After months of public debate and government deliberations, the Cabinet voted to back a plan that would allow the Falash Mora to immigrate here from Ethiopia as individuals, but not as Jews under the Law of Return.
The move would apparently block the chances for a mass immigration of the Falash Mora, Ethiopians whose ancestors were Jews who converted to Christianity.
Ethiopian Jewish groups in Israel have generally attacked the plan as not going far enough to bring the entire Falash Mora community to Israel.
Many Ethiopian Jews in Israel have relatives among the Falash Mora who remain in Africa. The group is variously estimated to number between 20,000 and 40,000.
Some 4,000 Falash Mora are now waiting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, hoping to emigrate and settle in Israel. Thousands more live in rural areas.
Ethiopian immigrant groups here, who have staged demonstrations against the recommendation, demand that the entire sect be recognized as Jews. Under the Law of Return, any Jew has an automatic right of immigration to Israel.
As the Cabinet met Sunday to vote on the plan; scores of Ethiopians demonstrated outside Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s offices.
The plan approved by the Cabinet was the recommendation of a ministerial committee that studied the issue for months and proposed that immigration be approved on an individual basis using the guideline of family reunification.
Some of the Falash Mora would also be eligible to immigrate under the Law of Return if they have Jewish parents or grandparents, or if they have decided to return to Judaism.
The recommendations were approved by 15 ministers, with the enthusiastic support of Rabin.
Minister of Education Shulamit Aloni, Minister of Agriculture Ya’acov Tsur and Minister of Economic Development Shimon Shetreet all abstained from the vote.
Despite the general approval, some ministers criticized the plan because it would not include brothers and sisters within the rubric of family reunion.
Sibling relations had been excluded because it was feared that it would greatly expand the number of eligible Falash Mora, since there is a high occurrence of divorce and remarriage in the Ethiopian community.
Aloni reiterated her position that the Jewishness of the Falash Mora should be determined by rabbis of the Ethiopian community, not by veteran Israeli rabbis.
Now that the cabinet approved the recommendations, Israel was expected to begin negotiations with the government of Ethiopia to work out the procedure of allowing Falash Mora to emigrate to Israel.
Haim Divon, Israel’s ambassador to Ethiopia, reported that the authorities in Ethiopia were still studying the recommendations of the committee and have not yet made any decisions about allowing the emigration of Falash Mora.
The Ethiopian government was reportedly pleased with the proposal to allow only selective emigration on the basis of family reunification rather than mass emigration.
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