By CALEV BEN-DAVID
Photo by Ricki Rosen (The Jewish Journal)

The Jerusalem Post – Aug 6, 2008

The announcement by the Jewish Agency that the age of Ethiopian aliya is now ended with the last official airlift of olim from that nation on Tuesday should not be taken too literally.

Even the JA admits that among the some 9,000 remaining Falash Mura still hoping to immigrate, about 1,500 might yet qualify on grounds of family reunification or for other reasons.

As to the rest, fierce debate still rages between the Ethiopian advocacy organizations and their political supporters calling for their transfer here, and opponents such as Housing Minister Zev Boim, who two weeks ago charged that American Jewish groups, “who knew how to bring other Jews to their communities [in the US] and spent a lot of money doing so, don’t behave that way with Ethiopian Jews. So they shouldn’t come here and tell us what to do and how to act on this issue.”

This issue will probably work itself out in the coming years with some kind of compromise over the last Falash Mura in Ethiopia, possibly with final passage of a Knesset bill designed to ease their immigration here. Read more at The Jerusalem Post.