Between the years 1977 and 1984, these immigrants were lead from those camps to Israel by means of vessels of the Israeli Sea Corps and airplanes. Until operation Moses, about 8,000 arrived in Israel in a dangerous journey in which about 4,000 Jews, at least, perished from plagues, hunger and murderous attacks of robbers. In the beginning of 1991, the dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia was about to collapse due to the rebel forces approaching the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. In the end of May 1991, several days before Addis Ababa was seized by the rebels, Mengistu escaped from Ethiopia and found shelter in Zimbabwe. An agreement was obtained between officials from Mengistu\\\'s government and Israel allowing the Ethiopian Jews to immigrate to Israel in exchange for about 35 million US dollars and shelter in the United States for several of the officials of the government. Today their challenges is to absorption in Israel as free people. All Photos by Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye