A disturbing report: Ethiopian Jews are under a real existential threat these days. Who is to help them? Who will save them?
One night, dozens of families lost everything they had. Destitute, they were forced to seek refuge in neighboring towns. They fled to save their souls. They couldn’t protect their property.
Why are all these evils inflicted on them? Well, because they belong to another religion, the Jewish religion. Even their long-lasted attempt to hide their Jewishness couldn’t help them. As far as the local Christians are concerned, they were born Jews, and they are to be blamed for all sicknesses and diseases of society. They are Jews and descendants of Jews, the Marranos of Ethiopia, who are suspected for secretly practicing Judaism. They are subjected to severe persecution.
This is about North Shewa Jews who have secretly observed their Jewish identity for years just to survive. And now, because their young dare show their Jewishness openly, they are subjected to harsh, everyday persecution by neighbors of other faiths.
One night, on November 15, 2017, at 9:00 pm, 81 Jewish families from Ejere town in North Shewa found themselves deprived of all they had. Everything that made a village life was destroyed at once: 19 houses, 47 goats, 5 lambs, 5 cows, 61 chickens, 43 tons of Tef grain, Ethiopia’s super-food, were completely burned down. Nothing was left for these Jews: no shelter, no food, no clothes, and no animals to cultivate the land; absolutely nothing. They lost everything.
Their community leader, Belayneh Tazebeku, who resides in Kechene neighborhood in Addis Ababa, visited the affected families and provided us with evidence about what happened to the Jews there. And he asked us to bring the matter to the attention of the decision-makers in Israel and the Jewish Diaspora in hopes of receiving assistance for the displaced Jews who are now in temporary and improvised shelters in Fiche city.
All this happens as they are struggling for recognition and for the right to make Aliya to Israel like their brethren, the Beta Israel.
The local authorities in North Shewa do nothing to interrogate the events, arrest the criminals and punish them or to help the affected families. The Jews there were left homeless, defenseless, and destitute.
According to recent reports, pressure is mounting even on the Kechene Jewish community in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on the part of the Orthodox Church. There is a vibrant Jewish community whose members no longer hide their Jewishness. They own two synagogues. They have founded Zionist movements. They try to keep contact with Jewish communities around the world and in Israel, hoping to receive brotherly, moral assistance. Therefore, the local Church, which doesn’t see this emerging, proud Jewish community in favorable eyes, exerts a great pressure on them and wants to take away their cherished institutions – the two synagogues.
If this is the case in Addis Ababa, the situation of the Jews on the outskirts of the capital is far more severe. They suffer from incessant persecution; they suffer from harassment and physical attacks; they suffer from property damages on a daily basis. The footage and photos we have received speak for themselves.
Who is to help our brothers and sisters?
Will the world Jewry wake up and do something to help these persecuted Jews who are suffering because of their Jewishness? Will the Ethiopian Jews in Israel raise their voices for their brethren, their own flesh and blood?
Hopefully, they will; for we are all the keepers of our brothers and sisters.