Definition of Jew presents dilemma

By Allyn Fisher
The Associated Press
Tampa Tribune May 27, 1991, Page 4

Jerusalem--As the last Israeli plane waited to take off from Addis Ababa airport, five Ethiopians sat weeping on the runway, pleading to be taken aboard, saying they were Jews who were forced to become Christians.

The operation commander, Maj. Gen. Amnon Shahak, made a snap decision to add them to the airlift.

His decision highlighted a painful and delicate aspect of the airlift: deciding who is a Jew with the right to come to Israel.

Up to 3,000 Ethiopians were turned away from the rescue flights to Israel this weekend for failing to meet Israel's definition of a Jew.

In many cases it was because they had converted to Christianity.  Others contend they simply were left off a census of Ethiopian Jews.

Some families were split by these decisions.  "It created a very difficult situation. There were even children who expected to see parents arriving." Abraham Neigisay of the Ethiopian Immigrants' Association told Israel radio.

Israeli officials say they had to adhere to Israeli immigration rules or risk upsetting a delicate political balance in the country between secular and ultra-orthodox Jews.

They say they also had to keep a promise to the Ethiopian government to evacuate only Jews.  So they took sick, the elderly and the heavily pregnant without hesitation. But when it came to their Jewishness, problems arose.

"We faced a very difficult dilemma. If we brought everyone who just claimed to be Jewish it could have amounted to hundreds of thousands more and not only thousands," said Simcha Dinitz, chairman of the Jewish Agency, which brings Jews to Israel.

Dinitz said he knew of 2,000 Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity and could not join the 15,000 who flew out in Operation Solomon over the weekend.

Negisay said 3,000 were left behind, plus another 2,000 Jews who apparently never made it to the airport.

Israeli rabbis recognized the Ethiopian Jews as part of the faith in a 1973 ruling by then Chief Sephardic Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef.  Some rabbis ruled the Ethiopians are descended from the lost Israelite tribe of Dan.

Israel's Law of Return entitles any Jew to immigrate and receive citizenship automatically.  The Law recognizes as a Jew someone born to a Jewish mother, or a convert to Judaism.  It does not accept Jews who have converted to another faith.

Had Israel's coalition government flouted these rules, it could have lost the support of the orthodox parties that keep it in power.

Most of the 14,000 Ethiopian Evacuees established their Judaism at the Israeli Embassy in Adddis Ababa over the past year, based on the say-so of the Ethiopian Jewish clergyman, said Yehuda Weinraub, a Jewish Agency spokesman.

For some, the paperwork went smoothly because they were related to the 7,500 airlifted to Israel in 1984 and 1985.

But some were not so lucky, despite having relatives in Israel.

Yossi Bugala, 30, who immigrated in 1982, came to a Jerusalem hotel in search of relatives and found three brothers and failed to obtain immigration permits and were left behind.

"I filled in many papers for them here but the Jewish Agency stopped them from coming, and said it was because they were Christians," he said.

Bugala explained that in Ethiopia, where Christianity is the main religion, it was common for Jews to claim being Christian to avoid discrimination.  ....end

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Comments: by Pastor G. Reckart (jesus-messianh.com)

There you have it.  When the lives of Jews were in danger, Messianic Jews were left to die if that was their fate.  This hate was because they were Christian.  To justify this hate they had a law made that specifically was designed to keep Jewish Christians from living in Israel.  Was there a protest of Gentile Christians on behalf of their Jewish brothers and sisters?  Could it be because they had *black faces*?  There was no protest, instead the subtle hate was accepted and the pulpits in Christian Churches around the world were ablaze with fervor about God saving the modern Pharisee Jews on wings of eagles (air planes).  The escape of Pharisee Jews was praised and the hate against Messianic Jews did not as far as we know get one drop of ink or mention from Christian puppet pulpits.

Israel should be a land of all Jews, even Messianic Jews.  It should even be a land for Gentile converts to Christian Judaism through the Lord Jesus Messiah.  If a Gentile convert to Pharisee Judaism can be considered a valid Jew for immigration and recognition as Jewishness, then the same should hold true for Gentile converts to Christian Judaism as performed by the Apostles in the Great Commission.

When Jews hate other Jews because they are Christian and believe in Jesus as the Messiah, they are then as diseased in the mind as those they accuse in the Western World of anti-Semitism.

The solution here is for Messianic Jews to immigrate to Israel and begin to get involved in the politics of the country.  Until they have created a block of votes to swing an election, they will not break free and rise above the hate presently shown against them.  It may take a couple of generations to accomplish this but it should be done.  Israel is just as much a homeland for Messianic Jews and Gentile converts to Christian Judaism as any other type of Jew, especially Communist Jews.

We do not know what happened to the many thousands of Messianic Jews who were denied the wings of eagles.  Was this God's way of punishing them for trusting in Jesus as Messiah?  At least this is what some Gentiles infer when they say God brought out only the real Jews (Pharisees) on wings of eagles?  I question both the Jewish attitude of hate toward these Messianic Jews, and I question the Gentile Christians who would treat these Messianic Jews as if they deserved this hate from God shown by the Pharisee Jews in Israel going by the name of Orthodox.

If all men would understand the mystery of the Cross, that love triumphs over enemies, then there will be peace on earth and goodwill toward all men to the Jew first and then to the Gentile.