New Ethiopian immigrants arrive in Israel this week. Photo: Facebook.

JNS.org – Sixty new Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia arrived at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport this week. They were greeted by jubilant family members and supporters, who danced and waved Israeli flags.

The latest Ethiopian aliyah follows a group of 72 Ethiopian immigrants who arrived in Israel on June 6, in a collaboration between the Jewish Agency for Israel and the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ).

Additional immigrant flights from Ethiopia are expected to arrive this summer as part of the Israeli government’s Ethiopian aliyah program, which was reactivated in October 2016.

ICEJ, a Christian Zionist global ministry, has worked to raise funds for the first year of the reintroduced program, which will bring 1,400 new immigrants to the Jewish state.

Some 9,000 Jews still reside in Ethiopia and are awaiting Israeli government approval to make aliyah.