opinion
As a Child of Survivors, I See My Parents
in Every Ethiopian Immigrant to Israel
R ecently, I watched a mother reunite
with her son for the first time in
41 years.

On May 9, I was part of a delega-
tion of the Jewish Agency for Israel
that accompanied Ethiopian olim
(immigrants) from Addis Ababa to Ben
Gurion Airport and new lives in Israel.

The mother had made aliyah in 1982 as
part of Operation Moses, when Ethiopian
Jewish immigrants trekked for weeks
through the Sudan, hiding out from
authorities in the daytime and walking
by moonlight, to reach Israeli Mossad
agents, who were secretly facilitating their
A line of Ethiopian immigrants during Operation Solomon
transport to Israel.

But the son, due to family circum-
stances, was left behind. And here she was on the
And I thought of my own family’s journey — a different
tarmac, praying and crying, and the embrace they had time, under different circumstances. But also a Jewish
when the now grown man walked down the stairs, that journey of perseverance, suffering and, for the fortunate
depth of emotion after decades of waiting and yearning, among us, survival.

was something that I will never forget.

My parents were born in Poland in the 1930s. During
The Ethiopian Jewish community dates back some World War II, my father and his family survived in a
2,500 years, from around the time of the destruc- Siberian labor camp and then in a remote part of Poland.

tion of the First Temple. We know that they have My mother’s family managed to get work papers, but
always yearned, from generation to generation, to be her father did not have them. He survived the war by
in Jerusalem. Most of the Ethiopian Jews emigrated to hiding under the floorboards of a barn on a farm where
Israel during the 1970s and 1980s and in one weekend in they were living. The woman who owned the farm
May 1992, a covert Israeli operation, dubbed Operation did not know they were Jewish, so it was a harrowing
Solomon, airlifted more than 14,325 Ethiopian Jews to day-to-day existence.

Israel over 36 hours. Those coming today are being
But my mother and father survived, managed to make
reunited with family members who came during one of it to liberation, and eventually came to the United States.

these earlier operations.

They were first sponsored by the Birmingham, Alabama,
On my four-day trip from Addis Ababa to Tel Aviv and Jewish community, and then made their way to New
Jerusalem, I listened to the stories of incredible perse- York and New Jersey, where our family has built a new
verance, and of heartrending suffering, among Ethiopian life. We now have fourth-generation children growing up
Jews — our brothers and sisters. Close to 100,000 of here in New Jersey, and we feel so fortunate for the lives
them have made their way to Israel over the past 40-plus we have.

years, fulfilling this community’s centuries-long quest to
Here is the essential difference from their story and
come to Israel.

mine: For my family, there was no state of Israel. Many
I heard about the Ethiopian Israeli who, as a 15-year-old, members of my family perished in the Holocaust. There
marched through Sudan with his family and lost three of was nowhere for them to go.

his siblings to starvation. I heard the stories of families
This drives what I do. Today, everything has changed
waiting, for months or years, for that moment of aliyah, because we have a state of Israel, and we have a Jewish
as clandestine negotiations among government negotia- Agency that ensures that Jews can make aliyah and
tors dragged on. It was so powerful to hear of the sacri- helps them make new lives in Israel.

Last year, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I
fices they made and how strong the dream was, and is
traveled to Poland and stood at the border as thousands
today, of coming to Jerusalem, to Israel.

14 JUNE 1, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
of Ukrainian refugees streamed across. I
was standing only a few miles from where
my grandfather hid under the floorboards
of that barn about 80 years earlier. Back
then, there was no one there to protect
my family, no one to do anything for
them. And here I was in 2022 standing
amid a massive array of aid agencies, and
the very first thing these refugees saw —
whether they were Jewish or not — were
signs with the Star of David, marking the
Jewish Agency, the American Jewish
Joint Distribution Committee and other
Jewish groups.

While there has been significant
hardship and struggle for the first gener-
ation of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, it was
incredibly inspiring for me to meet
members of the second generation —
those who made the trek as children
or teenagers in the 1980s and ’90s — who are now
Israeli adults in positions of leadership and significant
responsibilities. We heard from Havtamo Yosef, who
immigrated as a young child from Ethiopia with his
parents, and then watched his father become a street
sweeper and his mother a housecleaner while he was
growing up. Now he heads up the entire Ethiopian
Aliyah and Absorption services for the Jewish Agency,
ensuring that there are stronger absorption procedures,
better education and firmer foundations for better
lives for these new immigrants than there ever was
for his family.

While there was no Israel for my family when we were
refugees, there were — in Birmingham, Alabama; in
Hillside, New Jersey; and everywhere along the way of
my family’s journey — people who thought outside of
themselves, who cared and took care of my relatives.

This is my legacy and what motivates me today.

So when I stood on the tarmac at Ben Gurion earlier
this month, I cried tears of sadness at the long family
separations and tears of joy that today this Jewish
journey continues, from Ukraine and Russia and Ethiopia
to Israel. Today, there is a place to go and a people
to welcome Jews on that tarmac, with an Israeli flag,
a smile and a warm embrace, and a promise of better
lives in freedom. ■
Mark Wilf is chairman of the Board of Governors of
the Jewish Agency for Israel and immediate past
chair of the board of the Jewish Federations of North
America. Flicker / Israeli Tsvika
Mark Wilf



nation / world
Roger Waters Uses Anne
Frank’s Name at German
Concerts, Prompting Calls for
Punishment Roger Waters projected Anne Frank’s
name at recent concerts to draw com-
parisons between Israel and Nazi
Roger Waters performs in Munich
on May 21.

Germany, leading Germany’s Orthodox
rabbinical association to call for a ban on
his performances in the country, JTA.org reported.

Observers said that Waters, the former Pink Floyd frontman known as a leader in
the boycott Israel movement, has lumped Anne Frank with Palestinian Al Jazeera
journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in on-screen projections at concerts on his current
tour. Abu Akleh was killed on an assignment in the West Bank last year.

The Belltower journalist Nicholas Potter, who observed the May 17 Berlin concert,
argued that Waters promoted antisemitic language.

In speech bubbles on an LED screen in the Mercedes-Benz Arena, Waters
blamed the world’s troubles on “THE POWERS THAT BE,” which Potter described
as “an ominous, overpowering elite that is not explicitly named — this is an antise-
mitic blueprint on which many conspiracy narratives work.”
Before the event, BDS supporters outside the arena handed out flyers and held
up banners, one of which read, “Jews, Israelis and internationals all agree with the
Roger,” added Potter, noting that the average concertgoer appeared to be white,
German and around 60 years old.

German Court Acquits COVID Denier Who Compared Israel to
Nazi Germany
A German microbiologist known for repeatedly spreading misinformation about the
coronavirus was acquitted on May 23 of incitement to hatred for comments about
Jews and Israel, JTA.org reported.

In a 2021 campaign video for the fringe political party die Basis (The Basis),
Sucharit Bhakdi, 74, a well-known critic of Germany’s pandemic restrictions, said that
the Jews had learned evil under Hitler and are utilizing it in Israel to spread more evil.

“The people who fled from this land where the arch evil was, and have found their
land, have turned their own land into something even worse than Germany was,”
Bhakdi said in the video. “That is the bad thing about the Jews. They learn well.”
Prosecutors at the Plön district court argued that Bhakdi’s comments could lead
to the targeting of Jews in Germany. But a judge concluded that it couldn’t be deter-
mined without reasonable doubt that Bhakdi had spread antisemitic hatred toward
Jews, rather than a specific criticism of the Israeli government and its vaccination
policies, German newspaper Tagesspiegel reported.

Angelika Warmuth/picture alliance via Getty Images via JTA.org
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Apologizes for Saying Killing of
British Israelis Happened in ‘Shootout’
CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour apologized on May 22 for saying in April that the
killing of three British Israelis happened in a “shootout.”
Amanpour was referring to the shooting of three members of the Dee family, who
were killed in a West Bank terror attack in early April by a Palestinian gunman. Maia
and Rina Dee, ages 20 and 15, respectively, were killed, and their mother, Lucy, 48,
later died of her wounds.

Soon after the attack, Amanpour said on screen that the Dee daughters “were
killed in a shootout, and now the mother has died of her injury.” She commented
amid a recounting of recent violence between Israelis and Palestinians, which has
escalated this year.

Honest Reporting, a pro-Israel media watchdog, tweeted to Amanpour, “You owe a
grieving family an apology.” And this week, Rabbi Leo Dee, the husband and father of the
victims, said he was considering suing CNN for $1.3 billion, according to the Jewish Journal.

The next day, Amanpour apologized on air. ■
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
Jewish Exponent
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