The Israeli parliament, The Knesset, will vote on Monday, October 12, 2020, on bringing 2,000 members of the Falash Mura community in Ethiopia to Israel, with expenses expected to reach 51 million dollars.
“Six months ago, I promised to bring the remaining members of Ethiopia’s Jewish community to Israel. On Monday, I will present the government with the proposal of bringing 2,000 people of our nation from Ethiopia, in a step that brings us closer to bringing all of them to Israel,” said the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We uphold our promises,” he added.
There are approximately 8,000 remaining members of Falash Mura, Ethiopian Jews who, at some point in history, converted to Christianity, living in Ethiopia today.
Israel completed the airlifting of a group of Ethiopian Jews known as Beta Israel in the 1990s. However, this did not include the Falash Mura, and to this day, rabbinical authorities have been split on their status and Jewish ancestry.
About 30,000 Falash Mura have been brought over to Israel over the past 30 years.