Two months after the successful completion of Operation Solomon, the secret airlift that brought over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel, a few thousand Jews remain in the isolated northern region of the country.
The Jews are mainly located in the Kwara region, in the western part of Gondar province, which previously was home to most of the country’s Jews, said officials of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
But JDC, which has undertaken relief efforts in Ethiopia for years, has been unable to visit the Kwara area because of the unstable political and military situation there, said Gideon Taylor, special assistant to JDC’s executive vice president.
“Once the area becomes stable, we will be in the position to judge how many Jews are there and their situation,” he said. “We are already helping in the process of bringing them out.”
Taylor recently traveled to Ethiopia as part of a delegation that also included officials of the Jewish Agency for Israel and other Jewish groups. It was the first Jewish delegation to visit the country since Operation Solomon.
An estimated 350 Jews remain in the capital of Addis Ababa, as the victorious rebel forces that toppled the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam on May 21 prepare to announce the formation of a new government.
Although some of the remaining Jews arrived in Addis Ababa after the airlift was over, most missed their flights for one reason or another.
JDC and other Jewish officials monitoring the situation hope that the Jews will shortly be allowed to leave for Israel.
The Jews are now being cared for by JDC, which is also assisting the estimated 2,600 converts who gathered in Addis Ababa months ago in the hope of being allowed to immigrate to Israel.
“We felt that, on a humanitarian basis, these people needed help,” said Taylor.
OFFICE IN GONDAR REOPENED
Estimates of the number of converts, or Ferris Mora, as they are called, range from 15,000 to over 70,000. The converts, who are mainly located in Gondar, seem to have converted between 20 and 100 years ago.
Even before the 30-hour airlift began May 24, Israeli officials had to struggle with the issue of what to do with the converts, most of whom want to immigrate to Israel.
Israel’s Chief Rabbinate has been planning to send a delegation to Ethiopia to investigate the status of the converts, but no date has yet been set for the trip.
U.S. Jewish organizations have expressed concern that much more of a delay could be detrimental to the situation of the converts.
“It’s unfair to them, because these people are in limbo and they don’t know what sort of plans to make for the future,” said a Jewish official, who asked not to be named.
JDC, meanwhile, has reopened its office in Gondar, and “we’re reassessing the overall situation in the north and restarting our non-sectarian programs,” said Taylor.
One thing that remains unclear is why exactly these people converted to Christianity. While some claim they were forced to, observers closely connected to Ethiopia say the overwhelming majority converted voluntarily.
Rebel forces had been at war with the Ethiopian government for almost 25 years, but it was only in the beginning of 1991 that they managed to consolidate their power and truly threaten the Mengistu regime.
Israeli officials feared that in the chaos of the expected rebel takeover, Jews might be singled out as retribution for Israel’s reported arming of the Mengistu regime.
In fact, it was not until after Mengistu fled that the emergency airlift was allowed to begin, completing the rescue mission that began in 1985 with Operation Moses, in which over 10,000 Jews were spirited out of the country.
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