Finally In Israel, Some Falash Mura Are Turning To Jesus

Takeen from The Jerusalem Post, Mar. 15, 2007
By URIEL HEILMAN

When an Ethiopian-born Israeli named Dessie finished his compulsory army service three years ago and made plans to travel to Thailand, India and Vietnam, he was hoping to embark on a spiritual quest.

Like many young Israelis, Dessie felt a spiritual void in his life. Though he had studied four years in a religious high school in Jerusalem's East Talpiot neighborhood not long after making aliyah in 1992, he was not very religious.

Dessie hoped he might find in East Asia some of the spirituality he felt was missing from a life in Israel consumed by partying and alcohol.

"I was thirsty for God. I felt empty inside," Dessie said. "That's when I discovered Jesus."

Dessie, 25, now is a devoted member of Shalhevetya, one of a growing number of Protestant churches in Israel that bill themselves as messianic Jewish congregations and cater to Ethiopian Israelis.

Some of the congregants are born Jews, others are Christians who have been part of the 15-year-old Falash Mura migration to Israel, and still others are Ethiopians whose Jewish origins are opaque and Jewish literacy virtually nonexistent.

Recent Ethiopian olim are easy prey for Christian missionaries. They come to Israel with little knowledge of Judaism; some have Christian roots. Most practiced some form of Christianity in Ethiopia before filing their aliyah petitions and moving to the Ethiopian cities of Gondar and Addis Ababa.

Some veteran Ethiopian Israeli leaders are warning that the ongoing Ethiopian aliyah is making matters worse, bringing to Israel many Christians who either are married to Ethiopians of Jewish origin or fraudulently claim to be related to Jews.

"Today the aliyah of the Falash Mura has turned into a business," said Rabbi Yitzhak Zagay, an Ethiopian Israeli rabbi in Rehovot and director of the National Committee of Ethiopian Jews, formed recently to combat missionary activity.

The term Falash Mura is used to refer to Ethiopians of Jewish origin who converted to Christianity several generations ago to escape social and economic pressures.

Initially rebuffed as apostates when Israel decided some 30 years ago to facilitate the aliyah of Ethiopians who had kept their Jewish identity, the Falash Mura began to come to Israel legally after the government changed its policy in the early 1990s.

"If they became Christians 150 or 200 years ago, I am in favor of their aliyah," Zagay said of the Falash Mura, echoing the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's position that the Falash Mura are Christians of Jewish origin who are welcome back to the original faith of their forefathers.

"But not all those coming are Jews. There are those who buy a Jewish identity, and those who sell a Jewish identity," Zagay said. "The rich children of Addis Ababa prey on the Falash Mura and pay them to marry them, get to Israel, then divorce them and try to bring the rest of their families.

"The problem is that after they come here, not only are they not Jews, they are actively missionizing. They are Adventists, Pentecostals and other Protestant groups," he said.
Zagay hosted a conference in Rehovot in February to address the problem.

Other community leaders, like former Knesset member Shlomo Molla, now a department director at the World Zionist Organization, say the proselytizers are mostly outsiders, not Ethiopians.

"This phenomenon exists in various sectors of the Israeli population," Molla said. "I don't think it's connected to the Falash Mura. Unfortunately, missionaries succeed in penetrating the Ethiopian community. They operate on the periphery. They are not loved. They are not supported."