aliyah

Her journey was organised by Zaka, an Israeli emergency rescue and recovery group, while Bendersky was flown here by the Jewish Agency, which provides "aliyah", or "ascent", to Israel for Jews around the world.

"As a Jewish person you can make aliyah, which means to emigrate to Israel, and it was one of those things that, with the sport, just set off and sparked this amazing adventure for me."

Netanyahu’s office said the decision comes “out of his commitment to the continued aliyah of Jews to Israel.”

Her was an ardent proponent of aliyah, the reunification of the Jewish people.

The 8,000 are descendants of Ethiopian Jews forcibly converted to Christianity about a century ago, and the Israeli government views bringing them to Israel as family reunification rather than “aliyah,” or Jewish immigration.