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Israel Is Failing Its Commitment to Ethiopian Jews
Then IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi meets with Ethiopian-Israeli officers, July 28, 2019. Photo: Courtesy.
Last month, the State of Israel took the courageous step of announcing, with great fanfare, that they would be bringing in all the remaining B’nai Menashe from India. Jerusalem also ruled that it would not bring in Jews from Ethiopia because there are “no eligible individuals.”
After October 7, many people believed that the divides in Israel had melted: secular and religious, right and left, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi, veteran Israelis and new immigrants.
But one divide did not melt — the plight of the segment of Jews who are still stuck in Ethiopia.
Few cases expose this inconsistency more vividly than the contrast between two immigrant groups Israel is dealing with right now: the B’nai Menashe of Northeast India and the Ethiopian Jewish families still waiting in Addis Ababa and Gondar.
Both communities have claims that they are part of the Jewish people.
But only one is being brought.
In November 2023, in the middle of the war, Israel heroically brought more than 250 B’nai Menashe immigrants — from a community that has sent hundreds each year (218 in 2021, 274 in 2020, and many more in previous years). They arrive under the Law of Entry, undergo conversion afterward, and settle in supportive communities.
The Ethiopian Jewish community has centuries of documented Jewish lineage. Some groups (and parts of the Israeli government) contest that many of the Jews remaining in Ethiopia are not halachically Jewish, but these claims are greatly disputed.
Tragically, Israel is turning its back on the remaining 14,000 Jews in Ethiopia. Many, if not most, are first-degree relatives of the 175,000 Ethiopian Israelis already living in the country — parents, siblings, children, and spouses.
Since October 7, 2023, 40 Ethiopian-Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza and on the northern front. Representing just 1.7% of Israel, they account for over 4% of the deaths in the IDF. Many fallen soldiers left behind siblings or parents whom Israel has refused to bring.
“My son died defending Israel, but his sister is still stuck in Gondar. How is that justice?” one grieving mother told Yediot Ahronot this winter.
Israel has no convincing answer, a halachic inconsistency Israel refuses to acknowledge.
There is a second truth that makes the state’s inconsistency impossible to defend.
Virtually all Ethiopian immigrants undergo rabbinic giyur when they arrive in Israel. But those maternally linked do so, according to the Chief Rabbinate, out of extreme caution — not because their Jewish identity is unknown.
The Beta Israel have centuries of documented maternal-line Jewish descent, recognized by:
- Rav Ovadia Yosef and the Chief Rabbinate (1973)
- The Radbaz in the 16th century
- Rabbinic delegations from the 19th and 20th centuries
- Every serious historical study of Beta Israel origins
Indeed, many thousands of Ethiopian families today can show direct maternal Jewish lineage — the halachically determinative line.
The Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav Shlomo Amar, wrote that Jews in Ethiopia “are completely Jewish without any doubt.” According to the Chief Rabbi, any confirmatory immersion in a mikvah, ritual bath, was a stringency to remove all doubt, not a requirement.
The B’nai Menashe also received religious recognition by Israel from Rav Amar. However, in contrast to the Jews from Ethiopia, Rav Amar ruled that they are the “Seed of Israel” requiring a conversion to immigrate. Although their connection is real, sincere, and important, every B’nai Menashe immigrant undergoes full conversion, not confirmatory immersion.
And yet, while Israel rightfully and courageously brings thousands of B’nai Menashe with ease, it blocks thousands of Ethiopians whose lineage many believe to be stronger, older, and halachically grounded.
In 2022, the Israeli cabinet passed Government Decision 716, which obligated the state to:
1. Bring 3,000 Ethiopian Jews, a quota imposed because of short term budgetary considerations, not because of the number of remaining Jews in Ethiopia.
2. Complete the process within two years,
3. Reconvene afterward to decide on the next stage and bring in all others eligible.
While the State brought the initial 3,000, it never reconvened and never made the legally required follow-up decision. Thousands of Jews’ cases were never fully reviewed.
Instead, the Interior Ministry announced that the issue required “further examination” — as if decades of verifications, committees, and unanimous cabinet votes had not already taken place.
It is my understanding that the burdens Israel places on Ethiopian Jews are not applied to other groups. The government’s own Harel Committee confirmed in 2023 that Israel’s Ethiopian-aliyah criteria were “inconsistent and incoherent,” that family separations were “often unjustified,” and that Interior Ministry demographic concerns were “based on flawed assumptions.”
Yet not a single recommendation has been implemented.
One Ethiopian father whose son fell in Gaza told Kan News: “Israel trusted my son with a rifle. It will not trust me with a plane ticket.”
If Israel wants strict standards, apply them uniformly. If Israel wants broader inclusion, include also those with stronger claims.
What cannot be defended is a two-tier system of Jewish belonging. October 7 taught Israel who its defenders are. Ethiopian Israelis fought in every front-line brigade and paid a devastating price. Their families deserve the same commitment they have shown to the State of Israel.
The demand is simple and just: One standard. One policy. One people.
Gail Propp is a board member or officer of numerous boards. She has advocated on behalf of the Jews in Ethiopia for over 20 years.
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200+ Bnei Menashe immigrate to Israel from Israel, the first to make the journey in years
(JTA) — On Thursday, 240 members of India’s Bnei Menashe community arrived in Israel, marking the latest convoy of immigrants brought as part of a government-backed effort to relocate the entire community.
The flight, which landed at Ben Gurion Airport, was welcomed by a delegation including Israel’s aliyah minister and the chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel. It was the first of three flights expected over the next two weeks that will bring roughly 600 members of the Bnei Menashe community.
Under the operation, titled “Wings of Dawn,” the government expects to bring 1,200 members currently living in the northeastern Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur to Israel by the end of 2026, and 4,800 more — the rest of the community — by 2030.
“Members of the Bnei Menashe community bring with them unconditional love for the State of Israel, and through family reunification, the heart of Israeli society as a whole is expanded,” Doron Almog, the chairman of The Jewish Agency, said in a statement. “Our responsibility is not only to receive, but to accompany, embrace, and create for them a foundation of opportunity, belonging, and future.”
The Bnei Menashe, based in India, identify as descendants of the “lost tribe” of Menasseh, a claim that has earned backing in Israel but has been disputed by researchers. They began immigrating to Israel in the late 1980s with the help of an Israeli rabbi, undergoing formal conversions to Judaism upon arrival. A different organization took over their immigration process two decades ago but drew criticism from both the right — because the Bnei Menashe’s status as Jews was uncertain — and the left, who accused the government of bringing the them to stoke settlement in the West Bank.
A total of 4,000 members of the community have immigrated to Israel under previous government plans, with the most recent arrivals arriving in 2020.
Among those on the first flight in the new wave were young families, who will be brought to absorption centers in Nof HaGalil, a city in northern Israel, and reunited with family members who previously moved to the country.
Many of those family members join the Israeli army and work in fields where the country has a labor shortage. The reinvigoration of the immigration effort comes as labor shortages have been exacerbated by post-Oct. 7 limits on Palestinian labor, increasing Israel’s reliance on imported workers.
Back in India, the region where the Bnei Menashe live, Mizoram, experienced spasms of ethnic violence in recent years, causing some members of the group to become displaced and its synagogues damaged. But until relatively recently, many harbored little expectation that Israel would hasten to open its doors.
Then, in November, the Israeli government approved a proposal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring all remaining Bnei Menashe community members in India to Israel by 2030. Lawmakers said they aimed to reunite families and repopulate Israel’s north, which had been devastated by years of rocket fire from Lebanon.
The latest operation was supported by a host of Jewish and Christian Zionist groups, including the World Zionist Organization, The Jewish Federations of North America, Christians for Israel and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
“We are making history as we bring the entire Bnei Menashe community to Israel,” Ofir Sofer, the Israeli minister of aliyah and integration, said in a statement. “Today we welcomed the first flight of olim from northern India with great joy and excitement. I thank Prime Minister Netanyahu and Finance Minister Smotrich, who embraced the initiative I led — an initiative that will unite the entire community in the State of Israel.”
The post 200+ Bnei Menashe immigrate to Israel from Israel, the first to make the journey in years appeared first on The Forward.
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Ukraine, Russia Swap 193 Prisoners of War Each in US, UAE-Facilitated Exchange
Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) react after a swap, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, at an unknown location in Ukraine, April 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Anatolii Stepanov
Ukraine and Russia conducted a prisoner of war swap on Friday, sending back 193 captured personnel each in an exchange both sides said was facilitated by the United States and the United Arab Emirates.
“It is important that there are exchanges and that our people are returning home,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a post on Telegram.
His chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, and Russia‘s defence ministry said the US and the UAE had assisted with the exchange.
Russia and Ukraine have conducted many prisoner swaps over four years of war, exchanging thousands of captives in total.
Zelenskiy said some of the returned captives, who included soldiers, border guards, and police, had injuries, while others had faced criminal charges in Russia.
In Ukraine, returning captives streamed off buses, many draped in their country’s flag and overwhelmed with emotion.
“It still hasn’t sunk in that I’m home, I was in captivity for three years … our Ukrainian sky, our trees — this is happiness,” said Serhiy, a soldier, who gave only his first name.
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Main Suspect in Syria’s Tadamon Massacre Arrested, Ministry Says
Residents gather in a street after Friday prayers to celebrate the arrest of Amjad Yousef, a key suspect in the 2013 Tadamon massacre, in Tadamon, Syria, April 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s Interior Ministry said on Friday it had arrested the main suspect in the 2013 Tadamon massacre, one of the worst acts of violence attributed to the former government of Bashar al-Assad, in which 288 civilians were killed.
The ministry released footage of Amjad Yousef’s arrest in the Al-Ghab Plain area of Hama province in western Syria, near his hometown. Yousef had been hiding there since the overthrow of Assad at the end of 2024, a security source told Reuters.
US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack welcomed the arrest in a post on X, calling it an important step towards accountability for atrocities committed during Syria’s war.
DOCUMENTING THE MASSACRE
Yousef, 40, a former member of military intelligence under Assad, was thrust into the spotlight in April 2022 when the UK’s Guardian newspaper published videos provided by two academics that they said showed him forcing blindfolded civilians to run towards a pit in the Tadamon neighborhood of southern Damascus before shooting them.
Annsar Shahoud, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam Holocaust and Genocide Center and one of the academics, spent four years documenting the massacre.
Posing as an online fangirl, Shahoud gained Yousef’s trust and ultimately obtained his confessions both on video and audio recording.
Reuters was unable to reach Yousef for comment as he has been taken into custody.
The massacre is one of the most egregious documented incidents of violence attributed to the Assad government during the 14-year bloody war that began in 2011.
After Assad’s fall at the end of 2024, civilians, media outlets and international organizations went to the site of the massacre to inspect it and interview witnesses. Locals refer to the site as “Amjad Yousef’s Pit.” It has been marked on Google Maps as “The Site of the Tadamon Massacre.”
Ahmed Adra, a Tadamon resident and a member of the neighborhood committee, said victims’ families had been celebrating in the streets since morning.
“We will take white roses and plant them at the site of the massacre and tell the victims that their memory is alive and that justice is being served,” he told Reuters.
Shahoud said she now felt safe with Yousef in custody, but added the path to justice in Syria was unclear and did not include all perpetrators.
“I feel safe now, despite the distance, because I always felt for years that this person was after me,” she told Reuters.