Israel an Airlift to the Promised Land

Ethiopia's black Jews are spirited out in a secret operation

Their exodus begins on foot or by truck from primitive dwellings in the northwestern reaches of Ethiopia. In the past, those who managed to survive the arduous trek across the famine-ravaged land then had to endure, sometimes for years, squalid life in sprawling refugee camps on the Sudanese side of the border. They are called Falashas in Ethiopia, which in the Amharic language means "strangers" or "ones without a place." But they have always had a spiritual home: Israel. Although these Ethiopians are black, they are also Jews, and they long for the Promised Land. The Israeli government was forced to...

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