Notable Israeli Ethiopian Jews

Beta Israel is an ancient Ethiopian Jewish community whose members maintained a distinct Jewish communal and religious identity in Ethiopia before their modern aliyah.[5] Israeli demographic sources use a broad community definition that encompasses both immigrants from Ethiopia and Israeli-born people with an Ethiopian-born father.[2]

The individuals profiled here were selected from available sourced material. The article is not an official or comprehensive roster, and inclusion does not imply a single formal definition of Ethiopian-Israeli identity.

The largest waves of Ethiopian Jewish immigration to Israel occurred through Operation Moses, which brought thousands of people through Sudan at the end of 1984, and Operation Solomon, which flew more than 14,000 people from Ethiopia to Israel in May 1991.[5][1] These operations transformed Beta Israel from a largely Ethiopian community into a major part of Israeli Jewish society.

Smaller immigration operations continued afterward. In 2020 the Israeli government launched Operation Zur Israel to bring 2,000 additional immigrants from Ethiopia and reunite families that had been separated for years.[6]

Efraim Zion Lawi was born in Karmiel after his parents immigrated from Ethiopia during Operation Moses in 1984, making him the first Israeli-born Qes, an Ethiopian Jewish religious leader.[7] His father and grandfather had both been Qessotch, the plural of Qes, and his father designated Efraim as his successor when Efraim was thirteen. Following his father's death, Lawi studied Ethiopian Jewish prayers, laws, and customs and was eventually ordained. The Jewish Agency reported that fifteen additional young Ethiopian Jews had been ordained as Qessotch after him, describing the development as a renewal of the tradition in Israel.[7]

Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, born Zaude Tesfay in Ethiopia in 1973, made aliyah in 1982 as part of Operation Bat Galim.[8] He came to Israel at age eight with his aunt and uncle and later lived in a children's home in Afula. He received rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Har Etzion, earned a doctorate in Jewish philosophy from Bar-Ilan University, and serves as rabbi of the Kedoshei Yisrael congregation in Kiryat Gat.[8][9] His books include From Sinai to Ethiopia, published in Hebrew in 2012, and Dialogues of Love and Fear from 2021.[8]

The people profiled in this article illustrate the community's widening participation in Israeli public life. Addisu Messele became the first member of Israel's Ethiopian community to serve in the Knesset in 1996, while Pnina Tamano-Shata later became the first Ethiopian-born woman in the Knesset and the first Ethiopian-born cabinet minister.[10][3]

Other milestones included Belaynesh Zevadia's appointment as Israel's first ambassador of Ethiopian origin and Yityish Aynaw's victory as the first Ethiopian-Israeli Miss Israel.[4][11] Avraham Yitzhak became the first Ethiopian immigrant to earn an Israeli medical degree and later the first Ethiopian Israeli to reach the IDF rank of colonel.[12][3]

Addisu Messele came to Israel in the early 1980s and became a prominent activist and chairman of the board of the United Ethiopian Jewish Organization. In 1996 he was elected to the immigrant-reserved position on the Labor Party list and became the first member of Israel's Ethiopian community to serve in the Knesset.[10] Messele later recounted leaving Ethiopia on foot, traveling for 32 days to Khartoum, and spending a year in Sudan assisting other Ethiopian Jews before reaching Israel. He also described organizing a 1983 demonstration outside the Knesset calling for continued Ethiopian Jewish immigration and serving for years as chairman of the umbrella organization representing Ethiopian immigrants.[13]

Pnina Tamano-Shata, born in 1981 in Wuzaba in Ethiopia's Gondar region, came to Israel at age three during Operation Moses, traveling through Sudan.[3][14] After serving in the army, she studied law at Ono Academic College, was certified as a lawyer in 2007, and became Channel 1's legal affairs correspondent in 2008. She joined Yesh Atid in 2012 and entered the Knesset in 2013 as the first Ethiopian-born woman to serve there.[3][14] In May 2020 she became Israel's first Ethiopian-born cabinet minister, serving as minister of immigration and integration. She subsequently returned to Ethiopia to help launch Operation Zur Israel, the government-approved effort to bring 2,000 immigrants to Israel.[6] The World Jewish Congress described her as one of very few Black Jewish leaders in Israel and reported that she spoke about the adversity Ethiopian immigrants faced and about continuing prejudice and discrimination.[15]

Tamano-Shata's public activism preceded her political career. In 2004 she was elected deputy chair of the Association of Ethiopian Students in Israel, and in 2006 she helped establish a campaign body promoting social equality for the Ethiopian community. She led protests concerning racism, the Ethiopian blood-donation affair, and the exclusion of students of Ethiopian origin from some schools, and she was among the leaders of the 2015 protests against police violence.[14]

Avraham Neguise immigrated to Israel in 1985 and served as a Likud member of the Knesset from 2015 to 2019. He advocated for Ethiopian aliyah, founded the Africa-Israel Caucus, and in 2024 was selected as a candidate to serve as Israel's ambassador to Ethiopia. Neguise identifies as a Beta Israel Ethiopian Jew.[16]

Gadi Yevarkan moved to Israel from Ethiopia at age eight and later directed the Center for Social Equality for Ethiopian Jews and headed the Be'eri pre-military leadership academy.[17] A Jerusalem Post survey listed eight politicians of Ethiopian birth or background who had served in the Knesset since 1996: Messele, Shlomo Molla, Rabbi Mazor Bayana, Aleli Admasu, Tamano-Shata, Shimon Solomon, Neguise, and Yevarkan. The article said they had represented about half a dozen political parties.[18]

Belaynesh Zevadia became Israel's first ambassador of Ethiopian origin when she was appointed in February 2012.[19][4] Born in the village of Ambober, she moved to Israel at age sixteen after her father, a Qes in their village, instructed her to make aliyah on her own.[20] She studied international relations and African studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Zevadia joined the Foreign Ministry's cadet course in 1993 and later served in diplomatic posts in Chicago and Houston before becoming ambassador to Ethiopia.[19][4]

The Jewish Agency profile recounts that the first word Zevadia learned to say was "Jerusalem," even before she said "mother" and "father."[20]

Avraham Yitzhak, born in 1972, immigrated to Israel at age nineteen in 1991 after studying medicine for three and a half years at Addis Ababa University, where he was the only Jewish student in the medical school.[12] He enrolled at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and on November 10, 1999, became the first Ethiopian immigrant to earn an Israeli medical degree. He ranked among the ten best students in his graduating class and delivered the valedictory address.[12]

Yitzhak subsequently became the first Ethiopian immigrant to serve as an IDF combat surgeon. He was wounded during the Second Lebanon War, joined the IDF humanitarian mission to earthquake-stricken Haiti in 2010, and in 2016 became the first Ethiopian Israeli to reach the rank of colonel, serving as chief medical officer of the IDF Southern Command.[3]

Yael Angadya, the daughter of immigrants who arrived during Operation Solomon, grew up in Sderot and served as an IDF officer. Before her military service, she participated in the Shinshinim program and undertook a teaching mission to Johannesburg, where she spoke with young people about Israel, Ethiopian identity, and being a Black Jew.[9]

Roi Etenesh immigrated to Israel with his family from Ethiopia as a teenager in 2006. He developed expertise in physics, mathematics, and robotics and was subsequently inducted into the IDF as a naval engineering officer.[9]

Ethiopian-Israeli artists have established a growing presence across Israel's music, film, theater, dance, and comedy scenes.

Ester Rada was born in 1985 in Kiryat Arba to Ethiopian parents whose family arrived in Israel through Operation Moses the year before her birth. Her music combines Ethiopian, American, and Israeli influences, including Ethio-Jazz, funk, and soul. She served in an IDF musical group, acted in Israeli film and television, performed at the Glastonbury Festival, and opened for Alicia Keys.[21]

Hagit Yaso was born in Sderot on October 8, 1989, to parents who had walked for four months through the desert from an Ethiopian village to Sudan before flying to Israel. She sang in an elementary-school group and later in a military band. In 2011 she won the Israeli talent competition Kochav Nolad ("A Star Is Born"), performing in Hebrew, English, Amharic, and Moroccan Arabic and receiving 60% of the final vote. She later toured internationally and appeared in the 2014 documentary Rock in the Red Zone.[22]

Gili Yalo, born Tadesse Yalo in the village of Teda in Ethiopia's Gondar region, began his journey to Israel at age four when his family traveled through Sudan. He has recalled that many people died along the way. After arriving in Israel, his family settled first in Safed and then in Ramla.[23] Yalo performed with the ensemble Pirkhei Yerushalayim from age nine and later collaborated with Reggae Zebulon Dub System. He has described distancing himself from Ethiopian culture as a child and later re-engaging with that heritage as an artist and activist. Following the death of Solomon Teka, he wrote and posted the song "A Light Finger on the Trigger," which received more than 150,000 views.[23]

Yossi Vassa immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia after a year-long journey on foot through the desert. At fourteen he enrolled at a boarding school in Petah Tikva and studied theater and education before serving in the IDF Theater, where he met collaborator Shai Ben-Atar.[24] With Ben-Atar and Liat Shavit, Vassa created and starred in the television comedy Nevso, which centers on an Ethiopian-origin Israeli publicist and addresses identity, culture, social hierarchy, and dilemmas involving government and police. Nevso won the International Emmy Award for Best Comedy Series in 2018.[24]

Aveva Dese is an Ethiopian-Israeli singer and songwriter whose work is largely in Amharic, part of a broader trend of Israeli musicians performing in languages connected to their families and communities.[25]

Eden Alene, a Jerusalem native, won Israel's X Factor singing competition in January 2018 at age seventeen.[26] In 2020 she was selected through The Next Star to Eurovision to represent Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest, becoming the first Israeli of Ethiopian descent chosen for that honor.[27] She was completing mandatory military service at the time of her selection.[28]

Cafe Shahor Hazak is a musical duo formed by cousins Ilak Sahalo and Uri Almo, who grew up together in Netanya's Nordau neighborhood. They began making music approximately nine years before a 2015 interview, after a local initiative established a recording studio called "Cafe LaNoar," which inspired the group's name and reflected their identity as Black artists.[29] Their first online single, "Rak La'alot" ("Just to Rise"), received more than two million YouTube views and became associated with the 2015 protest movement of Israelis of Ethiopian origin.[29]

A 2018 Walla Culture survey highlighted several additional artists of Ethiopian origin, including Eden Derso, Degga Fader, Shlomo (Baby) Samuel, Tehila Yeshayahu Adga, Natznet Mekonen, and Almework Davidian.[14] Fader serves as artistic director of the contemporary Ethiopian dance company Beita and founded Wozuza, which combines Ethiopian-origin and Israeli-born dancers and brings traditional Ethiopian dance motifs into modern movement. Samuel is a stand-up comedian whose material addresses immigrant family life and relations between Ethiopian-origin and veteran Israelis; he also hosted the weekly program Afrikhan on Kan Tarbut. Adga acts in the Ethiopian theater group Holgabb and appeared in the 2018 film Lady Titi Sings the Blues and a solo show based on her life. Davidian's Fig Tree was described as the first Israeli film made by a local woman filmmaker of Ethiopian origin and depicts immigrants' lives before they reached Israel.[14]

Yityish (Titi) Aynaw was born in Gondar, Ethiopia. After her mother's death, she and her older brother immigrated to Israel and settled in Netanya with their maternal grandparents.[30] Aynaw immigrated at age twelve, served as an IDF officer, and ran a fashion store after leaving the military.[11] On February 27, 2013, she was crowned Miss Israel, becoming the first Ethiopian-Israeli to win the pageant. She said she hoped to represent Israel's ethnic diversity and change perceptions of dark-skinned models.[11][31]

Maru Teferi was born in northwestern Ethiopia and immigrated to Israel with his Jewish family at age fourteen. He held Israeli records in six distances, including the half-marathon and marathon, and was set to compete in his second Olympics in 2021.[32]

Eden Amare Yitbarek became the first Israeli of Ethiopian background to win a Rhodes Scholarship in December 2020.[26]

In the judicial sphere, Ednaki Sebhat Haimowitz and Esther Tafta Gardi were appointed judges in 2016, becoming the first women from Israel's Ethiopian community to reach the judicial bench. Haimowitz was appointed to the Central District Magistrate's Court and Gardi to the Haifa District Traffic Court; they were among thirteen judicial appointments announced that year.[33][26]

Israela Tadela is a first-generation Israeli whose parents and siblings immigrated through Operation Moses in 1984. She served in the air force, studied education and sociology at the University of Haifa, and became a producer at Channel 2. Her profile states that she was the only Ethiopian working at the station when she started.[9]

Wovite Worku Mangesto was born near Gondar and came to Israel at age ten during Operation Moses in 1984, after a two-year journey on foot through Sudan with her mother and seven older siblings. She became a Ministry of Education national supervisor for new-immigrant youth at risk, taught at David Yellin College of Education, and wrote a Hebrew-language children's book about her family's migration and adjustment to life in Israel.[9]

The public achievements documented in this article developed alongside continuing debates over discrimination and integration. Sources describe protests concerning discarded blood donations, the exclusion of students of Ethiopian origin from some schools, housing discrimination, police violence, and what community members described as over-policing.[26][14] These issues also informed the activism of figures such as Pnina Tamano-Shata and Gili Yalo.

Reporting on Avraham Neguise's 2024 ambassadorial candidacy noted controversy concerning his earlier work related to the Falash Mura. The concerns were attributed to identified parties and should not be treated as independently settled conclusions.[16]

The article remains an illustrative selection rather than an official roster. Sources use differing criteria for community membership, including Ethiopian birth, Beta Israel identity, and Israeli birth to an Ethiopian-origin family. Demographic reporting, for example, includes Israeli-born people with an Ethiopian-born father.[2]