wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

In April 1991, as Ethiopia was ravaged by a civil war, the Israeli government succeeded in transporting 14,200 African Jews from war-torn Ethiopia to Israel in a 25-hour period. Asher Naim, Israel's ambassador to Ethiopia from 1990 to 1992 and responsible for engineering the exit, chronicles the events leading up to the mission Operation Solomon. Plus, after WWII, Americans were told that mass consumption would make the country prosperous: "provide jobs, purchasing power, and investment dollars". Lizabeth Cohen traces the history of the "Consumers’ Republic."