Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn planted a tree in the KKL-JNF Grove of Nations in Jerusalem, when he and his entourage visited Israel. The ceremony, held on June 6th, was attended by other high-ranking Ethiopian officials, including the ministers of foreign affairs and defense.
KKL-JNF’s Chief of Protocol Andy Michelson presided over the ceremony, which took place in the Grove of Nations in Jerusalem Forest. Very symbolically, the grove is situated below Yad VaShem and Mount Herzl.
Honored guests at the ceremony included Israel’s Chief of State Protocol Meron Reuven, Ethiopian Ambassador to Israel His Excellency Tsegay Berhe Hadera, Israeli Ambassador to Ethiopia Her Excellency Belaynesh Zevadia, and ministers who formed part of Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s entourage.
“Historically, planting trees is a very important activity for us,” said Andy Michelson. “We Jews plant trees on important occasions such as a birth, a bar mitzvah, a wedding or an engagement and, conversely, when someone departs this life. Planting trees is part of our tradition. KKL-JNF, the organization I work for, has been planting trees for 115 years now, and it has made Israel green. We were planting trees long before it became fashionable to do so, and this is why I am so glad and excited that you have come here to plant a tree together with us.”
In his address at the ceremony, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said: “It is a great honor to be here at this historic site and to plant a tree. I know that people from all over the world came here to found the State of Israel and that Ethiopia has played a role in Israel’s history ever since the earliest contact between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Ethiopia is working towards the development of a green economy, and tree-planting is becoming a tradition with us, too, following the tradition that we see here in Israel.”
The ambassadors of the two countries recited the traditional Jewish Planter’s Prayer: Ethiopian Ambassador to Israel Tsegay Berhe Hadera read the prayer in Amharic, and Israel’s Ambassador to Ethiopia Belaynesh Zevadia recited it in Hebrew. After the ceremony, the delegates made their way together to the planting site, where the prime minister of Ethiopia set to work: he planted his tree and steadied the earth around it with his own hands.
Andy Michelson presented Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn with a KKL-JNF certificate of appreciation on the occasion of his visit to Israel and his participation in the tree planting ceremony in the Grove of Nations.
Israel’s Chief of State Protocol Meron Reuven told members of the Ethiopian prime minister’s entourage about the significance of olive trees in Israel, and showed them how large the tree they had planted would be in another seven years’ time.
Hailemariam Desalegn was born on July 19th, 1965, in Boloso Sore in southern Ethiopia. He holds a BA degree in civil engineering and an MA in sanitary engineering. For thirteen years he was dean of the Ethiopian Water Technology Institute in Addis Ababa. After serving as deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, he was appointed prime minister of Ethiopia on August 20th, 2012.
Hailemariam Desalegn is the first Ethiopian prime minister to belong to his country’s neo-Protestant minority.
Prime Minister Desalegn has visited Israel privately in the past, and in September 2016 he attended the funeral of former President Shimon Peres.
In his speech at the planting ceremony, Prime Minister Desalegn said that over the course of the next three years Ethiopia would be playing a more prominent role in international affairs because of its membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council (2016-2019) and of the Security Council (2017-2018).
As part of its international cooperation activities, KKL-JNF in recent years has supported the Fair Planet project in Ethiopia, which promotes nutritional security for the community by means of agricultural developments appropriate to the region. KKL-JNF is also planning to send leading experts from its Afforestation Division to Ethiopia in order to help it to combat pests that are attacking eucalyptus trees.