Ethiopia: Beta Israel's last Jews await a visa to Israel

Ethiopia is home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. According to religious tradition, its origins date back to around 950 BC, with members tracing their descent from the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon.

Known as Beta Israel, the community faced persecution under the communist regime that ruled Ethiopia from the 1970s until the early 1990s, a period marked by systematic discrimination tied to its religious and ethnic identity.

Spectacular evacuation operations

In response to the community's plight, Israel mounted two large-scale evacuation operations, known as Operation Solomon and Operation Moses, which together airlifted more than 20,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel during the 1980s and 1990s.

Despite the scale of those operations, several thousand members of the Beta Israel community remained in Ethiopia, and many of them still hope to obtain a visa allowing them to join relatives already settled in Israel.

For those who remain, the path to emigration is uncertain, subject to complex eligibility criteria and administrative procedures governing the conditions for immigration to Israel.

The community's situation continues to mobilize advocacy associations and relatives abroad, who are calling for greater clarity on the fate of the remaining members and for mechanisms that would allow eligible individuals to complete their emigration process.

No precise timeline has been given for possible new evacuations or the granting of visas to the community's remaining members, leaving many families in a prolonged wait, unsure of when — or whether — reunification will come.