Saving the Lost Tribe: The Rescue and Redemption of the Ethiopian Jews [Hardcover]

Asher Naim (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2003

For nearly three thousand years, the black Jews of Ethiopia–known as the Falashas–maintained their faith and their identity in the face of drought, famine, and tribal war. They were indeed the lost tribe, tracing their ancestry to King Solomon and the queen of Sheba. Then in May 1991, these Ethiopian Jews staged a miraculous exodus. With Ethiopia exploding around them in brutal civil war, some fourteen thousand Falashas were safely airlifted to Jerusalem by the Israeli air force over the course of twenty-five harrowing hours. Told by the Israeli ambassador who made it happen, this spellbinding book is the story of that incredible rescue–as well as an extraordinary history of the Falashas, the remarkable people whose faith never waivered, even when confronted with enormous atrocities.

Asher Naim knew practically nothing about the Falashas when he was posted to Addis Ababa by the Israeli government in the fall of 1990, but he instantly found himself swept up in their plight. As rebel forces advanced against Ethiopia’s savage dictator, Mengistu Haile Meriam (“the Butcher of Addis”), it became clear that the Falashas would be slaughtered unless they could be snatched from the violence overwhelming their country.

Naim set to work on several fronts simultaneously–negotiating with Mengistu and his deceptively charming right hand man, coordinating logistics and strategy with the Israeli military, frantically raising money through contacts in America. On May 23, Naim realized it was now or never, and word went out to the Israeli air force: Operation Solomon must begin at once. With twenty thousand Falashas crowding the Israeli embassy compound, the first Israeli planes landed at the Addis airport and a team of crack Israeli commandos took position with instructions to protect the operation “at any cost.” Four hours later, the first planeload of Falashas took off for Israel.

For Asher Naim the rescue of the Falashas became a kind of personal quest–a quest not only to free his fellow Jews from tyranny but also to uphold the sacredness of human life. In helping the Falashas realize their three-thousand-year-old dream of returning to Jerusalem, Naim came to a profoundly new understanding of the nature of faith, identity, and the struggle to endure. Saving the Lost Tribe is a magnificent achievement, a story of hope in the face of chaos and redemption on the brink of disaster.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Operation Solomon was one of recent history's more unusual mass immigrations. In April 1991, 14,200 African Jews were airlifted from war-torn Ethiopia to Israel in a 25-hour period, bringing nothing other than religious items and the clothes on their backs. As Israel's ambassador to Ethiopia from 1990 to 1992, Naim was responsible for engineering the exit. A senior diplomat whose former postings included Washington, D.C., and Helsinki, Naim chronicles the events leading up to the mission, including his dealings with Ethiopian president Mengistu Miriam and members of his regime. A dictator who had seized power and poured the country's resources into the military at the expense of its people, Mengistu was scrambling to retain control in the face of armed rebellion and saw the Beta Israel, a group of Ethiopian Jews, as a powerful bargaining tool. With help from the first Bush administration and the American Jewish community, which provided $35 million to the Ethiopian government, Naim was able to coordinate the exodus. In the nine months it took him to arrange it, he also became familiar with the culture of the Beta Israel, whose isolation had frozen their rituals in the premodern era. Anyone interested in international relations will appreciate this valuable behind-the-scenes look at how diplomacy works. But a story as compelling as this one deserves more insight and analysis than Naim offers. He is, however, generous with facts and anecdotes, providing important raw material for future writers and scholars, as well as a clear chronology of the events leading up to Operation Solomon. B&w illus. and 8 pages of color illus.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In the nineteenth century, Christian missionaries in Ethiopia encountered a group of Jews previously unknown to the outside world; they called themselves Beta Israel, but they were more commonly known as Falasha. In 1991, as Ethiopia was ravaged by a civil war between supporters and opponents of a brutal Marxist dictatorship, the Israeli government, aided by financial support of American Jews, succeeded in transporting virtually all of the Falasha to safety in Israel. As Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia, Naim played the fundamental role in the negotiations leading to the transfer of the Falasha. His account of those negotiations often reads like a tense thriller; as Naim recounts his efforts and his impressions of Ethiopia, one is often repelled by the sheer cruelty and ruthlessness of the Mengistu regime. Even so, Naim's enchantment with the land and people of Ethiopia is clearly evident. This work succeeds both as an engrossing account of a humanitarian mission and a portrayal of an ancient, vibrant, and arguing culture still largely unknown to most in the West. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345450817
• ISBN-13: 978-0345450814
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #917,516 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > History > Africa > Ethiopia

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A diplomat's memoirs, February 12, 2003

By 

Keith Levenberg (New York, N.Y. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saving the Lost Tribe: The Rescue and Redemption of the Ethiopian Jews (Hardcover)

Over the course of three years in the early 1980s and just over a day in 1991 the Israeli government conducted two efforts unprecedented in human history, Operation Moses and Operation Solomon, respectively, that together rescued well over 20,000 Ethiopian Jews from a country ravaged by famine and civil war. Asher Naim was the Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia who negotiated with the regime's warlords and bureaucrats for their cooperation during the 1991 operation. He opens the book with a brief synopsis of the West's discovery of the Beta Israel ("house of Israel," as the Ethiopian Jews call themselves), an expedition so recent as the nineteenth century in which British missionaries found a mysterious tribe of black-skinned Africans with Semitic features who practiced a pre-Talmudic Judaism, dreamed of returning to Jerusalem, and thought they were the only Jews remaining in the world!

Readers, however, should regard this book not as a work of history but as Naim's memoirs chronicling his role in the months preceding May 25, 1991, when a fleet of 35 planes completed Operation Solomon after just 25 hours. His first-person perspective limns the personalities of the major players with an articulation difficult to achieve in a work with more historical depth, but this approach has serious limitations. Naim provides little historical background to the 1991 operation -- Operation Moses is nearly elided from his account altogether, as is the history of the Ethiopian Jews themselves, which is a shame, so fascinating is their story. Moreover, Naim's substantial ego pervades the narrative as he liberally seasons the text with self-congratulatory tributes to his own compassion and clout (going so far as to include an entire non-sequitur chapter claiming credit, perhaps justly, for the United Nations' rescission of its vile resolution equating Zionism with racism). At the same time, he manages to distract the reader's focus from the breathtaking acts of righteousness and grace at the heart of Operation Solomon as he effectively converts a tale of human kindness into a tale of diplomacy. I suspect more readers would have been interested to learn about the Beta Israel and their deliverers than about the internal machinations of ambassadorial politics. Example: the Ethiopian regime demanded a ransom of $35 million for the release of the Jews. Naim dedicates more words to the precise means by which Israel wired these funds to the relevant bureaucrats than to the captivating story of how the ransom was raised in no time at all from just a few dozen American philanthropists. They are not even named.

Naim does bring a refreshing objectivity to the story, declining to whitewash the difficult integration of the Ethiopians into Israeli society and duly noting some religious hardliners' long resistance to the acceptance of the Beta Israel as bona fide Jews. Among the most moving passages is Naim's lamentation for the priceless traditions the Ethiopians forgot as they assimilated into both mainstream Judaism and a secular Western society that brooks no cultural stasis. Given that a decade has elapsed between Operation Solomon and the publication of Naim's book, however, one would have expected more than three short chapters depicting the Beta Israel's communities after the aliyah. This deficiency would be less bothersome if Naim's account of Operation Solomon were more captivating and thorough, but the rescue operation itself does not begin until page 215 and fills only ten pages. I am compelled to conclude that Naim's book is destined to accomplish little more than provide some trivia for a better chronicle of the Exodus from Ethiopia that has yet to be authored.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing story of a courageous diplomat, April 5, 2008

By 

Jeanne Smith "Jeanne Jacoby Smith" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saving the Lost Tribe: The Rescue and Redemption of the Ethiopian Jews (Hardcover)

I just finished reading Mr. Naim's book, "Saving the Lost Tribe: The Rescue and Redemption of the Ethiopian Jews," and I was astounded at the lengths that this diplomat took to save his people in Ethiopia. Mr. Naim could have had a much easier life for himself working in the foreign service, which he had done elsehwhere for a number of years before being assigned to Ethiopia. However, in the midst of his other duties, he took the time and mustered the courage to do what he had to do to, literally, save a lost remnant of Jews from a country where they experienced extreme prejudice.

Since the time of Solomon, the Black Jews of Ethioipia have adhered to their faith in spite of cultural prejudices against them. Finally, after generations of stigmatization there, they were transported home to Israel due to the heroic measures of Mr. Naim and his embassy. Their adaptation, as he candidly states in the postlude to the book, was not an easy one from Ethiopia to Israel but, as with any immigrant group in transition, given time, they will experience the dignity of citizenship and make their contributions in the homeland of their forefather, King Solomon.

In 2005, my husband and I traveled to Ethiopia with Dr. Etphriam Isaac for the First World Conference on Africa and the Bible. Ethiopia, mentioned just a few times in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, is an amazing country, very poor, but extremely rich in history. Since our visit, I have read extensively on the situation with the Jews there. Mr. Naim's book fills a void in the literature about the plight, the prejudices, and the triumph of his people in Ethiopia.