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The Last Jew of Tigray Ethiopia

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The Last Jew of Tigray Ethiopia RESESNETN RI PI PR T AAR DD NN A I A R I A R A mesorah QQuestuest We’d been to Ethiopia numerous times since the 1980s, and our latest jaunt was actually just a that throughout the centuries they kept few-day stopover on the way to Uganda their own identity and were reviled by (that’s for another time). Yet all our pre- their neighbors as Jews, called a host vious visits centered around the Gondar of derogatory names including falasha, region, the area where about 90 percent meaning stranger in Ge’ez, and buda, of Ethiopian Jews originated, and on this meaning evil eye. trip we decided to go somewhere differ- Although there is no way to definitively ent — we wanted to see the remnants of prove their origins, in 1973 Rav Ovadiah the Jews of Tigray. Yosef ruled — based on centuries-old piskei Our schedule was tight: Shabbos was to halachah — that the Ethiopian Jews are be spent with Israeli friends — including fully Jewish, accepting an alternate the- the Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia — in ory they themselves propound, that they Addis Ababa. That left us Friday to shecht are descended from the Tribe of Dan. Not for the Jews of Ethiopia and only Thursday all poskim agreed. Rav Moshe Feinstein’s to explore the northern area of Tigray. letter on the subject was typical of those Timing was everything, and we finally who did not fully accept their Jewishness. found the man who could put it togeth- He stated then that we are dealing with er for us: Amram Aklom. He is a native people who want to live as Jews, are liter- son, an expert on the Jews of Tigray, has ally dying to be Jewish, and it is a mitzvah led groups back on “roots tours,” and his to help them. In fact, after the first mass brother Fereda Aklom was a larger-than- airlift, the Chief Rabbinate instituted a life hero who was pivotal in the secret policy of giyur l’chumrah, which would Operation Moses airlift at the end of 1984. unequivocally fix various problems of Our own connection with the Beta lineage and status. Buried in Yisrael, or Ethiopian Jews, actually goes When Menachem Begin was elected back to the mid-1980s, when we traveled prime minister of Israel in 1977, one of his there on several missions for the North first actions was to get the Ethiopians rec- American Conference of Ethiopian Jew- ognized as Jews for purposes of the Law ry (NACOEJ). The first question people of Return, and then directing the head of asked then was: Who are they? Whether the Mossad to arrange their aliyah. they are descendents of Shlomo HaMelech And this is where Fereda Aklom comes and the Queen of Sheba, locals who were into the picture. converted by Yemenite Jews over the cen- Fereda was born in 1949 in the northern turies, descendants of Jews from south- Ethiopian province of Tigray. Like Jews ern Egypt (Elephantine) who made their around the world, his parents pushed way down the Nile, or just a “Jewish-like” him to get an education so that he could Christian sect, what is indisputable is get ahead in life. He studied education in AFRICPHOTOS & TEXT BY Ari Z. Zivotofsky and Ari Greenspan A 48 MISHPACHA 13 Sivan 5773 | May 22, 2013 MISHPACHA 49 Buried in Africa Addis Ababa and in 1976 was appointed prin- the operation flew some 7,800 Ethiopian Jews no house numbers. Being the only whites in cipal of a school. He then convinced ORT — a from Sudan directly to Israel. Thousands of town, we attracted an entourage of kids who secular, international Jewish nonprofit or- Beta Yisrael had fled Ethiopia on foot for ref- followed us. We finally found what we thought ganization that promotes vocational train- ugee camps in Sudan; an estimated 4,000 died was his house and walked in. The house had ing and education — to open two schools in during the grueling, dangerous trek. The op- no Jewish symbols, for that would have meant Tigray, and was soon after appointed head of eration was abruptly terminated by the Suda- imprisonment or worse, but as we looked up the city council in his town of Inda Aba Guna. nese on January 5, 1985, after Prime Minister on the walls around the single room, we saw The following year, in 1977, Israel and Ethi- Shimon Peres publicly confirmed the airlift, a poster of people on a beach. We noticed that opia signed a “guns-for-Jews” deal that the leaving some 1,000 Ethiopian Jews strand- there was Hebrew writing on it and realized Ethiopians demanded be absolutely secret. ed in hostile territory. Many were evacuated that it was from an Israeli paper. That was the Fereda organized the transport of Jews from later in the US-led Operation Joshua, and six sole Jewish symbol he could have in his life. the north to Addis Ababa, from where they years later, Operation Solomon brought an ad- Sheffero wasn’t home, but his son told us to would be airlifted to Israel. But following the ditional 14,000 Beta Yisrael to Israel directly come back after dark. That night, trying to re- aliyah of the first 200 people, then-foreign min- from Ethiopia. trace our steps, we suddenly heard footsteps ister Moshe Dayan revealed the operation in a Fereda settled in Beer Sheva but continued chasing us, followed by a whispered “shalom.” press conference. The Ethiopian government to make numerous trips back to neighboring It was Sheffero. He made us jump a ditch and instantly terminated the deal, froze ties with African countries in order to help his breth- quickly took us across a muddy field into a Israel, and expelled all Israelis. Fereda was ren, until his untimely passing in early 2009, tuckle, the round mud hut with a thatched threatened with the death penalty and fled during a visit to Addis. And while Fereda roof that is a typical Ethiopian house. Inside, to Sudan. With the cash from selling his wed- was the legendary hero, his brother Amram with cow skins on the walls and a bench going ding ring, he sent desperate cables to the US, modestly admits that he and another brother around the room, were ten men, each of whom Canada, and the Geneva ORT office relaying were no small part of the clandestine opera- told us his tale of woe and oppression. One his whereabouts and requesting assistance in tion in Sudan. man was a cashier in a hotel and $500 — more getting to Israel. He then spent months living than a year’s salary — was found missing. He in the alleys of Sudan scrounging for food to Message from the Mossad When was being blamed and stood to go to prison survive. The Geneva letter eventually made its we made our first trips to Ethiopia in the for many years. We understood that we had way to the Mossad office in Tel Aviv. mid-1980s soon after Operation Moses, the rare opportunity to fulfill the mitzvah of Meanwhile, due to political instability in many families had been separated, as it pidyon shvuyim, the redemption of prisoners. Ethiopia, Christian and Muslim refugees was the able-bodied young people who We gave him the money in front of everybody were streaming across the Sudanese border, were able to make the journey to Sudan. and he was saved from jail. and that letter planted a wild idea in a Mos- Many women with children and the elder- Today Sheffero’s family lives in Beit sad agent’s head. He transmitted a message ly stayed behind. Shemesh, and we’ve stayed in touch, with to Fereda: Stay put. The idea was to have the With the passage of time we can finally ex- Ari G. treating some of his kids in his dental Jews join this exodus into Muslim, anti-Israel pose the following story. clinic. Before our 2009 trip back to Ethiopia Sudan and from there the Mossad, which as As young 20-somethings, we traveled deep we contacted Sheffero, who informed us that yet had no infrastructure in Sudan, would into the wilds of Africa on a mission. Today, his wife was there and we should meet her. somehow get them out. a cell phone works everywhere, but in those The idea was to have the Jews join Nineteen years earlier, her brother tried to Soon Fereda found himself in the center of days, there were barely any telephones. Once escape to Sudan to get to Israel, but he was a top-secret mission to transfer the Ethiopi- you got to your destination, you were incom- this exodus into Muslim, anti-Israel never heard from again and presumed dead. an Jews to Israel via Sudan. Fereda’s story is municado, in an enemy country with no real Suddenly, out of the blue he contacted them. complicated and often harrowing — he spent contact with the outside world. Sudan and from there the Mossad, He had been imprisoned for all those years and several years operating in hostile territory as a Via NACOEJ, we had been entrusted with a was finally freed and she had gone to see him. lone wolf until the Sudanese secret police put message from the Mossad. We were to inform which as yet had no infrastructure in It wasn’t exactly Beit Shemesh, but we met up a bounty on his head. He managed to get to specific people that a particular “bus stop” in with her in a hotel in Gondar City.
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