Ethiopian Jews are greeted by family and friends as they arrive at the Ben Gurion airport, outside Tel Aviv on August 28, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash 90)
By Ben Sales
May 28, 2014
Today, Jews in Jerusalem, Israel and the world over are celebrating Jerusalem Day, a holiday meant to commemorate the reunification of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War.
In Israel, the day has become somewhat controversial. Right-wing politicians often use it to advance political messages, while some on the left demur from the festivities.
But few note that on this date, Israel commemorates another holiday — Memorial Day for Ethiopian Jews Who Died on the Way to Israel.
Established by the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and the Diaspora in 2003, the holiday was first officially celebrated four years later with the unveiling of a memorial for fallen Ethiopian Jews on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl.
The day, and the memorial, pay tribute to the dangerous and often lethal journey Ethiopian Jews had to take from Ethiopia through Sudan in the 1980s and early 1990s before being flown into Israel. Israel’s government estimates that 4,000 Ethiopian Jews died en route, from hunger, sickness or violence.
Read more at jta.org.
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