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Past event

A Modern Day Exodus, with Major (Res.) A.Y. Katsof

Major (Res.) A.Y. Katsof told the story of the month-long rescue mission through four African countries that reunited an estranged Ethiopian Jewish family in Israel.

Speaker

  • A.Y. Katsof

    Major (Res.), IDF

    Katsof led a month-long mission through Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia to reunite an Ethiopian Jewish family in Israel. The Jerusalem Post called him "a mix of Indiana Jones and Moses."

Operation Moses flew thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel out of Sudan in the mid-1980s. Some were left behind. Years later A.Y. Katsof met one of them in the synagogue in Addis Ababa: a woman who had been separated from her family as a teenager, held in a Sudanese prison, and forced into marriage. Both of her daughters had been sold into marriage at twelve.

Katsof promised to get them to Israel, and it took him three years. There was paperwork to prove she was Jewish, there were visas and passports, and a third of the cost came out of his own pocket. Jews and Christians gave the rest. The rescue itself was a month-long mission through Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Almost everything went wrong, and he wouldn’t go home until it was done. Three generations of the family ended up in Israel.

He told the story in person at Congregation Beth Jacob, with photos and video the public hadn’t seen yet. It was free, and AIC’s post that night called it extremely well received.

In Partnership With

  • Beth Jacob Atlanta

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