page_title: Ethiopian Jews in Israel
section_title: Operation Brothers
hierarchical_section_title: Ethiopian Jews in Israel / History / Third Wave: (1975–1990) / Operation Brothers
caption_attribution_description: Carte des migrations falashas vers Israël Map of falashas migrations to Israel Par Christophe cagé 19:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
context_page_description: Ethiopian Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants from the Beta Israel communities in Ethiopia who now reside in Israel. To a lesser, but notable, extent, the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel is also composed of Falash Mura, a community of Beta Israel which had converted to Christianity over the course of past two centuries, but were permitted to immigrate to Israel upon returning to Israelite religion - this time largely to Rabbinic Judaism.
  Most of the community made aliyah from Ethiopia to Israel in two waves of mass immigration assisted by the Israeli government: Operation Moses, and Operation Solomon. Today, Israel is home to the largest Beta Israel community in the world, with about 125,500 citizens of Ethiopian descent in 2011, who are mainly assembled in the smaller urban areas of central Israel.
context_section_description: November 1979 – 1983: Aliyah activists and Mossad agents operating in Sudan called Beta Israel to come to Sudan, and from Sudan they would be taken to Israel via Europe. Jewish Ethiopian refugees from the Ethiopian Civil War in the mid 1970s began to arrive at the refugee camps in Sudan. Most Beta Israel came from Tigray and Wolqayt, regions that were controlled by the TPLF which often escorted them to the Sudanese border. Many Ethiopian Jews also immigrated to Israel to flee the war culture, hostility toward Ethiopian Jews, and famine in Ethiopia during and after the civil war. In 1981, the Jewish Defense League protested the "lack of action" to rescue Ethiopian Jews by taking over the main offices of HIAS in Manhattan.
  1983 – March 28, 1985: this emigration wave was in part motivated by word of mouth reports on the success of the emigration of many Jewish refugees to Israel. In 1983, the governor of Gondar region, Major Melaku Teferra, was ousted as governor, and his successor removed restrictions on travel. Beta Israel began to arrive in large numbers and the Mossad did not manage to evacuate them in time. Following the poor conditions in camps, many refugees died of disease and hunger. Among these victims, it is estimated that between 2,000 and 5,000 were Beta Israel. In late 1984, the Sudanese government, following the intervention of the United States, allowed the emigration of 7,200 Beta Israel refugees to Europe who immediately flew from there to Israel. The first of two operations during this period was Operation Moses (original name: "The Lion of Judah's Cub"), which took place between November 20, 1984, until January 20, 1985, during which 6,500 people emigrated to Israel. A few weeks later, the U.S. Air Force evacuated the 494 Beta Israel refugees remaining in Sudan to Israel in Operation Joshua. The second operation was mainly carried out due to the intervention and international pressure of the United States.
caption: Migration map of Beta Israel
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