They say we’re Falashmura but we reject this name.” “We are the last ones left,” said Eyayu Abuhay, 28, one of five elected committee members who leads the community in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. (Melanie Lidman/Times of Israel) Eyayu Abuhay, 28, committee member, Addis Ababa Who are these Jews, the ones left behind Ethiopia? The following are eleven personal stories of heartbreak, waiting, and ultimately, hope.Įyayu Abuhay (right), one of five members of the leadership committee of the Addis Ababa community, and community member Ayeneixi Moges in the youth room at the Addis Ababa synagogue on May 6, 2016.
The average urban malnutrition rate in Ethiopia is 30%. In 2011, researchers found that 41% of the Jewish children in Gondar were malnourished, and in the 12-23 month age range, 67% were malnourished. Although the Jewish Agency has recently returned to the area, including sponsoring a Passover seder in April 2016, the feeding program has not resumed. The Jewish Agency used to run a feeding program for the Jewish community, for nursing and expectant mothers and children up to age 6, but that program ended in 2013 when they announced the end of Ethiopian aliyah. As such, they haven’t started businesses because they are always expecting to leave they rent instead of saving to buy a home, leaving them poorer each month as rents increase. They left their villages behind 20 years ago, destroying the social fabric that holds families together in order to move to Gondar or Addis Ababa to be closer to the Jewish Agency offices. The long period of limbo, of being unsure whether they when or if they will move to Israel, has plunged many Jewish families in Ethiopia deeper into poverty.
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