Israel is continuing efforts to bring the rest of the Jews remaining in Ethiopia to Israel, Housing Minister Ariel Sharon said Tuesday.
During a visit to an absorption center in Kiryat Shmona, Sharon told new immigrants that Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity would be brought to Israel as well.
President Bush’s special emissary to Ethiopia, former U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.), will be arriving here Wednesday, to see if he can assist in bringing the remaining Jews to Ethiopia.
Boschwitz, who was instrumental in persuading Ethiopian authorities to allow last weekend’s Operation Solomon airlift, will be arriving from London, where peace talks are under way between Ethiopian government officials and various rebel factions.
He is to meet with Foreign Minister David Levy and attend a special reception held in his honor by the Jewish Agency at the Diplomat Hotel in Jerusalem, home for the moment to 1,200 Ethiopian newcomers.
According to Israeli officials, an estimated 350 Jews were left behind in Addis Ababa when they failed to reach the airport in time for the weekend airlift to Israel. They are now under the protection of Israeli officials.
In addition, between 1,500 and 2,000 Jews are believed to be still in the northwest province of Gondar, where most of the Jewish population lived before migrating to the capital.
THOUSANDS MORE IN GONDAR
It now appears that the number of converts living in Ethiopia is much higher than was originally believed.
Micha Feldman, head of Jewish Agency operations in Ethiopia, told a festive session of the World Zionist Organization Executive on Monday that in addition to some 3,000 converts in Addis Ababa, there are at least another 10,000 in Gondar province.
“According to some estimates, there may be as many as several tens of thousands of converts” there, he said.
The Jewish Agency, meanwhile, has completed its initial survey of the latest arrivals, registering the total number of immigrants to come on Operation Solomon at 14,194.
The immigrants have been taken to 44 absorption centers throughout the country, 39 located in hotels and guest houses, and five in mobile homes sites.
“Operation Solomon has been the jewel in the crown of the aliyah activities of the Jewish Agency in the past two-and-a-half years,” said Simcha Dinitz, chairman of the Jewish Agency.
Uri Gordon, head of the Jewish Agency’s Immigration and Absorption Department, praised the cooperation among all the agencies that took part in the operation.
“Had we been able to adopt the same level of coordination also in regard to Soviet immigrants, their absorption would have looked totally different,” he said.
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