The cabinet has passed a proposal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon to bring some 1,000 members of Ethiopia's Falash Mura community to Israel.
Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has been placed in charge of reviewing and approving the candidates, who will be allowed to make aliyah on condition that they have children in Israel who were allowed to move to the country under previous government decisions on the status of the Falash Mura.
Unlike Ethiopian Jews, whom Israel began airlifting out of Ethiopia in the 1980s after the rabbinate decided that they were full-fledged Jews and many of whom live observant Jewish lifestyles in Israel, the Falash Mura are Christians who claim distant Jewish lineage. Therefore, their eligibility to make aliyah has been the subject of much debate and compromise.
Many Ethiopian Jews and Falash Mura in Israel are campaigning to persuade the government to allow their Falash Mura relatives into the country so their families can be reunited.
Under Sunday's decision, parents who meet the criteria will be allowed to make the move with their spouses and any unmarried children who do not have children of their own.
The Aliyah and Integration Ministry will grant the new arrivals the same rights and benefits as Jewish Ethiopian immigrants and to which other Falash Mura have been entitled.
The ministry's conversion department will oversee the immigrants' conversion to Judaism.
However, many cabinet ministers, MKs, and members of the Ethiopian community in Israel are saying – albeit off the record – that Israel should not bring the Falash Mura to Israel because they are not Jews.
One MK who did express his opinion publicly was Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi), who asked the prime minister before Sunday's cabinet meeting not to bring the Falash Mura to Israel.
"I contacted the prime minister urgently and asked him to stop the decision, not to prevent – heaven forbid – Ethiopian Jews from making aliyah, but to keep the criteria that allow [their] family members who aren't Jewish at all to come to Israel from being expanded," Smotrich said.
Knesset State Control Committee Chairwoman MK Shelly Yachimovich (Zionist Union) said, "This is a ruse. Identical decisions have been made over and over and reneged on. The government is ignoring the 8,000 people who are being left to rot in Addis Ababa and Gondar.
"This is the only aliyah in the history of the country that is being handled bit by bit, with the explanation of supposed budgetary limitations that just cover up blatant racism because of the color of their [the immigrants'] skin."
Knesset Immigration and Absorption Committee Chairman MK Avraham Neguise (Likud) said, "We won't accept bringing only some of our brothers and sisters [to Israel]. We will fight until the last of Ethiopia's Jews come to Israel to live alongside their loved ones."
The Struggle for Ethiopian Aliyah, a prominent activist group, said in a statement: "While we are glad to see the end of suffering for 1,000 members of the remaining Jewish community in Ethiopia and their loved ones in Israel, we are far from satisfied with the partial and highly limited implementation of the decision that was passed under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership in 2015 to bring the entire remaining Jewish community of Ethiopia to Israel.
"Instead of carrying out its earlier decision, the government is playing with lives by arbitrarily deciding, with no explanation, to bring to Israel just 1,000 of the 8,000 members of the remaining Jewish community."
