July / august 2006:

To the Promised Land
Many of Ethiopia's Jewish Falash Mura community are preparing to embark on the journey of a lifetime — to Israel, their new homeland.

Photo Essay by Kitra Cahana



A note from the Editor: This summer three hundred Ethiopians will silently make their way to the holy land under the auspices of the Israeli government. Operation Promise, Israel's third mission to rescue the last of those desperate and desirous to return to their considered homeland, plans to airlift as many as 12,000 Falash Mura by the end of 2007.

They are a distinct community from those previously rescued by Israel in Operations Moses and Solomon as they converted to Christianity in the 19th century under pressure of Ethiopian anti-Semitism and, only now, with the promise of being brought to Israel, are re-establishing their connection to Judaism. Being caught between Ethiopian discrimination that rejects them for their ties to Judaism and Israeli skepticism that questions the authenticity of their shared history with mainstream Jewry, has kept the Falash Mura community, one of the poorest demographics in Ethiopia, waiting, on the threshold of survival, for Israeli government approval for immigration.

This final operation, approved in September 2005, which upon completion will relieve Israel from its self-proclaimed responsibility to rescue those connected to Judaism in Ethiopia, hopes to finally reunite the remaining Falash Mura with the 80,000 Ethiopian Jews already residing in Israel, many of whom are parents, spouses, and children of those living in the impoverished conditions in Ethiopia.

Photojournalist Kitra Cahana, only 18 and on leave from her studies at Montreal's McGill University (see page 8), traveled by herself to the far reaches of Addis Ababa earlier this summer. The renegade shutterbug was on a personal mission to capture snapshots of the Falash Mura community as they prepare to embark on their long journey to Israel, their new promised land.