When Israel Hesitates, We Build: Why SSEJ Laid a Cornerstone in Gondar

On October 15, guarded by dozens of Ethiopian soldiers and joined by Gondar’s deputy mayor, we laid the cornerstone for a new Jewish compound in Gondar: a school, nutrition center, beit midrash, and gathering place. It was not a celebration. It was a confession — of a task Israel has delayed for far too long, and of a duty the Diaspora must shoulder while the State hesitates.

The Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry (SSEJ) has supported prayer, Torah learning, nutrition, and basic healthcare for years in Gondar and Addis Ababa. But we never imagined we would have to construct permanent facilities. We did so because children’s bodies and minds cannot wait for politics. Chronic under-nutrition before age five causes irreversible physical and cognitive harm. High school completion — once above 90% when programs were funded — drops when classrooms are shuttered and meals vanish. Children do not grow on the schedule of governments.

Why is this necessary? Because Israel has functionally stopped accepting Orthodox Ethiopian Jews who are otherwise eligible to come home.

More than 1,200 people have already been approved by the Interior Ministry under Government Decisions 716 (2015) and 429 (2018). Thousands more — over 7,000 with maternal-line Jewish ancestry — await the most basic step: inspection. It has simply not taken place. Families remain divided for decades. Parents age apart from their children. Sons and daughters serve in the IDF while siblings wait in one-room mud homes without electricity or plumbing.

This is not conjecture; it is testimony. In March 2025, seven Orthodox rabbis — among them former leaders of the Rabbinical Council of America and senior pulpit rabbis from New York, Chicago, and Jerusalem — traveled to Ethiopia under SSEJ’s auspices. Their report is clear: they found a community living Jewishly under extreme poverty; they deemed the situation a “humanitarian and halakhic emergency”; and they called for immediate verification and Aliyah, alongside robust interim support. They urged Israel to expedite family reunifications, and they urged Diaspora Jewry to act — guided by lo ta‘amod al dam re‘echa (do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood) and kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh (all Israel are responsible for one another).

The rabbis encountered what I have witnessed during my four trips to Ethiopia: thousands at daily prayers, children singing Hatikvah, families with close relatives in Israel — including soldiers — who remain stranded through no fault of their own. The question they posed to us was simple: if the State delays, will the Diaspora sustain life and learning until Israel completes the gathering?

We answered by laying a cornerstone.

Some will respond that Israel must prioritize economic growth. Recently, senior officials declared that the Ministry of Aliyah should become a “growth engine for the economy.” Encouraging skilled immigration is legitimate. But turning Aliyah into a market test inverts Zionism. The State’s Declaration of Independence pledged that Israel “will be open for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of the exiles.” It did not add, provided the immigrant increases GDP.

Others argue that lineage must be verified. Of course. That is precisely what must happen — and what has not happened. As the rabbinic delegation emphasized, “responsible leadership” means sending inspectors, reviewing files family by family, and then acting. Justice requires that verification be conducted, not indefinitely postponed.

What must be done now is not complicated:

• Send inspectors to complete verification for roughly 7,000 waiting applicants with maternal-line claims.
• Implement existing decisions and bring home the 1,226 already approved.
• Allocate modest funds — a fraction of today’s incentives for high-income immigrants — to finish reviews and begin reunification flights within six months.
• Partner with Diaspora organizations to support education, nutrition, and healthcare until Aliyah is complete.

Until that happens, the Gondar compound stands as a promise kept to children who cannot afford delay. It tells a mother who decorated her one-room home with Stars of David and maps of Israel that her children’s future will not be held hostage to bureaucratic drift. It tells a brother whose father died during local fighting that he will find a desk, a book, and a meal — every day, without fail.

Israel’s moral standing has never rested on market logic. It rests on memory: that we were strangers, that we redeemed exiles, that we reunited families. In a post-October 7 world, Israel faces harsh and often unfair scrutiny. One way Israel can speak in a clear moral voice is to complete the Aliyah it has already promised — especially for those whose parents, spouses, and children are already Israeli.

Until then, we will not stand idly by. We will feed, teach, heal, and hope. And we will keep the gates of possibility open — brick by brick — until the gates of Zion open again.