ADDIS ABABA , 10 January 2004 — Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Silvan Shalom is to grant immigration rights to 20,000 Ethiopian Jews, it was reported yesterday.
The Israeli Cabinet announced last February it would admit the 20,000 Jewish Ethiopians known as Falasha. Many of them have spent over ten years in transit camps in Ethiopia waiting for a decision on their move to Israel.
According to Israel’s Law on Return, every Jew is entitled to citizenship in Israel. However, some Orthodox Jews do not accept the Falashas as being part of the Jewish community as many of them were forced to convert to Christianity in the 19th century.
Shalom told reporters in Addis Ababa on Thursday that he would end the Falasha’s immigration problem “once and for all.” The Ethiopian government is less enthusiastic about the immigration issue, arguing that Ethiopians are free to travel whenever they wish. “There is no need for an organized intervention as in the 1980s and 1990s,” Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin told reporters.
In 1984, Israel airlifted 20,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel, and a further 15,000 in 1991.
There are around 80,000 Ethiopian Jews living in Israel. Many of them claim they face discrimination in the Jewish state.
