Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Israel has agreed to accept some 20,000 Ethiopians of Jewish descent as immigrants, even though their ancestors converted to Christianity. The Israeli military secretly airlifted tens of thousands of Jews from Ethiopia to Israel in 1984, when a famine was devastating the country, and a second group arrived seven years later. But the Falash Mura tribe was not included, because its members became Christians hundreds of years ago. Orthodox rabbis ruled recently that the Falash Mura, like Spanish Jews during the Inquisition, had been forced to convert to avoid persecution and had not forfeited their Jewishness.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Anne Hillerman's 6 favorite books with Native charactersFeature The author recommends works by Ramona Emerson, Craig Johnson, and more
-
How Zohran Mamdani's NYC mayoral run will change the Democratic PartyTalking Points The candidate poses a challenge to the party's 'dinosaur wing'
-
Book reviews: '1861: The Lost Peace' and 'Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers'Feature How America tried to avoid the Civil War and the link between lead pollution and serial killers
