Memorial Day for Ethiopian Jews- Reichman University Student Oshrit Bekaya's Family Story

"They dreamed of Jerusalem, and they never gave up."

Hello everyone, My name is Oshrit Bekaya, I’m 24 years old from Lod, and a second-year student at the Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology at Reichman University.

The Memorial Day for Ethiopian Jews who perished on their way to Israel is not just another date on the calendar. For me, it’s a personal story. It’s the story of my father, Yonatan Bekaya. When I asked him to tell me about his journey to Israel, he said:

"We always heard about a land flowing with milk and honey. About a paradise of mitzvot. About the holy city."

My father’s uncle, Babu Yaakov, was the first in the family to fulfill the dream of making aliyah to Israel. He immigrated a decade earlier and sent letters, messengers, and tourists to persuade the family to follow in his footsteps.

When my father heard that the aliyah had begun, he left everything behind. Together with his school friends, he set out on a journey to the Land of Israel — not out of fear, but out of faith. The journey was not easy. My father didn’t eat for two weeks, and all his belongings were stolen. When he arrived in Sudan, he was tired, exhausted, hungry, and alone. He found shelter in a safe house prepared by the Mossad, and there, he happened to find some old injera. According to him, that injera saved his life.

Not everyone survived the journey. A relative who made the journey with him fell ill and died — just moments before she would have seen Israel. My father's brothers, Addis and Kabret Bekaya, were also lost along the way. They traveled separately, with the same hope in their hearts, but they vanished without a trace. "The uncertainty about the fate of my brothers still pains me to this day," my father shares. "There isn't a day I don't think about them."

A few years ago, my father returned to Ethiopia in an attempt to find his brothers. He posted ads, spoke with journalists, and searched for every clue — but until today, there is no answer. On the Memorial Day for Ethiopian Jews, this feeling only intensifies. It hovers in the air and is present in every moment. It’s a pain with no end. No grave, no certainty.

My father came alone — a young boy in a foreign land — without his parents and brothers. But he had a dream, and he didn’t give up. After he made aliyah, he studied in an ulpan, learned a trade, and enlisted in the IDF, where he served for over two decades.

"It was worth all the hardships," he says. "I knew I had to bring my whole family. They had to be here with me." And indeed, a few years later, he reunited with his family in Israel.

When I asked my father what he wanted us to remember from this story, he answered simply: "The faith. The love for the land. That’s what kept us going. That’s what should drive you too."

And I, Oshrit, daughter of such a heroic father, promise to remember. To tell the story. And to love this land — just as my ancestors loved it, even when they were so far away.