Yona Bogale is a household name in Israeli history. An Ethiopian Jewish educator and public figure, he dedicated his life to helping his community escape the national quagmire and make their way to the young State of Israel.
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Forty-two years ago, he spoke at an event organized by The Jewish Federations of North America and shared the sorrowful state of Ethiopian Jewish aliyah.
"It pains me to say that while Jews from all over the world have returned to the land of their fathers, the Beta Israel [Ethiopian Jewish] community has been denied the opportunity to fulfill the same dream," he said, addressing the 3,000 attendees.
"They hate us for our religion, and we are suffering and are at risk of death. Unless Jews from the US, Israel, and the rest of the Diaspora help us immigrate soon, I am confident we will disappear within 5-10 years."
Not long after Bogale gave his speech, began Operation Brothers, a covert mission to evacuate Ethiopian Jews via Sudan. Lasting from 1975 to 1990, it saw the rescue of some 20,000 Ethiopian Jews. Sixteen thousand of them made their way to Israel, and unfortunately, about 4,000 perished on the way.
In 1948 began Operation Moses, a cooperative effort between the Israel Defense Forces, the Central Intelligence Agency, and Sudanese state security forces to rescue another 6,000 Ethiopian Jews. Bogale's son, Mossad agent Zecarias Yona, also participated in the mission. Until this day, his photos cannot be published in the media due to his participation in several secret operations.
He has recently published a book – On The Wings of Yona (Bogale's first name is the Hebrew word for "dove") – that tells his father's story, how he worked tirelessly to build schools and hospitals in Ethiopia and traveled the world lobbying on behalf of his brethren.
The book title is also a reference to Exodus 19:4, in which God promises to take the Jews out of Egypt and to Israel "on the wings of eagles."
Bogale was born in 1908 in the rural Jewish village of Wolleqa, near Gondar in northern Ethiopia. He was raised in a family of farmers and cattle herders but showed an early aptitude for language and education.
With the help of Dr. Jacob Faitlovitch and Professor Taamrat Emmanuel – two prominent figures in the Jewish Ethiopian community – Bogale was one of several young people selected to study in Jerusalem. After attending elementary school in Israel for four years, he went on to study in Germany, Switzerland, and France.
Bogale returned to Ethiopia in 1932 and taught at a school in the capital Addis Ababa, eventually becoming a principal. In 1935, he served as a translator for the Ethiopian Red Cross at the time of the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia and was appointed director of the Ethiopian Education Ministry's education department in 1941 thanks to his proficiency in as many as 12 languages.
"In essence, my father was the emperor's [Haile Selassie I] personal translator," Yona said. "All political correspondence was conducted through him."
Ethiopian Jews lived in the area of Gondar and suffered from terrible antisemitism, with local Christians blaming them for the death of Jesus.
"A Jew could not own land, and Jews were not considered subjects [of the emperor]," Yona continued. "They had no rights and if they went to court, they faced hostility and judges supporting the other side, even if they were the guilty ones."
In one of the documents that Yona found, his father recounted how he informed the emperor of the brutal murder of 72 Ethiopian Jews between 1947 and 1949 after they were falsely accused of "doing witchcraft" and "casting an evil eye."
About a decade later, in 1958, Yona reported that an entire Jewish village had been burned down because residents were accused of killing a church leader, even though he died of an illness.
Unfortunately, contrary to the Jews of Europe and even the Middle East, Ethiopian Jewry had almost no representatives to advocate on their behalf. They were considered second-class citizens in a third-world country, isolated and cast down, and did not know what to do.
Bogale took it upon himself to create Jewish schools and provide education to members of his community all the while working to promote the aliyah of Ethiopian Jewry.
"In 1948, when the community heard that a Jewish state had been established, they traveled to Addis Ababa in order to move to Israel," Yona said.
However, "that was the last thing on the leaders' minds. There were lots of excuses, that we have contagious diseases, shocking things. My father, who became a representative for the community, did not want to tell them the reasons. He didn't want to tell them that the State of Israel didn't want them. He corresponded with Jewish leaders, not just in Israel, but also in the US and Europe, mobilizing them to join the struggle.
"Even though he established educational institutions [in Ethiopia], the whole idea was to move to Israel. He didn't want the children to remain citizens in Ethiopia, but to move and become Israel citizens."
Bogale established as many as 33 Jewish schools in Ethiopia. As the unofficial leader of the local Jewish community, he had to work both with the Ethiopian authorities who made life difficult for the Jews and Israeli leaders who refused to help bring them to Israel.
"In the 1960s, Golda Meir came to Ethiopia and met with the emperor," Yona said. "She was in Gondar, 20 kilometers away from where most Jews lived, and said she did not have the time to meet them. She went to the Nile Falls, to see animals, but for this she had no time. My father begged to meet with her, but she refused. It's incomprehensible – a leader of the State of Israel refused to meet with one person and hear what he had to say."
Yona said that his father was not around a lot while he was growing up, because he dedicated his life to the Jews of Ethiopia, walking from village to village. He was even arrested by authorities several times for his activities but continued nevertheless.
In 1971, Yona immigrated to Israel and with friends organized protests, calling on the government to bring the Jews of Ethiopia home. Meanwhile, his father continued to work from Ethiopia that much like today was going through a civil war at the time.
"We told them the terrible stories that were happening in Ethiopia. Jews were excommunicated and killed, and in some cases, even enslaved," Yona said.
Bogale himself refused to make aliyah as long as his community were strangers in a land that was not theirs. By the end of the 1970s, the situation in the country deteriorated further and Ethiopian Jewry was in even more danger. In 1977, Israel launched its most extensive operation to rescue Jews from Ethiopia.
Ferede Aklum, a Jewish-Ethiopian educator who also worked with Bogale, got in touch with Mossad agent Daniel Limor and the two began to bring the Jews to Israel through a diving resort in the Red Sea. Later, Mossad and the IDF Air Force began to rescue Jews by flying them to the Jewish state.
Thousands of members of the Ethiopian Jewish community left their homes and set on a dangerous journey in the Sudanese desert in order to reach the refugee camps and be taken to Israel. Bogale was an integral part of the operation, having established an agricultural colony on the Ethiopian-Sudanese border which was used as an escape route.
His activities put his own life at risk. In February 1978, in a letter to a friend, he wrote: "In the last few weeks, I've felt that I am in danger. I have decided to leave Ethiopia and move to Israel."
As hard as it was to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel, with Bogale it was even more challenging as he was a well-known public figure.
First, the plan was for Bogale to travel to Israel via Romania and claim that he needed to go to the European country for work. Unfortunately, the Ethiopian authorities did not approve the trip.
Later, then-Israeli Ambassador to Ethiopia Hanan Aynor tried to bring Bogale to Israel with the help of the head of the Ethiopian church in Israel, but that plan did not work out either.
In the end, Bogale succeeded in immigrating to Israel via Greece, and upon arrival met with then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin and other Israeli leaders and updated them on the dangerous situation in which the Jews of Ethiopia lived.
It was two years after his aliyah that Bogale addressed the North American Jewish Federation that led to the recognition of Ethiopian Jews as Diaspora Jewry the same day. Bogale's dream was finally becoming a reality.
In Israel, he lived with his family in Petach Tikva and helped Ethiopian Jews who made aliyah to integrate. He passed away in 1987, a decade after moving to Israel.
"His work in Ethiopia took a toll on him," Yona said. "He would walk for hours, visiting villages, without eating at set times. Already when he came to Israel, he was unwell, and passed away as a result of his illnesses."
Bogale was buried in Jerusalem's largest cemetery, Har Hanenuchot, next to former Israeli President Issac Ben Tzvi, who helped him throughout the year, and his teacher, Taamrat Emmanuel. Streets have been named after Bogale in cities across Israel.
On The Wings Of Yona does not shy away from criticizing the State of Israel for failing to help their brethren in need.
"There was a lot of frustration in dad's letters from those years," Yona said. "Jews were brought up from Yemen, Cochin Jews from India, but why not the Jews of Ethiopia? They gave excuse after excuse. They ignored the Jews who only lived a four-hour flight away.
"There was disregard, neglect, and my father was the only one there for them. This wound, although we have been in Israel for 50 years already, still exists. Things are not as dire as they were in the past, but not all problems have been solved yet either."
Ethiopian Labor MK Ayanau Fareda Sanbatu, who helped Yona in the writing of the book, said, "We are here thanks to Bogale's dream because the State of Israel did not want us. For me, he is the holy of holies, a role model of determination. In my opinion, he was like Moses, a man who was offered to become the Ethiopian emperor's right hand but refused. Who said that he wanted to redeem his people. The purpose of the book is to reveal the historical identity of the members of the community.
"We have a past, we have a connection to the land and state of Israel. This is the Israeli public's first such opportunity to get to know Beta Israel, to get to know one man with a big dream, who brought us here."
Yona said that, unfortunately, the young generation of Ethiopian Jews in Israel is unfamiliar with the founding fathers of the community, which is another important reason for publishing the book.
"Young Ethiopian Jews today imitate African Americans, the way they walk, behave, their haircuts. It's a shame. We have a wonderful history and things to be proud of. Most of the elderly generation are no longer with us, and whoever is, must be in their 80s and 90s, but they know what happened – they dreamed of coming to Israel, but did not know how to fight for that chance. My father was there for them. Perhaps when the young generation reads this book, they too will understand. He was like Moses who led us to the promised land."
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