What do you think?
Rate this book
Operation Solomon: The Daring Rescue of the Ethiopian Jews
"Operation Solomon" was one of the most remarkable rescue efforts in modern history, in which more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel in little more than a day. In this riveting volume, Stephen Spector offers the definitive account of this incredible story, based on over 200 interviews and exclusive access to confidential documents.
Written with the pace and immediacy of a novel, here is the dramatic story of the rescue of the dark-skinned Jews of Ethiopia. Spector recounts how 20,000 Jews were willingly lured from their ancestral villages to Addis Ababa, expecting to be taken quickly from there to the Holy Land. Instead, they became pawns in a struggle between the Israeli government and Ethiopia's repressive dictator, who tried to coerce Israel into selling him weapons he needed in a losing war against rebel armies. In the resulting stalemate, the Jewish community was forced to live for nearly a year in squalid hovels, vulnerable to the dangers of the city, including crime and HIV. Worse yet, the imminent collapse of Addis Ababa, with the rebels closing in on the capital, raised the threat of bloody street fighting or even a genocidal attack on the Jews, a small minority in a nation that is primarily Christian and Muslim. Spector describes the tense negotiations among Israelis, Ethiopians, and Americans,
which became increasingly urgent as time ran low and the danger mounted. And he highlights the secret deals and sudden setbacks that nearly aborted the mission at the eleventh hour, even as Israeli jets sat on the runway in Ethiopia, waiting to take the Jews to the land for which they had yearned for generations.
Recounting the full story for the first time, Operation Solomon is a stirring account of a heroic rescue achieved in the face of daunting odds.
Written with the pace and immediacy of a novel, here is the dramatic story of the rescue of the dark-skinned Jews of Ethiopia. Spector recounts how 20,000 Jews were willingly lured from their ancestral villages to Addis Ababa, expecting to be taken quickly from there to the Holy Land. Instead, they became pawns in a struggle between the Israeli government and Ethiopia's repressive dictator, who tried to coerce Israel into selling him weapons he needed in a losing war against rebel armies. In the resulting stalemate, the Jewish community was forced to live for nearly a year in squalid hovels, vulnerable to the dangers of the city, including crime and HIV. Worse yet, the imminent collapse of Addis Ababa, with the rebels closing in on the capital, raised the threat of bloody street fighting or even a genocidal attack on the Jews, a small minority in a nation that is primarily Christian and Muslim. Spector describes the tense negotiations among Israelis, Ethiopians, and Americans,
which became increasingly urgent as time ran low and the danger mounted. And he highlights the secret deals and sudden setbacks that nearly aborted the mission at the eleventh hour, even as Israeli jets sat on the runway in Ethiopia, waiting to take the Jews to the land for which they had yearned for generations.
Recounting the full story for the first time, Operation Solomon is a stirring account of a heroic rescue achieved in the face of daunting odds.
279 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
6 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 4, 2011
Operation Solomon: The Daring Rescue Of The Ethiopian Jews (Stephen Spector)
A rather alarmingly comprehensive description of the 1991 mass airlift of
around 14,000 Jews from the highlands of Ethiopia to Israel. This was
widely reported as a humane, uplifting response to a catastrophic
situation at the time, but Spector demonstrates that it's not simply that.
There's plenty of humane people and motivations, but also a lot of
subterfuge and political maneuvering that is less than entirely
wholesome. For example, Jewish activists from the U.S. wanted the
American and Israeli governments to respond to the catastrophic threat
of famine or even possible mass killings of Jews in the highlands
during the Ethiopian-Eritrean civil war. Unfortunately for the
activists, there was no famine and a scarce likelihood of any
particular violence directed at the Jews at the time. So, rather than
accept the situation as it is, they used coercion, political blackmail
and misleading expectations of rapid evacuation to draw thousands of
Jews on an arduous journey to Addis Ababa, where they festered in
appalling conditions in front of a horrified world audience -- thus,
creating the very same catastrophic conditions that they felt would
persuade the Israelis and Americans to act. At the same time, Mengistu
realizes that the most valuable asset his failing government may have
is a generally ignored group of Jewish villages, and uses this to
leverage the Israelis for arms and the Americans for political and
economic aid, in what Spector - with uncommon brevity - calls "the
outright sale of over fourteen thousand human beings."
Lots of great insights into the peculiar motivations of veteran diplomats
and politicians - George H.W. Bush, Minnesota ex-senator Rudy
Boschwitz, Ethiopia's odious dictator Haile Mariam Mengistu and his
skilled (conniving) diplomats like Kassa Kebede, and Israeli
negotiators Reuven Merhav and senior politicians like Shimon Peres,
future PM Ehud Barak, and others.
Spector's book is exhaustingly comprehensive, with minute-by-minute analysis of
the negotiations and the mechanisms of the airlift. It's not
especially literary most of the time, and you wish he'd
summarized a bit more effectively, but the story is utterly fascinating.
June 19, 2013
Jews in Ethiopia wanted to immigrate to Israel. The willingness to the government to let them go varied due to the political climate. Many fled on foot to Sudan while thousands perishing on the journey. In 1999, Israel conducted a massive airlift of over 19,000 Ethiopian Jews in 36 hours.
July 12, 2012
Helps me to understand the crazy politics that happened in 1991 to bring so many Ethiopians to Israel. I would have liked personal stories from the Ethiopians.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews