Also on the flight was Jewish Agency Chairman Ze'ev Bielski and 100 North American donors, who stepped in to help fund the mass Aliyah of the remaining Ethiopian Jews waiting to immigrate.

The Americans visited the slums where the new olim (immigrants) had been living while awaiting departure to the Jewish state. Shanty-towns were built near Israel’s embassy in Addis Ababa as prospective immigrants waited for their visas.

Israel has already absorbed more than 50,000 Ethiopian Jews. Since 1998, though, only 2,500 have been brought to Israel, under a family reunification program.
Though the Falash Mura, as they are called, are believed to be the descendants of the tribe of Dan, they undergo conversion when rejoining the Jewish people due to the intermarriage and forced conversion of their ancestors and Jewish legal complications their lengthy estrangement from the Oral Law has presented.

The Union of Jewish Communities in North America pledged to raise $100 million to help with the Aliyah and absorption of Ethiopian olim.

Last year, now-comatose Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered that 15,000 Ethiopians be brought to Israel by 2007, referring to it as the final wave of the Ethiopian immigration program.