$10m. project for Ethiopian absorption

By Tova Lazaroff
Jerusalem Post November 21, 2002

The Ethiopian National Project, which has raised $10 million for educational and employment assistance for Ethiopian immigrants, was officially launched Thursday in Philadelphia at the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities of North America.
According to its American chair, Arthur J. Naperstak, the UJC raised $5 million and the Israeli government gave an additional $5 million in matching funds.
The project was started two years ago, but was delayed when violence broke out in Israel in September 2000, Naperstak said. It is being run in collaboration with the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee.

Pilot projects will open this year in Beersheba, Hadera, Rehovot, and Kiryat Gat, Naperstak said.
"It's becoming very apparent that, as third world immigrants, the Ethiopians are falling further and further behind other groups in Israel. There is a general recognition that if nothing is done now, the problems will only become more severe," said Naperstak.

Afula Mayor Yitzhak Meron said "the essence of the national project is not to make the same mistake that Israel made in the 1950s and 1960s regarding Jews coming from North Africa and Asia." Shula Mola, director of Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews said that 66 percent of the 80,000 member Ethiopian community in Israel was dependent on government welfare payments and that 74%of the Ethiopian students were below the national average in math, science, and language skills.
Avraham Neguise, director of the Ethiopian advocacy group South Wing to Zion said, "We want our children to be professors and lawyers. We want them to fill the Israeli universities and colleges and not the Israeli prisons."

He asked that all North American federations establish a committee to work on Ethiopian projects.
Mike Rosenberg, the Jewish Agency's director general for immigration and absorption, said he was disappointed that so little money had been raised, noting that the intent had been to create a $60 million fund for the project.

But Naperstak said he would rather start with $10 million and allow the project to grow slowly.