A total of 111 new immigrants (olim) from Ethiopia landed in Tel Aviv on May 9, joining some 95,000 of their countrymen who have immigrated to Israel.

Mark Wilf, chairman of the board of governors of the Jewish Agency, which chartered the immigrants’ flight, joined the new immigrants on the journey, as did a celebrity chef and Californian comedian, according to the Jewish Agency.

At Ben-Gurion International Airport, Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog, the Jewish Agency’s chairman of the executive who led missions in the 1980s to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel, met the new immigrants.

“The arrival of each plane of olim is an historic moment for the Jewish people,” he stated.

Julie Platt, chair of the board of the Jewish Federations of North America, said the new immigrants from Ethiopia had fulfilled their “their personal ‘Hatikvah’—the hope that they never let go of for so many years that one day they would reach the Land of Israel.”

On May 16, the Mitrelli Group is scheduled to bring a group from Africa—this one, 500 people from Angola, Senegal and the Ivory Coast—to Israel. The agenda, according to a release, includes “strengthening Israeli-African relations in the areas of innovation, food, agriculture, water and energy.”

Among the dignitaries slated to meet that group are former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and Haim Taib, founder and president of the Mitrelli Group.

Image - Maxim Dinshtein