September 20, 2010 / 12 Tishrei 5771

Festival taking place to mark 25th anniversary of Operation Moses

The event will take place on Sunday September 26th from 4:30pm, in Safra Square in Jerusalem

Shiri Maimon will sing “Better to Forgive” together with Ayala Ingedasht

Gilad Segev and Shimon Tapeta duet: “Woman from Heaven”

Shimon Tapeta and Mazal Fikadu will sing “Now we’re going Home”

Shlomo Gronich and the Sheba Choir’s moving song: “The Moon” (“The Journey to the Land of Israel”)

During the festival of Sukkot (Sunday September 26th) an exciting and colourful celebration of Ethiopian Jewish culture will take place in Safra Square in Jerusalem. The climax of the “Jerusalem Sukka” event is the evening concert where singers of Ethiopian background will host veteran Israeli singers: Ayala Ingedasht will sing with Shiri Maimon, Shimon Tapeta with Gilad Segev, and Shlomo Gronich and the Sheba Choir will sing their well-known song “The Journey to the Land of Israel”.

From 4:30, a large sukka will be set up in Safra Square where traditional Ethiopian coffee “buna” will be served. There will be a demonstration of a traditional Ethiopian wedding, an area for braiding hair in the traditional Ethiopian style, and booths where artists from the Ethiopian community will exhibit their sculptures and paintings. The concert will begin 8:00pm and will be hosted by Yigal Ravid and Mahareta Baruch. It is to be broadcast on Channel One on Tuesday 28/9.

The event was initiated by the Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption in cooperation with the Jerusalem Municipality and marks the 25th anniversary of Operation Moses. It will highlight the contribution of Ethiopian new immigrants to Israeli society and their integration in Israeli culture and art. In attendance will be the Minister of Immigrant Absorption Sofa Landver, Chairman of the Jewish Agency Natan Sharansky and Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat.

In the clandestine “Operation Moses” from November 1984 until January 1985, 8,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel following a long and arduous journey on foot through the deserts of Sudan. Many people died on the way, en route to realizing their dream, and many others perished under the difficult conditions that existed in the transit camps.

There are some 120,000 people of Ethiopian background living in Israel today, 80,000 of them born in Ethiopia and the rest Israeli-born. The population of the Ethiopian community is relatively young compared to the general Jewish population: children up to 14 make up a third of the population (as opposed to a quarter in the overall) and only 5% are above the age of 65 (as opposed to 11%). Around 20% of the community came to Israel by 1989, most with Operation Moses in 1984-1985 and some 46.5% of the new immigrants came in the 1990’s, half of them in Operation Solomon carried out in 1991.