By: Aaron Hecht

In 2019, at the request of Isaac Herzog the chairman of the Jewish Agency the ICEJ donated $100,000 to provide emergency nutritional support to Ethiopian Jewish children and nursing mothers in the community in Ethiopia waiting to make Aliyah to Israel.

Medical teams working in Gondar reported that at least 22 children were saved from starvation by this program, while many more were saved from hunger and the onset of long-term health problems. 

The program’s significant success has led to other children being referred by their doctors. Roughly 350 children – from newborn to five years old – and approximately 100 pregnant mothers receive ICEJ-sponsored meals daily. “Based on the past 18 month’s experience, ICEJ’s supplemental feeding program has proven to be vital to the health of the children in Gondar and extremely cost effective,” the Jewish Agency leadership said in a letter to the ICEJ. “We deeply appreciate ICEJ’s past generosity.” 

At the same time, the cost and availability of food throughout eastern Africa has risen dramatically due to a massive plague of locusts which has devastated agricultural output. Therefore, it is more urgent than ever for Ethiopian aliyah to resume and increase, bringing all those still waiting home to Israel at last! 

” …Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” Matthew 25:40

Israel to welcome another 400 Ethiopian immigrants on ICEJ-sponsored flights

After months of delay, in large part due to the lack of a new government, Israel will start welcoming another 400 Ethiopian Jewish immigrants this Spring on flights sponsored by the ICEJ. The renewal of the Ethiopian aliyah will give new hope to some 8,000 members of the Falash Mura community still in transit camps in Gondar and Addis Ababa waiting – some for up to 20 years now – to be reunited with their families already in Israel.

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem has been sponsoring the Ethiopian aliyah flights over recent years, bringing home nearly 2,000 members of the ancient Israelite community since the government decided in 2015 to allow the last remnant of Ethiopian Jewry to return. Although many converted to Christianity over recent generations, often under economic duress, they are being allowed to move to Israel under a policy of family reunification. Most of those living in tough conditions in the transit camps have close relatives among the 140,000 Ethiopian Jews already in Israel.

Senior Israeli and Jewish Agency officials have assured the ICEJ that as soon as a new government is formed, they will work diligently to bring home all those remaining Ethiopian Jews eligible to make aliyah within the next couple years. This means the ICEJ must be ready to assist with these increased flights as the historic Ethiopian Jewish return to Israel draws to a close.