The Masorti Foundation, and collegial organizations, are creating a special emergency fund to pursue justice for Yosef Kibita and the Abayudaya Jewish community from Uganda. Yosef lives at Kibbutz Ketura, a kibbutz with Masorti affiliations in Southern Israel, where he has been for a year. He is seeking to make Aliyah.
The Israeli Ministry of the Interior rejected Yosef Kibita’s request to immigrate under the law of return; moreover, the Ministry used this ruling to broadly disqualify the entire Abayudaya community of 2,000 from making Aliyah, declaring that the community and their conversion to Judaism is not recognized.
The Masorti Movement is developing an emergency, multi-pronged, campaign to correct this injustice. Please give as generously as you possibly can –and as quickly as you can– since the court case must be heard THIS JUNE! All funds contributed will be used to support Masorti Israel’s efforts for Yosef Kibita and equality for the Abayudaya community.
This is an issue that hits close to home; as some of you may know, it was only with considerable opposition from the Chief Rabbinate that the Ministry of the Interior eventually decided to allow Karaites to make aliyah in a time of great crisis for Egyptian Jews in the early 1950s. Gershom Sizomu is a good friend of a good friend, and it stings to once again see the validity of a group of “weird Jews” legally questioned.
You can read the statement of the Masorti/Conservative movement (who are also being thrown under the bus with this decision) over here. If you have a few shekels or words of encouragement to send their way, all the better.
Mooncustafer 