Ferede Aklum (1949-2009) was born in a district of Ethiopia. His father, an educated and wealthy man, valued all his children’s education.
Ferede studied pedagogy (the method, theory and practice of teaching) at the Addis Ababa Teachers’ College.
Following his initiative in opening an ORT Jewish school in the Tigray district in Ethiopia during the 1970s, by 1982 no less than 22 ORT schools were established in Ethiopia.
The schools were created in collaboration with World ORT and the “Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry,” with specialised training for hundreds of Jewish students ages 14-21.
Training at ORT focuses on high-tech skills, STEAM (Science, Technology Education, Art, Math) programmes aimed at improving livelihoods and preparing students for potential immigration to Israel.
There is still a lot of speculation about the missions to bring the Ethiopian community to Israel, but much of the success of the various operations was due to the efforts of activists from the Ethiopian Jewish community in conjunction with the Mossad.
Farede Aklum was one of the most prominent activists and worked tirelessly for the welfare and survival of the Ethiopian Jewish community to keep them safe from becoming casualties of the civil war raging in the country.
In 1977 an undercover arrangement was made between Ethiopia and Israel for the transfer of Jews to Israel in return for weapons.
A few arrived in Israel but the deal was leaked and uncovered, resulting in Ethiopia cutting all diplomatic relations with Israel and the Israeli representatives in the scheme being deported – claiming the Zionists in the country were traitors.
Luckily, Ferede Aklum escaped to Sudan and walked the 480 kms to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
What’s even more fortunate was his decision to carry in his pocket a notebook with the contact information of the Mossad agents with whom he had been liaising with the airlift operation.
After he arrived in Sudan he mailed letters to his contacts in the Mossad asking for help in bringing out the Jews of Ethiopia.
Ferede wrote how he had crossed the border to Sudan and Mossad, who were looking for new ways to bring the Jews of Ethiopia to Israel in the midst of the Ethiopian civil war, started to examine the possibility of a rescue operation from Sudan to Israel.
One of the letters reached Prime Minister Menachem Begin who sent Mossad agents to Sudan to meet with Ferede and explore this possibility.
Once the agents located Ferede, they realised a man of his esteem and with his connections would prove invaluable for a rescue mission of this magnitude.
Eventually, he was recruited as a Mossad agent.
The initial plan had to be secret and slow, and rather than risk the lives of thousands of Jews in Ethiopia he first smuggled his family out through Sudan under the guise of refugees.
The success of the trial plan emboldened Ferede and the Mossad, so more and more Jews were smuggled to Israel via Sudan.
It wasn’t an easy journey, with some 20,000 villagers walking to Sudan, their numbers greatly reduced by starvation, disease and bandits along the way.
The next stage of the hazardous mission was how to transport many thousands of refugees from Sudan to Israel, but that’s another batch of stories.
Ferede Aklum continued to work for the rest of his life towards the betterment of the Ethiopian Jewish community, both in Ethiopia and Israel, aiding their absorption and integration into Israeli society.
