“Being Ethiopian in Israel is not a picnic,” says Micha Feldmann.

The man who oversaw the immigration of tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel since the 1990s, Feldmann says that most Israelis keep their distance from Ethiopians.

“In a recent study, 23 percent of Israelis responded that they would approve of their children dating or marrying an Ethiopian,” he says. “Only 40 percent of Israelis have spoken to an Ethiopian.”

He and Ethiopian Israeli Mimi David-Ratta visited Dayton in September to update the Jewish community on challenges to Ethiopian Jewry and how the American Jewish community can help alleviate their difficulties.

Feldmann and David-Ratta shared their stories with students at Hillel Academy, at a Jewish Federation community briefing, and with donors in private settings.

David-Ratta, who was raised in a Jewish village in Ethiopia, decided to make aliyah (immigrate to Israel) in 1984, when she was 8 1/2 years old.

“All the time, every day, we heard about Jerusalem from our parents and grandparents,” she says.

Her mother stayed to care for David-Ratta’s ill grandmother, so she embarked on her journey with her aunt.

“I refused to wait. I said, ‘Mother, I have the chance now.’”

With 100 people, she walked 460 miles to Sudan.

“It was very difficult. Many people died, many children.”

After five months in Sudan, she was finally brought to Israel.

“On my first day, I met a white person who spoke my native language,” she says. “It was Micha.” She says he became a second father to her.

Feldman says that 20,000 left the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa and went to Sudan like David-Ratta. However only 16,000 made it to Israel.

“Four thousand were buried in the sand,” he says. “This is a very cruel but strong proof of their Zionism. I have dedicated my life to bringing them to Israeli society.”

In 1991, he was one of the chief architects of Operation Solomon, which brought 14,310 Ethiopian Jews out of besieged Addis Ababa in one weekend. The funding for Operation Solomon came from the American Jewish community.

The challenges now are to bring the remaining 18,000 Falas Mura Jews — who had converted to Christianity under pressure — out of  impoverished, antisemitic Ethiopia; to absorb them into Israeli society; and in David-Ratta’s words, “to seek full integration between the two cultures.”

David-Ratta now works with Ethiopian immigrants. “I believe I have the ability to make a difference for my community,” she says. “But our journey is not finished.”

According to Feldmann, the Israeli government has decided to bring the remaining Falas Mura out of Ethiopia by the end of 2007.

“We have to bring 600 a month,” he says. “We hope you’ll help us bring them.”

To make this effort a success, United Jewish Communities has launched Operation Promise. The project seeks to ensure the proper absorption of the Falas Mura, as well as increasing services for Jews in the former Soviet Union.

Over the next three years, Operation Promise will provide:

• $23 million to maintain compounds for the Falas Mura Jews in Ethiopia, provide food, rent, health care, Hebrew language education and aliyah preparation;

• $40 million for absorption;

• and $37 million toward critical initiatives to improve educational opportunities for all Ethiopians.

Feldmann says, “what we need to do is to give the Ethiopian population the opportunity to become whatever their potential will allow them to become. Coming into Israel’s highly sophisticated society, they can only earn minimum wage.”

Through the support of North America’s Jewish federations, since 1993, Ethiopians in Israel have been able to earn up to a master’s degree without paying tuition.

“We need to have Ethiopian doctors, psychologists and lawyers,” he says. “Not just for the sake of the person or the family or the Ethiopian community. But in order to save our society. The moment we have Ethiopian doctors, something in the back of our mind will change. You are part of our project. Be part of history in the making.”