Last Jews Of Ethiopia Wish Israel A Happy 70th

The Heart of Israel, together with Boomerang, produced a video of the last 8,000 Jews of Ethiopia (a group called the "Falash Mura," "Falasha" or "Beta Israel") waiting to come home to Israel and celebrating Israel's Independence Day.

In Ethiopia, they live under very poor conditions and are awaiting their promised immigration to the Jewish homeland in Israel. As remnants of the descendants of the Jewish Beta Israel community in Ethiopia that converted to Christianity under duress, the community still keeps Jewish traditions and yearning alive. Now, they want to return home.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently announced that 1,000 will be brought to Israel, while in November, hundreds of Ethiopian Jews gathered in Adis Ababa to protest the Israeli government’s delays.

A.Y. Katsof, director of the Heart of Israel, travels to Ethiopia on a monthly basis to raise money to support their arrival to Israel. As a pioneer living on the rugged hilltops of Samaria, Israel, and with the goal of resettling the Ethiopian Jewish community in Judea and Samaria, A.Y. is also working with on a municipality level to actualize their move to Israel's Biblical Heartland. He sees this resettlement not only as a moral imperative, but as a fulfillment of prophecy as the Jewish people return to their homeland, making the desert boom and the mountains prosper.