A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption said
the cost of settling the Falashmura in Israel will total
billions of shekels, according to reporter Yoav Yitzchak. The
Israeli government has decided to bring over the entire
Falashmura community in Addis Ababa.
The director of the Jewish Agency's immigration department,
Mike Rosenberg, reported that he has asked US Jews to help
fund their immigration to Israel. He told ranking officials
from the North American United of Jewish Communities that the
operation would cost $22.6 million (over NIS 100 million),
not including the cost of absorption in Israel. The Jewish
Agency allocated $18 million toward the operation and the
Joint Distribution Committee pledged $4.6 million. Rosenberg
said the Falashmura are immigrating at a rate of 300 per
month, and that this rate is slated to double starting next
month.
The Falashmura community consists of tens of thousands of
Ethiopian Christians who claim they were forcibly converted
from Judaism. In 1993 the Tzaban Commission, which was
appointed to investigate the issue, recommended not
recognizing the Falashmura as Jews, thus making them
ineligible for aliya under the Law of Return. According to
the recommendations only those who have close relatives
living in Israel should be allowed to make aliya.
In 1997 the government decided to bring over all 4,000
Falashmura waiting in Ethiopia, but independent Jewish-
American organizations then encouraged other members of the
community to migrate to the camps in Addis Ababa, where they
have been waiting under difficult living conditions ever
since, reports Yoav Yitzchak.
Ethiopians who have been living in Israel for years oppose
the aliya of the Falashmura, claiming they are Christians
posing as Jews and do not even intermarry with them.
According to directives issued by the Chief Rabbinate of
Israel the Falashmura must undergo conversion after arriving
in Israel.
The Falashmura are not the only ones seeking to settle in
Eretz Yisroel and receive the government benefit package
known as the "sal klita." There are also one million
people in India claiming they are Jews entitled to exercise
their rights under the Law of Return. According to Yoav
Yitzchak, 300 Christian priests in the area of the India-
Myanmar border held an emergency meeting last week over the
"decision by the Chief Rabbi of Israel to bring to Israel
some 6,000 members of the Bnei Menasheh community, which
precipitated a major increase in the flow of Christians
converting [sic] to Judaism with the hope of being able to
immigrate to Israel." The head of the Christian community
said the number of people calling themselves Bnei Menasheh
has increased by over 50 percent in the past two years. Today
the Bnei Menasheh belong to a tribe numbering over 900,000
people, the vast majority of whom are Christians.
In the past Israel agreed to allow 100 members of the
community to immigrate annually, but during his term as
interior minister Avraham Poraz ended this regulation,
claiming "the matter must be looked into and the Indian
government objects to this group's immigration to Israel."
Individual envoys from Israel have taught a portion of the
community Hebrew as part of an attempt to strengthen their
Israeli identity.
The mainstream press reports that the Pines Committee, which
will finalize Israel's immigration policy in the near future,
might institute a strict immigration policy similar to
European models. Among the proposals under discussion:
prohibiting illegal residents from becoming citizens and
imposing provisos for citizenship such as minimal income
levels, age restrictions and ties to Israel—even in if
the candidate for citizenship has an Israeli spouse, whether
Arab or Jew. These types of conditions are accepted in
European countries and recently there has been a trend to
make them even stricter.
At the beginning of April Ariel Sharon convened a meeting at
the Prime Minister's Office to discuss recommendations by the
National Security Council to restrict immigration
considerably. Sharon decided to accept the recommendations
and it was decided at the meeting to set up a committee
headed by Interior Minister Ophir Pines to formulate the
immigration policy, including changes to immigration laws. In
the Pines Committee, in government circles and among high-
level academic figures there is broad agreement the policy
must make it more difficult for non-Jews around the world to
obtain Israeli citizenship by replacing the interim directive
that only prevents family unity among Palestinians with
general restrictions.
Yoav Yitzchak also reports an extremely far-reaching proposal
by the Ministry of Internal Security to cease granting
automatic citizenship to non-Jewish children born outside of
Israel or to children with only one Israeli parent. Attorney-
General Mani Mazuz also supports the tightening of the
immigration policy. A document drafted by a team he heads
recommended requiring illegal residents to leave the country
for an extended "cooling-off" period before allowing them to
obtain citizenship. The document apparently served as the
basis for a bill by MK Moshe Kachlon (Likud) that was passed
last summer in a preliminary reading with the support of the
government. Pines said "a solution would be found for
humanitarian cases."
The committee will also assess the possibility of an
amendment to the Law of Return. Several committee members
have proposed amendments in the past. Justice Minister Livni
expressed support for the annulment of the law's grandfather
clause to prevent the entry of people whose connection to
Judaism is negligible. In 1999 Pines himself said annulling
the clause should be discussed.
Pines and Livni support transforming the Law of Return into a
foundation law, a stance that has met staunch opposition by
chareidi representatives. Former Education Minister Prof.
Amnon Rubinstein, who serves on the committee, supports
expanding the Law of Return and applying it to whoever seeks
to belong to the Jewish community.
