Christian missionaries were infiltrating Israel through Ethiopian aliya initiatives, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel David Lau warned the Aliyah Ministry in a letter last Monday calling that Christian missionaries for the dedicated aliya project for Ethiopia had to come to an end, as almost all the Ethiopian Jews had already immigrated.
Lau said that Christian missionaries were coming to Israel to attempt to convert Ethiopian Jews.
Many Ethiopian Christians were immigrating to Israel and did not meet the criteria for Aliyah, wrote Lau. Israel’s Law of Return allows for the grandchildren or spouses of Jews the right to immigrate to Israel.
Almost two-thirds of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel between 2020 to 2022 identified as Christian, according to 2023 Israeli Immigration Policy Center data, coming to Israel as part of humanitarian family reunification.
Lau argued that current waves of Aliyah were not the same as the initial Aliyah of the Beta Israel community who had “fought for its uniqueness and preserved some of the values of Judaism” or the initial Falash Mura who had been forcibly converted to Christianity in the past.
Each aliya heralded as the last led to emptied immigration camps and programs being filled again with new applicants. Lau said he had warned 16 years ago in response to a State Comptroller report that only those that could prove that they had Jewish ancestry would be able to make Aliyah.
‘Time to treat applicants from Ethiopia equally’
While the Aliyah initiatives for Ethiopian Jews to Israel that began around 40 years ago was a landmark in the history of Israeli immigration, Lau said that it was “time to treat applicants from Ethiopia the same as anyone who applies from anywhere else in the world.”
Successive Israeli governments have debated ending the Ethiopian Aliyah initiative. Some have suggested to end family reunification.
Over 4,000 people from camps in Gondar and Addis Ababa had filed requests for Aliyah in August in the wake of worsening political and security conditions in Ethiopia.
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