Israel Calls an End to Immigration from Ethiopia

Two charter flights from Ethiopia are due to arrive in Israel today bringing 450 of the last immigrants to Israel. Ethiopian Jews have been brought to Israel in three major waves starting in 1994. Today there are some 130,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel, many of them immigrants. In the last few years, most of the immigrants to Israel have been Falashmura, members of Ethiopia’s Jewish community who were pressured to convert to Christianity in the 19th and 20th centuries. Since 2010, thousands of Falashmura, who had been waiting in transit camps in Ethiopia, have been brought to Israel. Thousands of other Ethiopians say they have Jewish ancestry and want to immigrate but Israeli officials say they believe they have brought almost all of them to Israel.