Ono Academic College sponsored a Jerusalem Day program focusing on the connection between Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewry) and Jerusalem.
The program began with a performance by Beta Israel musician, Shmuel Yosef, of his original song, “Jerusalem,” written in Hebrew and Amharic.
Adv. Zeev Kaso, the Founder and Director of Ono’s Program for the Advancement and Social Integration of Ethiopian Israelis shared his personal Aliyah Odyssey travelling from Ethiopia through the Sudan to Israel as a child. It culminated when the Mossad took him and 150 other Beta Israel immigrants into the middle of the desert. There they waited for an Israeli Air Force Hercules airplane, which in the dark of night, whisked them away to Jerusalem.
Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, Founder and Director of Ono’s International Center for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry, told his Aliyah story, that began when he was 7 years old, and he and a friend took off running to get to Jerusalem. After this attempt did not succeed, Shalom made his way to the Red Sea Diving Resort (made famous in the Netflix movie of the same name) and was rescued by Israeli Navy frogmen who emerged from the water to take him to the Holy Land.
