Jewish American activists are in Ethiopia to escort remnants of one of the oldest communities in the Jewish Diaspora to Israel, organizers said Wednesday reports The Washington Post. This current operation is a continuation of Operation Moses, covert evacuation of Ethiopian Jews from Sudan in 1984…Jews are granted automatic citizenship in Israel according to its “Law of Return.” Ethiopian Jews trace their ancestors to the ancient Israelite tribe of Dan. The community was cut off from the rest of the Jewish world for more than 1,000 years. In Ethiopia they are known as Falasha Mura and most of them were forcibly converted into Christianity.

A small minority of Ethiopian Jews live in Israel today, often under difficult economic condition and racial discrimination. Recent figures from Israel show that Ethiopian Jews now are at the bottom of the economic status, position for long occupied by Arabs. The integration of Ethiopian Jews into the mainstream culture has not been without problems. Suffering from lack of a modern education, many have fallen into unemployment and poverty and have watched their family structures disintegrate. Few days ago, the Israeli Immigrant Absorption Ministry has announced that it will cut NIS 5.5 million from its budget for integrating Ethiopian immigrants this year, while the funds for immigrants from other countries will be cut by only hundreds of thousands of shekels at most, reports Haaretz