Award winning director and photographer, Avishai Mekonen, relates his harrowing escape and journey from Ethiopia, through the Sudan, to Israel in his talk “A View from Within”. Kidnapped from a refugee camp, walking through rebel held territory, led by guides that left one with little of their belongings, Avishai and his family eventually make it to the “Promised Land”.

The full story of the rescue and immigration of Ethiopian Jewry and the critical role that community played has not been told and is the subject of a new documentary, “Heroes”, that Mekonen has in the works. He will also speak about the role of the Jewish Ethiopian activists, the unsung heroes in an epic saga.