Jerusalem – Interior Minister Eli Yishai is slated to submit a proposal to the government on Sunday to allow over 8,000 remaining Falashmura in Ethiopia to immigrate to Israel. But there are also some 2,000 Tigray whose relatives in Israel hope will have their eligibility to make aliyah to Israel examined.
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The Tigray (named after one of the districts in Ethiopia) live in northern Ethiopia near the border with Eritrea and Sudan, and their level of Judaism is unclear. Interior Ministry representatives sent to the region to examine the eligibility of the Falashmura said they would also examine the matter of the Tigray.
However, relatives of the Tigray in Israel have yet to receive a response with regards to the fate of their loved ones, and have recently decided to turn to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef for help.
“We turn to you in the name of some 2,000 Jews, members of the Beta Israel community, who are located in the Tigray region and are eager to immigrant to the land of Israel,” the Tigray community’s organization wrote in a letter to the Shas spiritual leader.
“These people have many (first degree) relatives in Israel, who immigrated in the start of the 1980s and left relatives behind,” the letter continued.
According to the Tigray: “The Interior Ministry, which is responsible for the matter, stated that it would examine their eligibility to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, but it did not. We turn to you… with a request that you make your voice heard and cry out for the lone Jews that wish to return to their homeland.”
Copies of the letter were also sent to Minister Yishai and Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver.
The organization wished to stress that it is not seeking to bring non-Jews that are not eligible to make aliyah to Israel. All they want is to apply the Law of Return – and nothing more. “Their relatives have been seeking to bring them to Israel for decades,” said Rabbi Avraham Shai of Arad who heads the organization.
“We fear that we may soon miss our last chance to have them make aliyah. The Interior Ministry keeps saying: ‘We will check, give us the lists of relatives’, but nothing has been done.”
Asa Gadash, a 69-year-old resident of Arad who immigrated to Israel during Operation Solomon, is seeking to bring her sisters to Israel. “I miss them, and send them the money from the National Insurance. I cry all the time but no one hears me. My husband passed away and I am left alone, and would like to be reunited with my family,” she said.
It is shameful how long the orthodox bureaucracy takes to make a decision and leaves these people twisting in the wind with no answer. The seem incapable of making a decision even after “studying” the matter for an extended time and simply procrastinate. They are afraid of being criticized no matter what they do so sitting there doing nothing seems the “safe” choice.
To #3, Agree with you. They do not have the DNA that both Ashkenazim and Sephardim have. They are not accepted by most rabbonim as being yehudim. This new group are christians, which they themselves admit to, but say they were forced to convert, and that is who Rav Yosef says is OK. There are so many problems today that only Moshiach will be able to sort through!
I just wonder if there is this much confusion over the 100s of Russians that were let in in the early 90s. They weren’t Jews and many still aren’t kosher Jews. And yet, I always here these organizations talking about saving Russian Jewry.
Can someone please explain to me why there is a concept of the ger in Torah and still people use the DNA, and “looks Jewish” idea?
#9 – Aharon: You’re question makes no sense – because as a people, we have the same DNA (both Ashkenazim and Sephardim). In this case, the Ethiopians claim to be Jews but that doesn’t make it so, and as they have a completely different DNA – well that speaks for itself. There are historians who say Ethiopian Jewish history really goes back only hundreds of years. Those who yearned for Zion are accepted as Jews, but naturally needed to have a reconversion as they knew nothing of the Oral Torah and most of the dinim and minhagim. But, now there’s a greater problem as the ones who want to come are sometimes relatives of those already in Israel, but are self-admitted christians themselves. It’s a very halachic problem and only those sages who are on the highest level should be the ones to determine their status.
To: #8  211; There is a very big problem about all the Russian non-Jews (even youth that are skinheads). Israelis know quite well that anywhere up to 3/4 that came are not Halachically Jewish. There are many problems today, social, religious and everything else. It seems that all there is today is a surplus of problems.