Free Republic

ASHKELON, Israel -- Israel is closing the books on a rare millennia-old Jewish tradition. Nearly three decades after Israel began airlifting Ethiopia's ancient Jewish community out of the Horn of Africa, Israel's rabbis are now working to phase out the community's white-turbaned clergy, the kessoch, whose unusual religious practices are at odds with the rabbinate's Orthodox Judaism. The effort has added to the sense of discrimination felt by Israel's 120,000 Ethiopian citizens. These sentiments boiled over this month after a group of landlords in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi refused to accept Ethiopians as tenants.The move has prompted large...

Israeli minister in Ethiopian racism row By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem Last Updated: 1:42am BST 03/08/2007 Israel's interior minister faces accusations of racism after he suggested suspending the policy of allowing Ethiopians with Jewish ancestry to move to the country. While rabbinical authorities judge the so-called Falash Mura to be sufficiently Jewish to qualify for Israeli citizenship, Meir Sheetrit said they were not really Jewish and had been let in only because of "political correctness". In remarks that incensed the large Falasha community already in Israel, he implied that Ethiopians were fleecing the state by leaving the economic hardship of...

Feb. 6, 2005 15:30 | Updated Feb. 6, 2005 16:01 Immigration to Israel drops 9.5% By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER Immigration to Israel dropped 9.5 percent in 2004, the Jewish Agency announced at a press conference on Wednesday. The main reason for the drop was a decrease in immigration from former Soviet Union (FSU) countries, from 12,000 in 2003 to some 10,000 in 2004. The Jewish Agency believes that the number of immigrants from FSU countries can increase in the coming years if Israel's negotiations with Germany to cut benefits to Russian Jews bear fruit. According to the German media, starting...

MEVASERET ZION, Israel - Yeshambel Kassel Alazebech, an Ethiopian farmer, claims to be a descendant of Jews who converted to Christianity. Now after returning to Judaism, he has come to Israel to claim his birthright. In recent days, Cabinet ministers have voiced opposition to a government decision last year to lift immigration restrictions on the community of 20,000 Ethiopians, known as the Falash Mura, saying it would cost too much in Israel's weakened economy, battered by more than three years of fighting with the Palestinians. Also, veteran Ethiopian Jewish immigrants have cautioned the government against taking in their countrymen, contending...