You Can't Go Home Again

A depressing story from Ethiopia, courtesy of Reuters.

You've probably heard about the "law of return": all diaspora Jews are allowed to settle in Israel and eventually gain citizenship. Well, an ancient group of Jews, living on the margins of Ethiopian society, have been running into trouble. Thousands have been stranded for years in squalid refugee camps, and the Israeli government seems unwilling to let them return.

Israel -- a country built on immigration which says it houses about 110,000 Israelis of Ethiopian descent -- has finalized a list of the last to be brought in.

That would leave thousands -- estimates range from 8,000 to 16,000 -- in Gondar's sprawling, filthy camp and the surrounding villages.

Many people in the camps have been waiting for years in cramped mud shacks with no running water or basic sanitation, depending on food donations to survive. Families have been split up, only some of their number allowed into Israel.

The piece also hints at the double standard of emigration policies with Ethiopia and a more European country like Russia. Hundreds of thousands of Russians were allowed to return, often with little or no connection to the Jewish faith. I once spent a memorable afternoon in a park in Tel Aviv with a small group of these Russian Jews - who were devout Hare Krishnas.

There are claims that many Ethiopians are simply trying to leave their lives in Africa, taking advantage of the law. But they don't necessarily face a better life in Israel, where the Ethiopians who have already emigrated face dicrimination:

"It is not enough to airlift people in planes to Israel while those that have immigrated have not yet been absorbed," said Masala, referring to the hardships and social exclusion felt by many in the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel.

Israel has officially finished its list of who is and who is not a Jew among the Ethiopians who are waiting. Thousands will be left behind, facing lives of ostracism, exclusion, and loneliness at home.

In the middle of this, somewhere, there lurks the issue of tikkun olam - the Jewish idea that the purpose of being a Jew is to help rebuild a broken world.