The North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry

Jews all over the world gather at the seder table to re-tell the story of the Exodus and teach our children the power of empathy – that they should experience the Exodus as though they had themselves been rescued from slavery and had set out on the road to the Promised Land with only unleavened bread to eat.

We also recite, most of us symbolically, let all who are hungry come and eat. This year, as we say these words, we have an opportunity to make it a reality for the most endangered Jewish* community in the world: the 24,000 Jews still remaining in Ethiopia after Operations Moses (1984) and Solomon (1991). Children and their families go to sleep hungry each night, often on straw mats or rocky dirt ‘floors’ in hovels the size of a New York walk-in closet. While they wait to go to Israel, the most vulnerable face avoidable disease, malnutrition and even death, preventable by adequate food and medicine.

Given the painfully slow immigration from Ethiopia to Israel (only 34 arrived in February 2004), these future citizens of Israel may be in Ethiopia at the gates of death for years to come, living in unbearable conditions as internally displaced persons in a land overwhelmed by famines and deadly malarial epidemics.

However, this determined Zionist community will eventually come to Israel, but the question remains, in what condition? Together, we have the power to help them become Israel-ready so that they will arrive healthy, Hebrew speaking and able to use their great potential to further enrich the Jewish homeland.

This Pesach, the fate of our Ethiopian family is a matter of death and dying, not "just" rescue. And no one can say he or she did not know.

You can make a critical difference. Please:

• Give a life-sustaining gift to Jewish children in Ethiopia.
• Ask Jewish leaders why even one more day goes by without the American Jewish community providing adequate funds for food, medical care and housing to these Jews in Ethiopia while they wait to make aliyah and be re-united with their families, in Israel.
• Let all who are hungry come and eat. We all must decide to help – now! How can we do otherwise? Inaction is a death sentence.

Gratefully,

The North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry**

Notes:

* In the past, some have said that these suffering people are not Jews or future citizens of Israel. However, Israel’s Chief Rabbi says that they are “Jews beyond any doubt… and must be saved from the gates of death”. Leaders of the Reform, Orthodox and Conservative movements in the United States agree.

** NACOEJ, a 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1982. In Ethiopia, NACOEJ is the sole support of compounds in Addis Ababa and Gondar City which daily provide 12,000 meals to babies, children, and pregnant or nursing women; schools for students in K-8; adult education; embroiderie programs for 1000 heads of households; monthly family food distributions; and religious facilities. In Israel, NACOEJ provides educational opportunities for Ethiopian-Israeli children and young people at the elementary, secondary and college levels.