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Books Review:
Black Jews, Jews and Other Heroes: How
Grassroots Activism Led to the
Rescue of the Ethiopian Jews
Howard M. Lenhoff
Howard M. Lenhoff is a
remarkable person – a professor of
Biology who dedicated much of his energy
and many years of his life to Ethiopian
Jews. In the United States and Israel,
he tirelessly advocated the immigration
of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, and was
active in facilitating this process.
This book is an autobiographical account
of Lenhoff’s public activities as well
as the story of the American Association
for Ethiopian Jews (AAEJ), within which
he carried out most of his endeavors.
Under the leadership of three
presidents, founder Graenum Berger
(1974-1982), Howard Lenhoff (1978-1982)
and Nate Shapiro (1982-1993), the AAEJ
built an infrastructure that grew from a
handful of activists to 35,000 paying
members. The main objective of the AAEJ
was to foster the process of emigration
from Ethiopia. It was less interested in
the absorption of Ethiopian Jews or in
their needs when in Israel. Thus, with
the conclusion of Operation Solomon in
May 1991, it was only natural for its
board of directors to decide (in 1993)
to disband the organization.
To a large extent, this
book is also the story of the organized
American Jewish community. It describes
the mechanism of Jewish organizations,
their dynamics, their internal
struggles, and their ability to
influence political trends and external
goals, and the nature of their
affiliation with Israel. It is also an
excellent portrait of the creation and
maintenance of a community (virtual and
imagined) by means of organization. In
this context, the AAEJ represents a
marginal oppositional group that defied
the mainstream Jewish establishment with
its powerful organizations and contended
with the Jewish Agency and official
Israel, searching for its place on the
Jewish scene. It is no wonder that from
the very beginning, many young students
were attracted to it and joined its
ranks.
The AAEJ’s major effort
was directed toward the American Jewish
community. Its purpose was to convince
Jewish leadership to acknowledge the
need for the immigration of Ethiopian
Jews to Israel, and to adopt this cause
as a first priority. The hope was that
this leadership, in turn, would put
pressure on the government of Israel to
bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel. During
Lenhoff’s presidency, efforts were
intensified among the American Jewish
public. The AAEJ employed a network of
speakers who spoke to various Jewish
communities; issued press releases,
mainly published in the Jewish press;
invited eloquent Ethiopian immigrants
from Israel to speak about their
community; obtained more than 50,000
signatures on the behalf of Ethiopian
Jews; and warned Jewish audiences that
if the Jewish leadership ignored the
suffering of Ethiopian Jews, "the
stories of Jewish racism of Jew against
Jew will tarnish our children and our
children's children generation after
generation" (p. 113). Indeed, the AAEJ
was most effective in enlightening the
Jewish and non-Jewish American public
regarding the plight of Ethiopian
Jews.
An important part of the
book describes the involvement of AAEJ
and specifically of Lenhoff in Operation
Moses in 1984. The instability in
Ethiopia: civil war, increased military
conscription and a drought that resulted
in famine drove close to 300,000
Ethiopians, among them many Jews, to the
Sudan. The deteriorating conditions of
the refugees in the Sudan attracted the
attention and the help of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR). At this point, the US too
increased its involvement in the
humanitarian crisis. Lenhoff tells of
his meetings with Sudanese officials to
discuss an American proposal to extract
the Ethiopian Jews from Sudan (p. 225).
Sudan's consent to the exit of Ethiopian
Jews became part of its financial aid
agreement with the US. Thus, Operation
Moses was made possible essentially
thanks to US backing. By cooperating
with the Sudanese government, the US
hoped to advance its strategic interests
in Eastern Africa, perceiving Sudan as
an initial stronghold. Operation Moses
began on November 21, 1984 and brought
about 6,500 Ethiopian Jews to Israel
from the Sudan. Lenhoff's description of
his fieldwork in the Sudan before and
during Operation Moses, and during the
smaller scale Operation Sheba of March
1985, is fascinating. He developed
personal connections with key Sudanese
officials, and coordinated affairs for
and with the US officials.
The book goes on to
describe AAEJ activities in Ethiopia up
to 1990, when it helped to bring about
1,000 Jews from Gondar province to Addis
by paying their travel expenses. These
Jews were later issued exit visas and
immigrated to Israel. Lenhoff's
narrative then deals with Operation
Solomon in 1991, following the opening
of the Israeli embassy in Addis Ababa in
November 1989. In 1990, the stream of
Ethiopian Jews coming to Addis
increased, largely as a result of AAEJ
encouragement, but Ethiopian president
Mengistue refused to issue exit visas to
the thousands who gathered there. The
strategic interests of the US once again
contributed to the outcome. The
Ethiopian government asked for American
assistance in its battle against
insurgent forces and the US agreed, on
condition that more exit visas be issued
to Ethiopian Jews. Lenhoff relates (p.
292) that both Israeli and AAEJ
officials appealed to the US to
negotiate with the Ethiopian government.
American Jews raised $26m that were
given to Mengistue. On May 22, 1991,
more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews, almost
the entire remaining Jewish community,
were flown to Israel.
Throughout the book, the
author emphasizes the dissatisfaction of
the government of Israel, the Mossad and
the Jewish Agency with AAEJ activities.
Lenhoff suggests that this attitude
probably stemmed from the belief that
the publicity could hurt Ethiopian Jews
still in Africa, "or were our critics
simply trying to intimidate us into
being quiet because we were 'amateurs',
and 'outsiders'. By painting us
'irresponsible,' our opponents tried to
cast us as unreliable, even dangerous"
(p. 125). This was why major Jewish
organizations were reluctant to adopt
the AAEJ agenda. Only after Operation
Moses, with the encouragement of Israel,
did the American Jewish establishment
join in a successful fund-raising
campaign directed at funding the
absorption of Ethiopian Jews in their
new homeland.
While reading this
fascinating book with its rich data and
interesting behind-the-scenes details, a
question keeps turning up – How
instrumental was the AAEJ in the
actualization of Ethiopian Jews'
immigration to Israel? In his
introduction, Lenhoff writes, "Described
here is how a small group of political
activists working in a democracy like
the United States, can convince another
democracy, such as Israel, to use its
resources and risk its personnel to
rescue an endangered population" (p. 4).
Also: "seldom has a grassroots
organization been so successful [between
1974 and 1991]" (p. 5). Would the state
of Israel have taken action without the
AAEJ’s persistence? A turning point in
Israel's public opinion and in the
Israeli government’s attitude towards
immigration from Ethiopia came about
after Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ruled in 1973
that according to Jewish law, Beta
Israel are Jews. This was followed
in 1975 by a government decision that
Jewish Ethiopian immigrants are entitled
to Israeli citizenship under the law of
return. Soon after, a trickle of Jews
began to arrive in Israel. Yet official
Israel did not hasten to initiate actual
steps that would bring Ethiopian Jews to
Israel. At this point, the AAEJ, the
small, non-bureaucratic, non-hierarchic
organization, entered the picture.
Hoping to move the process forward
rapidly, the AAEJ was determined to
convince Israel to take action.
While the AAEJ was
working almost alone on the Jewish
American scene, in Israel Ethiopian Jews
already living in the country (by 1981
their number was close to 1,400) began
pressure to bring their brethren to
Israel. They were supported by many
voices in the Israeli public and press.
But it took the humanitarian disaster in
Ethiopia in the early 1980s, which drove
thousands of helpless people to the
Sudan, to provoke Israel to action. The
reports of suffering, of illness and
death on the way to Sudan or in the
refugee camps there caused Israel to
take an unequivocal decision to bring
these Jews to Israel. From a reluctant
role in the 1970s, Israel took an active
and decisive position from the 1980s
onward. This change of attitude led to
Operation Moses. Thereafter, the process
of Jewish immigration from Ethiopia was
unstoppable.
As stated above, US
foreign policy was an essential factor
in the immigration of Ethiopian Jews.
The US used Ethiopian Jews as one means
to advance its strategic interests in
East Africa, first in the Sudan and then
in Ethiopia itself. But the US would not
have taken action had its ally, the
government of Israel, not been
interested and not asked to make the
exodus of Ethiopian Jews from Africa a
condition for American foreign aid.
Returning to the
questions raised above, as elaborated by
Lenhoff, the AAEJ was vital and
effective in creating public awareness
of Ethiopian Jews, mainly during the
second half of the 1970s and the early
1980s. However, regarding their actual
immigration, its activity seems to be
only one of various factors that
contributed to the process.
Howard M. Lenhoff's
Black Jews, Jews and Other Heroes,
is a major source for the study of
Jewish emigration from Ethiopia. It is
also an important document that adds to
understanding the American Jewish
community and its organizations.
Moreover, the book provides an
interesting insight into the creation
and operation of a grassroots
association that, despite limited
resources but armed with abundant
passion, can make a significant impact.
Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman
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