For years, NACOEJ has tried to persuade the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) to take over our programs in Ethiopia. JAFI is much better funded than NACOEJ, and can do much more for the community waiting in Gondar Province to make aliyah.

Now, the aliyah is underway, and the turn-over is in process. Its completion is taking longer than we expected, and JAFI still does not have final Ethiopian government authorization to operate our programs. When final permission arrives, and NACOEJ is released from our contract with the Ethiopian government, we are confident that the community will continue to be in good hands.

Right now, the aliyah is continuing on schedule. However, starting this winter, there might be a shortage of space to house any newcomers in Israel. This could stymie the aliyah if the problem isn't solved soon.

In the meantime, the need for NACOEJ educational programs in Israel for newcomers, as well as for the Ethiopian community already there, is urgently increasing.

WE TURN OVER OUR PROGRAMS IN ETHIOPIA

As we turn over our programs in Ethiopia to the Jewish Agency for Israel, to facilitate the aliyah of the community and to provide a larger budget for their support while waiting (for years, on the present quota) to leave for Israel, we want to review briefly some of the programs we established and maintained over some 20 years.

These included:

Schools for Jewish children from pre-school through eighth grade, with full secular and Jewish/Hebrew language curricula.

Nourishing school lunches.

Feeding Centers for young children from age six months through six years, providing two excellent all-you-can-eat, meals a day.

Two equivalent meals a day in the Feeding Centers for pregnant and nursing women.

Community-wide regular food distributions.

Distributions of iodized salt, soap, candles, tools, mosquito nets, etc.

Establishment of libraries of children’s books.

Creation of religious facilities including synagogues, mikvehs, matzoh baking, celebrations of all Jewish and Israeli holidays, daily services, Sefer Torahs, tallitot, tefillin, siddurim, etc.

Employment programs enabling hundreds of heads of households (men and women) to earn money at traditional handicrafts including funding a needleworkers’ co-op, providing tools for those seeking outside labor and more.

Health care via nurses at schools and Feeding Centers, referrals to JDC clinics.

On-site employment of hundreds of community members as purchasers, cooks, servers, clean-up crews, teachers, guards, compound managers and more.

Sports, music, arts and circus training for talented children.

Adult education at many levels.

Not bad for a small organization largely dependent on grass-roots funding.

We thank all our supporters for making this record possible, and ask for you continued support for our equally essential programs for these Jews arriving, and already in, Israel!