THREE ETHIOPIAN JEWS FACE DEPORTATION

Dream of Zion turns to nightmare (HaAretz Newspaper-- February 4, 2000)

After nine years, three Israeli-Ethiopian women lose their citizenship and face deportation for joining a messianic group

By Aryeh Dayan

The fate of three young women from Ethiopia was sealed last week by a short, dryly worded, High Court decision. Its seven paragraphs barely filled up one sheet of paper. The young women had arrived here as new immigrants, hoping to build a new life here, and they believed that they had succeeded. But the High Court confirmed the Interior Ministry's decision to revoke their Israeli citizenship after almost a decade. The three came to Israel in 1991, arriving in the wave known as "Operation Solomon." They were accompanied by a man they called "father:" This was an Ethiopian Jew who had helped the Mossad organize the departure of Jews from Ethiopia ten years before, during the "Moses" operation. The man, who years before had adopted the three girls, presented them to Israeli authorities as his own daughters. After reaching Israel, they were given identity documentation listing them under one name, that of their adopted father.

Absorption authorities referred them to a caravan site in Acre, where they lived as a family until the man died two years later. The three young women, who were 15, 16 and 18 when they arrived, had never tried to conceal their non-Jewish identities from Israeli officials. Upon arrival, they disclosed that their mother was Christian.

. . .Their biological father was also Christian. The women did not tell Israeli officials that the man with whom they came to Israel, whose surname was Vandprow, was their mother's spouse, but not their real father.

This non-disclosure was a fateful step. Had the teenage newcomers told Israeli absorption authorities the truth, and been listed as the man's adopted children, they would have avoided their future woes.

Today, they say that they didn't disclose this key fact, because it didn't seem pertinent. "For as long as I can recall," one said this week, "I remember my mother being with Vandprow." She added "throughout my entire life, I related to him as my father, in every sense of the word. "From their first day in Israel, the three worked to integrate themselves in the new society. They learned Hebrew, lived in a religious boarding school, completed matriculation examinations, and (with scholarship assistance from the Absorption Ministry) they were accepted by Haifa University. After nine years in the country, they say, they were transformed. Ethiopian girls became Israeli women. Their lives as Israeli women might have continued unimpeded, were it not for a video tape of a messianic Jewish event which reached the Interior Ministry about a year ago, from unknown sources. A choir comprised of young Ethiopians performed at this event, and Interior Ministry officials saw fit to investigate the identities and status of each of these performers.

The three women received the results of this inquiry in a terse letter signed by Rafael Cohen, an Interior Ministry official . . . Thus, Cohen continued, "I've decided to revoke your immigrant permits, and the citizenship which you received on the basis of forged documents, or fallacious disclosures." The letter added: "You must leave Israel no later than May 30, 1999; if you fail to do so, we will be compelled to take legal steps for your deportation. . . "

The last recourse for these three women is to beg for mercy at the doorstep of the Interior Minister. "We came to Israel when we were teenagers," they wrote to Sharansky. "We honestly believed that we were coming with our father to live in Israel. We studied at boarding schools, and became integrated in the society. We were never converted, but we view ourselves as Jews. We love Jewish tradition, and the commandments of the Jewish religion, but we view ourselves as messianic Jews. That is our private belief; and we never tried to persuade others, or deal with missionary work. We have been Israeli women for nine years. We want to remain in the society, and believe that our citizenship has been revoked unjustly." . . .

RESPONSE REQUESTED

Expulsion of Messianic believers from Israel would be a dangerous first precedent. Once citizenship is granted, it can only be revoked because of a falsified application, which is asserted in the above case.

When believers of Jewish descent immigrate to this Land, the application form inquires about nationality and religion. Each applicant, including Jews who believe in Yeshua (Jesus) answer with their utmost honesty about their identity. Typically, Messianic Jews believe the most truthful answer in their hearts is that they remain Jews.

This, however, is in conflict with a Supreme Court decision (December 25, 1989), which states that Messianic Jews are not to be considered Jewish for the purpose of the Law of Return. Therefore, the potential exists to assert that all Messianic Jews that made application for citizenship during the last ten years made a false declaration when they stated that they are Jewish. Under this line of reasoning, therefore, the vast majority of all Messianic Jews who immigrated during the last decade are legally vulnerable to revocation of citizenship and expulsion from Israel.

The Interior Ministry certainly has the dry legal facts on their side, as the High Court affirmed in their decision. Nevertheless, for obvious humanitarian reasons, it would seem to be a cruel application of "justice" to force the consequences on three young women, two of whom were still minors at the time of their aliyah and none of whom were capable at that point of understanding the legal fine points of their civil status. There is no indication from the court's decision of any intentional deception on their part and therefore no reason to find that they made a false declaration, which would justify revoking their citizenship. It would be more reasonable to believe that they followed the instructions of their father and even that he or someone else filled out the applications for the minors at the time, if not for all of the women. For all intents and purposes, all three of these women have fully integrated into Israeli society over the past 9 years and there is no reason to consider these women persona non grata, except for their association with a Messianic community.

It is precisely here, with the Interior Ministry's witch-hunt after Messianic believers, that the infringement of basic human rights is involved, a "witch-hunt" unfortunately sanctioned by the Supreme Court. For the selective enforcement of the law (because of a person's religious affiliations), however correct in precise legal terms that enforcement might be, is a fundamental violation of Israel's Declaration of Independence which guarantees that the State of Israel "will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens without distinction of race creed or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture...."

This technically correct legal decision may well provide the break in the dike necessary to begin wholesale revocations of citizenship and expulsions of other "undesirables" who have all the proper Jewish lineage but who have also aligned themselves with the despised and rejected Messianic "sect." Certainly, the religious activists both inside and outside the Interior Ministry intend to take the maximum advantage of this legal precedent to press their attacks against the Messianic Jewish community generally.

We need action and now. There is every reason to believe that once these girls leave Israel, the Jewish religious establishment may drive their intent further to "vomit" Messianics from among the people.