From The NewYork Times, January 3, 2005: Ethiopian Jews Yearn for Entry to Promised Land: Israel
Nearly a decade ago, a mixture of religious devotion and desperation prompted Meles Mandefro to sell off his family's possessions, abandon his farmland in rural Ethiopia and move to this crowded capital, where he and his family settled in a hovel on a hillside near the Israeli Embassy.*The eye yearns for Tzion, and cries. A pun on a verse from Hatikava, israel's National Anthem
Mr. Mandefro, whose weathered face makes him look older than his 47 years, and thousands of other Ethiopians who made similar treks did not plan to stay long in Addis Ababa. They were Falash Mura Jews, and word had reached their villages that Israel would fly them soon to the Jewish state. All they had to do was get to the capital, turn in an application to the Embassy and wait.
More than nine years have passed, and Mr. Mandefro and his family are still waiting.
[snip]
"The government has been dragging its feet on bringing the remaining members of the Falash Mura community,' said Michael Freund, the head of Shavei Israel, which works to bring 'lost Jews' to Israel.
Mr. Freund said that government officials have raised numerous objections aimed at slowing the arrival of Falash Mura or even stopping the immigration altogether: that they are not really religious but just looking for a better life in Israel, that their numbers will swell beyond current estimates, that the cost is prohibitive"
