After being shut for more than a year, the gates of mass Ethiopian immigration to Israel may be swinging open again—this time for some 9,000 people.
In July, Israeli government representatives returned to Ethiopia to assess the eligibility for aliyah of approximately 3,000 Ethiopians who may be entitled to immigrate but had never filed petitions. Advocates had pressed Israel to expand its assessment to a much larger group of Ethiopians—8,700 people in all—but Israel had demurred.
Now, however, a campaign by advocates that stresses the health risks facing the 8,700 Ethiopians, along with the support of Israel’s interior minister, Eliyahu Yishai, may throw open the aliyah gates for all of them.
If that happens, mass Ethiopian immigration to Israel likely would continue through 2017, at a rate of 100 immigrants per month, officials say.
The group at issue is comprised of so-called Falash Mura—Ethiopians who claim links to descendants of Jews who converted to Christianity generations ago, but who now seek to return to Judaism and immigrate to Israel…..