The last one hundred years are thought of as a great success in Zionist activism for us, the Jews of Ethiopia. Actually, the era begins in the year 1908 when Dr. Yaakov Faitlovich visited the Jewish village known as Woleka for a second time and brought the Jews of Ethiopia to the attention of the entire world, setting the face of the Jewish community to international public awareness and setting its fate. In this year, Yona Bogale was born in the village Woleka. In 1922 Dr. Faitlovich came again to Woleka, for a third time for an additional visit accompanied by Professor Taamrat Emmanuel. At this time a close connection between Yona and Feitlovich was created. In this same yea, when Feitlovich was ready to return to Europe he wanted to take Yona with him and requested the permission of his parents. In this journey Feitlovich took with him four children Later, he was sent to Frankfort , Lucerne, Paris, where he enrolled in a teachers’ training institute, a school that belongs to “L’Alliance,” an organization at whose head stood the Baron Rothschild. Beginning from the year 1953 Yona acted through the Jewish Agency for the education and welfare of the Ethiopian Jews. In the years of Yona’s activities, the connection with the Jewish world expanded and was strengthened. He was in contact through correspondence with Jewish leaders throughout the world and with representatives of Jewish communities, some of whom came to visit the group that had been cut off from the Jewish stream for thousand of years. Yona would draft every Jew who came to Ethiopia and upon his return home would serve as an ambassador and spokesman for the Jews of Ethiopia. With the years, the pressure on behalf of aliyah from Ethiopia came forth. In Europe and especially in the United States activist committees promoting aliyah were established. These past thirty years we are witnesses to the results and achievements of his many efforts and activities.
