I5: 50 Years of Israel

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May 25, 1991

Unbelievable. Just over 26 hours. That's all it took from the first take-off in Addis Ababa, soon after midday on Friday, 'til the last landing at Ben-Gurion Airport, at about 3pm today. That's right, just 26 hours to rescue over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from the midst of civil war and bring them to their homeland. As Defense Minister Moshe Arens said on the television this evening, this was "Zionism being realised: the State of Israel doing exactly what we've always wanted it to do."

We'd been planning this massive operation for months now, but none of us knew when it would actually happen. Then, in the early hours of yesterday morning I was woken by a phone call from the Israeli Embassy, giving me the code word that meant Operation Solomon was about to begin. As a Jewish Agency representative in Ethiopia, my role was to help spread the word around the local Jewish community that they needed to get to the embassy as soon as possible, bringing their families but no possessions. By 9am there were already almost 8,000 Jews in the embassy grounds and by midday the crowds were overflowing into the forecourt and the street.

Everyone got a sticker indicating which of the many buses they would be making the journey to the airfield on, then they started their journey, 1000 Jews per hour, towards their salvation. All through the afternoon and night and into the next day 14,087 people piled onto 33 different planes - El Al Jumbos, Israeli Air Force planes and even an Ethiopian airlines jet - which flew a total of 80 journeys between Israel and Ethiopia.

At 8.45pm on a warm Friday night, I arrived at Ben-Gurion airport on a plane with 1087 others (2 of which had been born on the flight). This record-breaking flight had up to 18 people jammed into rows of 10 seats! We were dirty and tired and nothing had passed our lips all day except water - but when we stepped out onto that moonlit tarmac, we knew it had all been worth it. We were back home.....they were back home.

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