Kesher Talk

Ethipian Jews want to bring relatives to Israel: Thousands of Ethiopian Jews want their relatives to join them in Israel. About 3 000 Ethiopian immigrants demonstrated in front of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office last week in Jerusalem to demand their relatives be allowed to join them in Israel - despite doubts about their Jewishness. The demonstrators demanded that restrictions on immigration laws be lifted.

Most of these relatives who were left behind belong to the Falash Mura community, Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity about a century ago and are concentrated around Addis Ababa and the north-eastern Gondar province. More than 20-thousand of them have applied for immigration under Israel's law of return, which says that Jews anywhere in the world have the right to make the ascent to Israel and claim citizenship.

Later that day, the Prime Minister's Office ordered the immediate resumption of Ethiopian immigration, after a month-long hiatus due to security concerns triggered by terror attacks on Israelis in the African country nation of Kenya.

posted by William @ 1/22/2003 07:50:04 AM