Operation Solomon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
This article has been tagged since February 2007.

Operation Solomon was a 1991 covert Israeli military operation to take Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

In 1991, the sitting Ethiopian government, the Mengistu regime, was close to being toppled with the recent military successes of Eritrean and Tigrean rebels, threatening Ethiopia with dangerous political destabilization. Several Jewish organizations, including the state of Israel, were concerned about the well-being of the sizable population of Ethiopian Jews, properly referred to as Beta Israel, residing in Ethiopia. Also, the Mengistu regime had made mass emigration difficult for Beta Israel residing in Ethiopia, and the regime's dwindling power presented a promising opportunity for those Beta Israel who had been wanting to emigrate to Israel. In the previous year, 1990, the Israeli government and Israeli Defense Forces, aware of Mengistu's worsening political situation, made covert plans to airlift the Beta Israel population in Ethiopia to Israel. This became the largest emigration of Beta Israel to date.

In 36 hours, non-stop flights of 34 IAF C-130s, filled to absolute capacity with seats transported 14,325 Beta Israel émigrés from Ethiopia to Israel, where they were given food and shelter. After it was over, Operation Solomon took twice as many Beta Israel émigrés to Israel as Operation Moses and Operation Joshua combined.

The operation set a world record for single-flight passenger load on 24 May 1991 when an El Al 747 carried 1,087 (which became 1,088 as a baby was born mid-flight[citation needed]) passengers to Israel.

  • Alisa Poskanzer (2000). Ethiopian Exodus. (Gefen Publishing House)
  • Ricki Rosen (2006). Transformations: From Ethiopia to Israel.
  • Naomi Samuel (1999). The Moon is Bread. Gefen Publishing House.
  • Shmuel Yilma (1996). From Falasha to Freedom: An Ethiopian Jew's Journey to Jerusalem. Gefen Publishing House.
  • Baruch Meiri (2001). The Dream Behind Bars: The Story of the Prisoners of Zion from Ethiopia. Gefen Publishing House.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../o/p/e/Operation_Solomon_a1d4.html"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.