She is in her early to mid-20s now. She may be in university; she may still be in the army. She may be working; she may be unemployed. She may be married; she may be single. But she is in Israel, an Israeli, free from the sufferings and the terrors that afflicted her family in Ethiopia; free to try to make her life the most that it can be.

The photo captures a moment 18 years ago. The beautiful young girl, smiling so purely, so entirely without guile, that we cannot help but smile back, has just arrived in Israel. She was one of 14,000 Jews who were secretly brought to the Jewish state in May 1991 in a legendary rescue mission that lasted barely more than 36 hours.

The mission was called Operation Solomon after the king whose descendants the Beta Yisrael, the Jews of Ethiopia, were said to be. It will be remembered as one of the most dramatic acts of selflessness and courage on the part of a nation state in the modern era.

The young girl’s photo appears on this page because her story – the story of her freedom – is tied so entirely to the story of Pesach. The 18th anniversary of that story, therefore, must also be recalled around the seder table this year.

In addition, recalling the quiet heroics of Operation Solomon is both potent and poignant refutation of the brazenly false accusation that Israel is an apartheid state. This refutation also appears elsewhere in this issue of The CJN. It has appeared in the paper in the past. And it will appear countless times in the future, too.

The CJN believes very strongly in fighting back against the lies blatantly cast at the Jewish state, indeed cast at Jews everywhere, and in particular, against this most detestable of lies, the apartheid lie.

Operation Solomon was carried out ahead of the moment-to-moment advance by rebel military forces on the capital of Addis Ababa. Israel had paid  $40 million to then-president Mengistu Haile Mariam to secure the freedom of the Jews seeking desperately to escape to Israel. But the rapid advance of the rebels placed the Jews and their Israeli rescuers in harm’s way.

Israel had to move quickly.

The operation began on Friday, May 24, 1991.

Israel Air Force historian Arié Egozi recorded that “the group, headed by deputy chief of staff Gen. Amnon Shahak, set up a command post in the [Addis Ababa] airport, while Israeli special forces and paratroops secured the runway and airfield perimeter. An Israeli mobile air traffic control unit performed advisory control, parallel to that given by the airport’s tower.

“Some of the flights were performed by a specially configured El Al 747, carrying 1,200 passengers,” he wrote.

“By noon on May 24, the preparations were complete and the green light was given for the first aircraft to land. In the next 24 hours, 18 air force C-130s and eight Boeing 707s, aided by nine El Al aircraft – three 747s, four 767s and two 757s – flew 14,000 Jews from Addis Ababa to Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport. All of the El Al aircraft had their logos covered.”

So practised and precise were the Israeli rescue preparations that the 747 was on the ground at Addis Ababa for only 37 minutes before leaving with its precious cargo of 1,200 passengers.

Within 36 hours, 14,000 Jews had boarded El Al planes and landed in Israel in a non-stop, round-the-clock operation of daring, courage and compassion.

One can only imagine the excitement, tension, confusion, weariness, relief and worry that infused the crowded chambers of the revamped airplanes during that night and subsequent day.

In quite a unique and historic echoing of the sounds and emotions through time, the feelings felt by the Jews who left Ethiopia in 1991 likely replicated many aspects of the feelings felt by the Jews who left Egypt some 3,500 years earlier.

They were going to a land none of them had ever seen before except, if at all, in their dreams of the stories remembered, sheltered, told and retold in every generation by their ancestors.

Ironically, but not surprisingly, the story of the Exodus from Egypt would itself become the most famous and most influential paradigm of the story of freedom in western civilization.

The very particularist narrative of our ancient forebears, the freedom of the Hebrews slaves, would eventually bear a widely universal message for all humanity to cherish.

We celebrate that narrative tonight by recalling it in the manner prescribed by our sages, by teaching it to our children, so that they in their turn one day will teach it to theirs.

The young girl whose photo appears on page 1 of the paper may by now be married with a family of her own. If she is, then she most likely will teach the story of her own exodus to her children even as she reaches further back in the collective memory to teach the story of the Exodus of Pesach.

They are both the stories of the Jewish people, purposefully, so that we might have the courage to answer false accusers and the conviction to stand fast to freedom’s heavenly arching function: making the world a better place for us all.

2009 The Canadian Jewish News

All Rights Reserved.