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Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, chief rabbi of African communities outside of South Africa, said that Zimbabwean Jews are safe but warned that claims of such an operation are “dangerous” to the local Jewish population.
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LONDON (EJP)--- A Jewish Agency envoy to Southern Africa has refuted claims that an emergency airlift is being arranged to evacuate the community from the troubled country, the London Jewish news reported.
The Jewish Chronicle reported last week that an "emergency mission" is being planned by the Jewish Agency to take the country’s remaining Jews to Israel amid tensions over the Presidential election, but authorities this week rejected the allegations.
The agency's official, Ofer Dahan, said that there is “no such plan.”
There is no Israeli embassy in the capital Harare and there are no direct flights to Tel Aviv, but the countries do have diplomatic ties.
Sources close to the Jewish Agency said: “The Jewish Agency is not planning to send aeroplanes to Zimbabwe to take out the Jews. Who says they want to leave anyway? Zimbabwe is a country where you can enter and leave at your own will.”
Around 350 Jews live in Zimbabwe where a presidential run-off election will be held on June 27. In the first balloting on March 29, Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, won more votes than current President Robert Mugabe but not enough to avert a run-off.
Reports suggest that Mugabe, who has been in power since the country was given independence 28 years ago, is running a powerful and violent intimidation campaign against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in order to ensure the continued rule of ZANU-PF.
Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, chief rabbi of African communities outside of South Africa, said that Zimbabwean Jews are safe but warned that claims of such an operation are “dangerous” to the local Jewish population.
He said: “There are no supplies and no basic necessities. Jews are feeling the pain just like everybody else.”
According to The Jewish Chronicle, Silberhaft flew to Britain to raise funds to support an evacuation operation.
Zimbabwe’s spiraling economic problems have forced many young Jews to flee over the past eight years.
Between 1949 and 1950, around 49,000 Jews from Yemen were brought to Israel in the so-called ‘Operation Magic Carpet’. Two later missions in 1984 and 1991, ‘Operations Moses and Solomon’, brought thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
7,500 Jews lived in the 60s in the country, which was called Rhodesia.
There are three synagogues: two in Harare and one in Bulawayo. Harare also has one remaining Jewish school.
