Amid war, Ethiopian Jews await Israeli rescue. Is bias causing delay?
When hundreds of flag-waving Ethiopian immigrants descended from a passenger jet to kiss the tarmac in Israel this month, they were feted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a ceremony reminiscent of the celebrated airlift of tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews at the end of the last century.
But for Surafel Alamo, a university student who immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia in 2006, it was a bittersweet moment. That’s because Mr. Alamo’s two sisters remain in Gondar – an Ethiopian city buffeted by the country’s civil war and the pandemic – waiting for word from Israel about when they will be able to emigrate as well.
His sisters belong to a group of approximately 8,000 impoverished Jews in – Hebrew for Jewish immigration to Israel.
