In 2015, Israel pledged to bring thousands more impoverished Ethiopian Jews on
aliyah – Hebrew for Jewish immigration to Israel. Since that decision, 2,250 Ethiopian Jews have been brought to Israel. And in October, the government decided to bring another 2,000 by the end of the year – a decision pushed by Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata, Israel’s first Ethiopian Cabinet member.
But Ethiopian activists lament the government’s comparatively slow pace. They accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised to bring 7,500 immigrants to Israel before the country’s election last March, of using the issue to win the votes of the country’s 150,000 Ethiopian Jews. “Because this concerns Black Ethiopian Jews, the government doesn’t rush,” says Surafel Alamo, a spokesman for the Struggle for the Aliyah of Ethiopian Jewry.