Gondar health clinic re-opens

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)-run health clinic in Gondar, which has remained closed since last May, officially re-opened its doors Thursday following a quarter-of-a-million dollar donation from the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) and an anonymous US donor, The Jerusalem Post was told Thursday.


Candidates for aliya are seen studying in Gondar in this file photo from September.
Photo: Dr. Arthur I. Eidelman
According to a JDC spokeswoman, IFCJ founder and President Yehiel Eckstein provided a $125,000 grant for the clinic and his donation was matched by a donor from New York.

"We are very pleased that we are able to respond to the Israeli government's request to re-open the clinic," Steven Schweger, Chief Executive Officer of the JDC, told the Post. "We were able to do so due to funding from Rabbi Eckstein and an American Jewish donor."

Earlier this month, the JDC announced that it was preparing to re-open the clinic, which had been providing basic medical and sometimes life-saving health services to thousands of Falash Mura (Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors were forced to convert to Christianity centuries ago) waiting to immigrate to Israel.

While there were initial indications that the Israeli government would provide funding for the clinic, after they failed to materialize the JDC sought funding from private sources.

The re-opening of the Gondar clinic comes a week after Jewish Agency for Israel Executive Chairman Natan Sharansky told Jewish leaders in Philadelphia that he was in favor of bringing the remaining Ethiopian Jews to Israel if their Jewish ancestry could be proved.
It also follows some two years of contradictory decisions over continuing immigration from the East African country. In July 2007, it was announced that aliya from Ethiopia was almost over and in January 2008, the Interior Ministry recalled its staff from Gondar.

Protests from the local community, US Jewry and Israeli legislators, however, pointing out that thousands of Falash Mura were still eligible for immigration caused the government to rethink its decision and in September 2008 the Interior Ministry said its representatives would return to Ethiopia and continue checking the eligibility for aliya of some 3,000 people.

Less than a year later, however, the matter came under doubt again when a section of the 2009 Economic Arrangements Bill claimed that the overall aliya process for the Falash Mura community was too costly and suggested that previous government decisions be reversed. Under pressure from the pro-Falash Mura lobby, however, this section was dropped from the bill.

When the JDC clinic was closed last spring that also came under fire, with critics claiming that the Falash Mura, who are already learning Hebrew and various Jewish practices, had no alternative medical care.

Now, with the Gondar clinic re-opening, the Jewish Agency looking to increase its role in the area and Interior Minister Eli Yishai actively supportive, it seems that Ethiopian aliya is back on the agenda.

A Heroic Doctor, a Global Scourge

By Nicholas Kristof
My Sunday column is about obstetric fistula, a horrendous childbirth injury that rarely gets attention or treatment because the victims are the most voiceless of the voiceless. Dr. Lewis Wall, the hero of the column, taught me about fistulas years ago, and so I’ve been writing about them periodically since my first column on the topic back in 2002.

For years, I’ve watched with admiration as Dr. Wall has persevered to try to build a fistula hospital in West Africa — and I’m thrilled that he is now fulfilling his dream. Those who want to help his Niger hospital can support his organization, the Worldwide Fistula Fund; tax-deductible donations to the hospital are possible right on the site, so please don’t send any money in my direction. For now the surgeries in Niger will be done in the existing leprosy hospital there, and he still needs significant sums to construct the new fistula wing beside it.

There’s another great fistula organization, the Fistula Foundation, that supports the Addis Ababa hospital and other places such as the remarkable Edna Adan maternity hospital in Somaliland.

Above all, I hope that we go even further and eradicate fistula globally. In the column, I mention Dr. Wall’s careful 12-year $1.5 billion proposal (written with Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute) to eradicate fistula. It’s also an effort to tackle maternal mortality; my sense is that fistula may be the best way to get traction for maternal health.

I’m hoping that the Obama administration will endorse this plan, and that more members of Congress will line up behind it. Those women with fistulas are the lepers of our time, and it’s unconscionable to turn away when we can repair those fistulas so easily. So if you want to help, spread the word about that plan as well.

I also give a plug to this global fistula plan in my new book, written with Sheryl WuDunn. And for those who want to read more about fistula,
one of my most-read columns ever was about the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, and the extraordinary Dr. Catherine Hamlin — who has dedicated her life to overcoming fistula and deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. I’ve also made videos of the fistula hospital and of Mamitu, an extraordinary surgeon there who never went to school.