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From: rosen@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Operation Moses
Message-ID: <1884@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 04:23:36 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1884
Posted: Mon Jan 14 04:23:36 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Jan-85 10:12:05 EST
Lines: 29
Nf-ID: #R:ahuta:-33400:inmet:22300007:000:1434
Nf-From: inmet!rosen    Jan 11 11:45:00 1985

The official word is that Operation Moses, the rescue effort of
Ethiopian Jews, has been stopped.

The entire operation was to be kept quiet, not exactly secret.
That meant that nothing was to go in print, but it could be
discussed among small groups to enable the fundraising that was
needed to subsidize the efforts.

Unfortunately, news about the efforts started getting into the
newspapers, and last Thursday Israel decided to make a (terse)
statement to acknowledge the efforts (since everyone knew about
it and about Israel's involvement).

The official notificiation, however, caused the problems that
were expected.  The Sudan (where the Jews were being airlifted
from) does not have official ties with Israel, and did not want
it publicly known that they were cooperating.  They are very 
touchy, because of their connections to the USSR and the Arab
countries.  Similar for Ethiopia. 

The effort was able to bring out somewhere around 7000-8000 people.
The absorption process has been started on all, and is going well.
However, these efforts will be long (expected to take twice the
usual time for new immigrants) and VERY costly (perhaps @25,000 per
person).  Financial support is still needed.  As noted before,
checks can be sent to:       United Jewish Appeal
                             1290 Avenue of the Americas
                             New York, NY   10104
                             Att.: Operation Moses