The Israeli Airlift of Ethiopian Jews

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2016

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

In May 1991, at the end of Ethiopia's civil war, 14000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel in just 36 hours during "Operation Solomon". An ancient Jewish community had lived in Ethiopia for centuries but amid war and famine, many tried to reach Israel. In 1984, Israel had rescued thousands of Ethiopian Jews from refugee camps in Sudan, Operation Solomon was meant to bring the remaining Ethiopian Jews to Israel. We hear from Daniel Nadawo, an Ethiopian Israeli, about his memories of the dramatic airlift. Photo: Ethiopian Jews known as 'Falashas' sit on board an Israeli Air Force Boeing 707, during Operation Sololmon, May 25th 1991 (AFP/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC BBC.
0:02.0	BBC.
0:06.0	Hello and thank you for downloading witness from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last.
0:12.0	And today we go back to May 1991 when in the final days of Ethiopia's civil war
0:18.0	thousands of Ethiopian Jews were dramatically airlifted to Israel.
0:23.0	We heard a loud knock on the door of the house we were mentioning in Addis Ababa.
0:38.1	When I opened the door I saw a tall, huge man I'd never seen before. He told my mum, take all of your kids, whoever is here and go to the Israeli
0:47.8	embassy now. In May 1991, Daniel Nodawa was 11 years old.
0:53.6	He lived with his parents in seven brothers and sisters in Addis Ababa,
0:58.0	and they were members of an ancient Ethiopian Jewish community. He said, we're going to Israel.
1:04.8	Everyone is going to Israel.
1:07.2	You should go.
1:08.2	He then rushed off so he could go tell other Jews in the area to do the same.
1:13.0	There had been an indigenous Jewish community in Ethiopia for centuries,
1:18.0	and many believe they were descendants of Israelites
1:21.0	who'd been forced into exile over 2,000 years ago, and they dreamt of moving
1:26.2	to Jerusalem, to Israel, returning to their spiritual home as they saw it. After all, Ethiopians called them Falasha, a term that in itself
1:36.4	seemed to indicate that they didn't belong. Falash is someone with no land that doesn't belong to the country and came from somewhere else.
1:48.0	So the whole time we, Ethiopian Jews, knew Ethiopia wasn't really our home, and many tried to move to Israel.
1:57.0	Seven years earlier in 1984, amid civil war and
2:04.2	families had fled across the border to Sudan and was secretly airlifted from refugee camps to
2:08.2	Israel, though thousands more remained behind in Ethiopia.
	...

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