30 December 2007
Addis Ababa — Ethiopian Jews residing in Israel on Wednesday appealed against government decision to call next week Interior Ministry officials stationed in Ethiopia, a move seen as a step toward ending mass emigration from the country to Israel, according to a news report..
"The petitioners asked the court to defer Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit's decision to recall the officials pending the High Court's decision on a separate petition calling for Israel to issue another 8,000 immigration permits to the Falashmura, Ethiopians who claim Jewish ancestry," the report said.
Wednesday's petition was filed by the organization Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry and relatives of would-be immigrants from Ethiopia, the report added.
According to the report the government following the government's decision in 2006, the Jewish Agency is slated to stop its activities on immigration from Ethiopia by June, "when the last group of immigrants issued with permits arrives in Israel." "Last week, Sheetrit held a meeting reviewing all the remaining applicants for immigration to Israel," the report noted.
But thousands of Falashmura who under the Law of Return have the right to immigrate remain in temporary camps, waiting permission to move to Israel, the report said citing petitioners as saying.
To date, some 30,000 Falashmura have immigrated to Israel, where they have undergone strict Jewish conversion.
Despite efforts to bring the remaining Falashmura to Israel over the years, their numbers keep growing. At the moment, some 8,000 people claiming Jewish descent and asking to immigrate to Israel still populate camps in Ethiopia's remote Gondar province.
Jewish Agency officials say the process has become rife with corruption and that many non-Jewish Ethiopians have claimed Jewish ties to immigrate to Israel, where they later revert to Christianity.
Israeli embassy officials in Addis Ababa were not immediately available for comment.
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