Jonny Gould’s Jewish State

38: Red Sea Spies: Mossad and their Ethiopian Jewish brothers: Raffi Berg and "Dani"

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How many acts of heroism never come to public attention because of the modesty of the heroes themselves?

This is a first-ever audio interview in English with one such man.

His name is "Dani', the Mossad commander in charge of “Operation Brothers” for five drama-filled years from 1978.

Without doubt, this is one of Israel's finest hours; a Mossad mission to emancipate thousands of Ethiopian Jews from the dangers of revolution and persecution. But this is also about partnership and brotherhood.

Mossad would never have achieved this lethally dangerous, giant humanitarian mission without the equal determination of the Ethiopian Jews themselves, to realise a generational longing to return to Israel, the land of their forefathers.

"Dani" only agreed to this interview on condition that his full identity wouldn't be revealed. And while he's partially emerged out of the shadows, I'm told many of his Mossad colleagues remain completely anonymous. “Operation Brothers” was a mission to spirit thousands of Ethiopian Jews out of their remote highland villages to walk hundreds of miles to the hell of a Sudanese refugee camp, whereupon they would begin a perilous exodus to Israel.

Some Jews were given passports and papers and flown out of Khartoum Airport, a difficult and dangerous process in itself. But thousands of others were transported hundreds more miles to the Sudanese coast under cover of a plain-sight Red Sea diving resort which Dani and his Mossad agents ran as a fully functioning hotel while conducting their covert operations each night.

10% of the Jews didn’t make it, dying on the exhausting journey. Mossad is famous for spying missions and counterespionage - but this was nothing to do with that. This was a world first for such an organisation: purely humanitarian, 700 kilometres behind enemy lines in Sudan, which was extremely hostile to Israel back then.

Dani's Mossad command of this covert mission is faithfully chronicled in Raffi Berg’s brilliant book, "Red Sea Spies". I am so grateful to Raffi for organising the interview and truly honoured to talk to Dani.

This episode is dedicated to Kasei and Kidan Cohen.

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