The South African Jewish Museum, presents Operation Moses: 30 Years Later, in collaboration with the South African Zionist Federation and Beit Hatfutsot ̶ the Museum of the Jewish People.
During the mid-1980s a series of famines wracked Ethiopia, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, including members of the Beta Israel, a Jewish community that had lived in Ethiopia since biblical times.
Concerned by the fate of the Beta Israel, the Israeli government undertook a secret mission to airlift 7000 of these Ethiopian Jews to Israel. This secret mass migration was code-named Operation Moses.
This exhibition explores the personal experiences of ten Ethiopian Jewish families as they reflect on their lives in Israel over the past 30 years. Each story is accompanied by photographs and a short film which examines their struggles with displacement, emigration and absorption, as well as their reception by Israeli society.
The exhibition is curated by Orly Malessa, who herself immigrated to Israel with her family as part of “Operation Moses”.
The opening of this exhibition features a conversation with Danny Adeno Abebe, an Ethiopian Jew who made Aliyah* to Israel as a child via Operation Moses. Abebe will speak of his family, their ordeals in Ethiopia and their subsequent life in Israel.
WHEN: The exhibition opening will take place at 6:30pm on Thursday 7 March at the SA Jewish Museum.
WHERE: SA Jewish Museum, 88 Hatfield St, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
*Aliyah is the Hebrew term for the home-coming/return of a Jew to the Land of Israel
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