23/09/2008 | 15:47Chanan Tigay
How the North American Jewish Federation System Helped Thousands Immigrate to Israel
As Europe exploded around them, some70,000 Jews succeeded in fleeing
Hitler’s inferno thanks to “illegal” immigration to Israel known as aliyah bet. As in the well-known case of the Exodus, world Jewry played an in indispensable role in this, and other, efforts to rescue Jews from certain death under the Nazis. Jewish organizational involvement in immigration to Israel did not end with the Holocaust. In fact, it has never ended. Since World War II, UJC and the Jewish Federations of North America have, in conjunction with other Jewish organizations including the Jewish Agency for Israel, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Keren HaYesod, undertaken several massive aliyah programs, beginning with the absorption of the Jews of North Africa in the 1950s, which was spearheaded in the legendary Operation Magic Carpet (officially called Operation Wings of Eagles), in which some 50,000 Jews from Yemen were flown to the fledgling State of Israel between 1949 and 1950. Fast-forward several decades to the early 1980s, when Ethiopia forbade the practice of Judaism, jailing many of its Jews on false charges of spying for Israel. Compounding the difficulties for Ethiopian Jewry, the country suffered through a number of devastating famines during this period.
Desperate to leave Ethiopia for the promise of better lives in Israel, large numbers of Ethiopian Jews, known as Beta Israel, migrated to eastern Sudan in 1984, where they took shelter in refugee camps as they awaited transport to Israel. Although some 8,000 Ethiopian Jews made it to Israel between the 70s and 80s, more than 4,000 died on the journey. Aware that the situation in the camps was dire, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin authorized Operation Moses, a secretive airlift that brought 8,000 more Jews out of Ethiopia to Israel in six weeks, hurrying the return of this “Lost Tribe” to their homeland after thousands of years.
UJC was intimately involved in the operation, the first large-scale rescue of Ethiopian Jews, in which the Israeli Air Force flew packed planes of the Beta Israel to the Jewish state, breaking world records for the number of people crammed into a single 747 jumbo jet. “The operation was sponsored by the federations of North America,” says Yitzchak Shavit, who oversees fund-raising for UJC’s overseas projects. “If not for the federations, what would have happened?”
In 1991, during another unstable time in Ethiopia, Israel airlifted another 4,500 Ethiopian Jews to Israel over the course of just 36 hours in a mission known as Operation Solomon. A total of 34 El Al jumbo jets and Hercules C-130s – seats removed to accommodate the maximum number of Ethiopians - began non-stop flights that continued for 36 hours to bring a total of 14,324 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Israel’s government authorized a special permit for El Al to fly on the Jewish Sabbath.
Later, UJC was involved in the enormous aliyah of Jews from the former Soviet Union, Albania, Syria and Sarajevo. The North American federation world’s constant involvement in aliyah—from prestate days through today—is a clear indication of how seriously its members take the issue of kibbutz galuyot, or the ingathering of exiles, particularly for those in harm’s way.
Learn more about UJC and the Jewish Federations of North America at the UJC General Assembly, this November 16-19 in Jerusalem, when 3,000 Jews join together to mark Israel's 60th anniversary.
For more information about UJC, the Federations of North America and the
General Assembly, visit www.ujc.org.
