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Ethiopian Israelis Earn 35% Less Than General Population 25 Years After Airlift

Ethiopian Israelis Earn 35% Less Than General Population 25 Years After Airlift

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOwAtlh7afM

On May 25, 1991, the Ethiopian government was close to falling, and a long civil war was drawing to a close.

Concerned for the ancient community of Ethiopian Jews, Israel and the Ethiopian government made a deal to airlift thousands of people out of the country.

The Israelis had 36 hours to carry out Operation Solomon. They flew more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in what became one of the most unusual humanitarian efforts of the 20th century.

One of them was Daniel Nadawo, who was 11 at the time, and became separated from his parents in the river of people walking towards the capital, BBC reported.

Now living in Israel, Nadawo remembers the dramatic airlift on May 25, 1991, and how he flew without his parents to Israel on an Israeli Air Force Boeing 707 during Operation Sololmon. The family was soon reunited in Israel.

Faced with war, famine and persecution for practicing their beliefs, many Ethiopian Jews tried before 1991 to reach Israel, AlJazeera reported. In 1984, Israel rescued thousands of Ethiopian Jews from refugee camps in Sudan. Operation Solomon was an attempt to bring the remaining Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

Fast forward 25 years, and there are about 125,000 Ethiopian Israelis. An estimated tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews belonging to the Beta Avraham sect still live and practice Judaism in secret in Ethiopia.

Jews have had a quiet but central presence in Ethiopia’s history, according to AlJazeera. Their origins are disputed, but it is believed they arrived less than 3,000 years ago, around the time King Menelik I, the son of the queen of Sheba and King Solomon, traveled from Israel to the Horn of Africa.

The Beta Avraham sect of Jews in Ethiopia split from the Beta Israel Jewish majority sometime in the 18th or 19th century, pretending to convert to Christianity while continuing to practice Judaism in secret.

Al Jazeera interviewed more than a dozen Jewish Ethiopians, researchers and historians who described lingering persecution and occasional violence against Ethiopian Jews in the Amhara and Tigray regions where they have been historically concentrated.

Ethiopia is now one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Many describe increasing religious tolerance in Ethiopia in the last decade, with minor gains in government recognition of the mostly underground Jewish sect, Beta Avraham.

In Addis Ababa, new generations of educated youths are less likely to be prejudiced, and the threat against Jews is significantly lower.

There’s a push for Beta Avraham to go public and embrace their Jewish heritage. With that will come greater economic mobility and new recognition by the Ethiopian government, said Daniel, a leader of the Beta Avraham.

Some in Ethiopia’s Jewish community still want to move to Israel and join the more than 125,000 Ethiopian Jews already there, AlJazeera reported.

Jews in Ethiopia have been renowned historically for their skill with pottery and tools.

Jewish persecution in Ethiopia

Jewish persecution there is more about the jobs associated with Jews in Ethiopia, than it is about religion, said Abayneh Tadesse, a senior researcher at Ethiopia’s National Museum of History. “Overall, it is more about their economy and less about their religion,” he said. “Society has a long history of connecting (Ethiopian Jews) with hell because they use fire to make their pottery and tools,” according to AlJazeera:

Jews enjoyed political respite in the 19th century because of these skills. King Menelik II moved thousands of Ethiopian Jews from his home region in North Shewa to help build Addis Ababa in the late 1800s. He admired their expertise in weaving, pottery and blacksmithing. These Jews settled in the Kechene neighborhood.

Kechene’s Beta Avraham are responsible for producing some of the most iconic items of Ethiopian culture sold around Addis Ababa. With their mostly middle class social and technical jobs, the Beta Avraham have benefited Ethiopia for decades, despite being relegated to the margins as ostensible crucifiers and sorcerers.

The Ethiopian Jewish experience in Israel

Ethiopian Jews have been in Israel for more than 30 years but the majority live in Israel’s social periphery, often perceived and treated as a “unique” by the government and NGOs, according to the JewishVirtualLibrary. Socio-economic gaps between Ethiopian Israelis and the general population persist, despite  major resources invested.

The gross income of Ethiopian Israeli households in 2013 was 35 percent lower than Israeli households in general.

Rates of employment are similar among Ethiopian Israelis and the general population, but a large proportion of Ethiopian Israelis works as unskilled and contracted laborers and are considered “working poor.” More than 35 percent of Ethiopian Israeli families live below the poverty line compared to 18.6 percent of Israeli families in general.

In May 2015 Ethiopian Israelis protested years of systemic racism by the government. Ethiopian women alleged they were pressured to take long-term birth control shots before and after their arrival in Israel, AlJazeera reported. The Israeli national blood bank has long denied Ethiopian-Israeli blood donations in an alleged attempt to curtail the spread of HIV. More than 40 percent of Ethiopian-Israelis conscripted for the Israel Defense Forces end up in military prison at some point during their service.

“When we look at the (Ethiopians) in Israel, we see they have had a lot of challenges,” Daniel told AlJazeera. “They were illiterate (when they arrived). They never had enough knowledge. How could they have prepared for things like technology?”