May 24 1991 – 12 Sivan 5751
On Sunday, May 25, 1991 (13 Sivan 5751), Israel’s morning papers and news broadcasts were full of emotional reports that thousands of Ethiopian Jews had landed at Ben-Gurion Airport. In just thirty-five hours, 14,310 new immigrants had arrived via the top-secret “Operation Solomon,” named after the legend attributing the arrival of Jews in Ethiopia to a romance between King Solomon and the fabled queen of Sheba.
Amid the years of political instability following the revolution that installed Mengistu Haile Mariam as military dictator of Ethiopia in 1974, many Jews smuggled their way to camps in Sudan. Between 1984 and 1985, these fugitives were secretly flown to Israel in “Operation Moses.”
Media leaks put an end to that escape route, stranding thousands of Jews in Sudan and in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Israel opened an embassy in Addis in 1989, and relations between the two countries gradually warmed after the Jewish state supplied Mengistu with light arms and sent military advisers to train his presidential guard and commando units. The Ethiopian government allowed five hundred Jewish citizens a month to emigrate to their homeland, while Israel pledged to supply Ethiopia with financial aid, agricultural expertise, and medical equipment.
By 1991, Mengistu’s regime was on the brink of collapse. Rebels converged on Addis Ababa, jeopardizing the Jewish refugees there. Feverish negotiations between Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Mengistu ended when the Ethiopian leader fled that May, but his deputies made a deal: Ethiopia’s Jews for thirty-five million dollars plus asylum in the United States for leaders of Mengistu’s regime.