Beta Israel

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The Beta Israel (Ge'ez ቤተ፡ እስራኤል Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl; Hebrew: ביתא ישראל‎, ), also known by the term Falasha (Amharic for "Exiles" or "Strangers", as they were called by non-Jewish Ethiopians), a term that may be considered pejorative, are Jews of Ethiopian origin. Ethiopian Jews, as well as Yemenite Jews, are also known by the term Chabashim (from Habesha). Under the provisions of Israel's Law of Return (1950), over 90,000 (over 85%) have emigrated to Israel, most notably during Operation Moses (1984) and Operation Solomon (1991), but also continuing until the present time. The related Falash Mura are Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity in the past, but have since returned to Judaism.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Bete Israel tradition 1.2 The Middle Ages 2 Pre-modern and modern contacts with Jews elsewhere in the world 3 Ethiopian enclave 4 Religious traditions 5 Languages 6 Israel intervenes 7 Ethiopian Jews in Israel today 7.1 Prominent Israelis of Ethiopian Jewish background 7.2 Ethiopian Heritage Museum: Rehovot, Israel 8 Origins 8.1 Traditions of the Beta Israel 8.2 Rabbinical views 8.3 DNA evidence 8.4 Scholarly view 9 In fiction 10 Photos 11 See also 12 References 13 External links

[edit] History

Judaism in Ethiopia undoubtedly goes back into very ancient times. In an Ethiopian book titled "Kebra Nagast", or "Book of the Glory of Kings," there are several references to Biblical verses about Solomon and Sheba. The Hebrew Bible also has various references. (Tanakh [1 Kings 10:1-13 and 2 Chronicles 9:1-12]). Precisely what its early history was, however, remains obscure. The now dominant Coptic Ethiopian Church claims it originated from the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon back in the Tenth Century B.C.E. This visit is mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures (I Kings 10:1). Moreover, the details of the queen's visit, including the alleged theft of the Holy Ark as well as Solomon getting her pregnant with a child who established the "Solomonic" lineage in Ethiopia, as given in Christian Ethiopian tradition, are not in the Bible. They instead developed in the Middle Ages, first written down in full in the 13th century Kebra Nagast, inspired partly to legitimize the Solomonic dynasty as compared to the previous Zagwe dynasty of Agaw descent (Cushitic, not Semitic-speaking, though passionately Christian).

The chief Semitic languages of Ethiopia also suggest an antiquity of Judaism in Ethiopia. "There still remains the curious circumstance that a number of Abyssinian words connected with religion -- Hell, idol, Easter, purification, alms -- are of Hebrew origin. These words must have been derived directly from a Jewish source, for the Abyssinian Church knows the scriptures only in a Ge'ez version made from the Septuagint. ^[1]

[edit] Bete Israel tradition

Bete Israel traditions claim that the Ethiopian Jews are descended from the lineage of Moses himself, some of whose children and relatives are said to have separated from the other Children of Israel after the Exodus and gone southwards, or, alternatively or together with this, that they are descended from the tribe of Dan, which fled southwards down the Arabian coastal lands from Judaea at the time of the breakup of the united Kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms in the 10th century B.C.E. (precipitated by the oppressive demands of Rehoboam, King Solomon's heir), or at the time of the destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel in the 8th century. Certainly there was trade as early as the time of King Solomon down along the Red Sea to the Yemen and even as far as India, according to the Bible, and there would therefore have been Jewish settlements at various points along the trade routes. There is definite archaeological evidence of Jewish settlements and of their cultural influence on both sides of the Red Sea well at least 2,500 years ago, both along the Arabian coast and in the Yemen, on the eastern side, and along the southern Egyptian and Sudanese coastal regions.

According to Jacqueline Pirenne, the spread of Sabaeans across the Red Sea to Ethiopia began in the 8th or 7th centuries BCE when considerable numbers of Sabeans crossed over to Ethiopia to escape from the Assyrians who had already devastated the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and were extending their raids further south. She further states that a second major wave of Sabeans crossed over in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE to escape Nebuchadnezzar; this wave included Jews fleeing from the Babylonian takeover of Judah too.^[2] These theories of an early Jewish presence in Ethiopia are generally dismissed, however, for a later ethnogenesis of the Beta Israel and presence of Judaism among Ethiopians.

It also appears that there was a significant movement of Jews into the Sudanese and Ethiopian-Somali coastal areas, and the Arabian and Yemeni coastal areas, following the Roman repression of the various messianic movements that culminated in the destruction of the Second Commonwealth of Judaea in the first century C.E.^{[citation needed]} There is also evidence from the second century C.E. of Jewish flight southwards from the Fayyum of Egypt.^{[citation needed]} Survivors fled up the Nile, perhaps to the general region of the Sudan.

Though the 13th century Kebra Nagast and some traditional Ethiopian histories have stated that Yodit (or "Gudit"), a 10th century usurping queen, was Jewish, it's unlikely that this was the case and it's more likely that she was a pagan southerner^[3] or a usurping Christian Aksumite Queen.^[4]

According to the Kebra Negast, the Jewish rulers traced their lineage back to Moses and the tribe of Dan, just as Beta Israel continue to do to this day.^{[citation needed]} The 9th century Jewish traveller Eldad ha-Dani also claimed descent from this tribe and commented about Jewish Kingdoms around or in East Africa existing during his time. Some see his writings as the first mention of the Bete Israel, but his accuracy is uncertain, however, and others doubt his work, pointing to a lack of firsthand knowledge of Ethiopia's geography and any Ethiopian language, the area that he claims as his homeland.^[5]

[edit] The Middle Ages

The first relatively certain reference to the Beta Israel, however, comes only in the early 14th century during the reign of Amda Seyon (r.1314-44). During his reign, probably in early 1332, he mentions campaigns in the northwest regions of Semien, Wegera, Tsellemt, and Tsegedé, where he sends troops to fight people "like Jews" (Ge'ez ከመ:አይሁድ kama ayhūd).^[6] It is these regions that would later go on to be areas of frequent Beta Israel rebellion against the Solomonic dynasty for the next three centuries. During this time period, however, religion was less important to the Emperors than loyalty, and rebellious Beta Israel leaders often formed alliances with other enemies of the Emperor despite differing faiths.^[6] The late 14th century Christian monk Qozmos, for instance, copied the Orit (Old Testament) for the Beta Israel communities and led them against local Christians before being defeated by Emperor Dawit I.^[6] Likewise, the governor of Tsellemt used both Jewish and Christian troops in a revolt of the 15th century. The first personal campaign against rebelling Beta Israel areas didn't come until the reign of Emperor Yeshaq (r.1414-29), however. It was with his defeat of the governors of Semien and Dembiya that religious pressure began, as well as the conferral of lower social status upon Jews.^[6] Yeshaq forced them to convert or lose their land (which would be given away as rist, a type of land qualification that rendered it forever inheritable by the recipient and not transferrable by the Emperor), decreeing "He who is baptized in the Christian religion may inherit the land of his father, otherwise let him be a Falāsī," possibly the origin for the term "Falasha" (falāšā, "wanderer," or "landless person").^[6] Some of the worst massacres, attacks and forced conversions of the Christian kingdom^{[citation needed]} occurred in the 1400s, under Emperor Zara Yaqob, who even added the title "Exterminator of the Jews" to his name.^{[citation needed]}

In the 15th century, Abba Sabra, an archbishop of Coptic Christianity, chaplain of the court and tutor to the heir to the throne, converted to Judaism and fled with the heir and with his priestly disciples to the Jewish vassal kingdom of Gondar.^{[citation needed]} He and his followers were warmly received by Gondar's rulers and were allowed to continue their monastic life as Jews, settling near to Jewish villages and continuing to study sacred texts, so that they and those they won to their way of life became in subsequent generations learned celibate Jewish monks or hermits supported by local villagers, leading lives of prayer and study. Together with the priests who led ceremonies (who were not of any priestly lineage but were chosen for aptitude from village children), the monks maintained Jewish learning and traditions.

1624 marked the end of Beta Israel autonomy in Ethiopia, when Emperor Susenyos confiscated their lands, selling many into slavery and forcibly baptizing others.^[7] Their writings and religious books were burned and the practice of any form of Jewish religion was forbidden in Ethiopia.^{[citation needed]} A great deal of traditional Jewish culture and practice was lost or changed as a result of this period of oppression. Nevertheless, the Beta Israel appear to have flourished, during this period, due to the presence of the capital of Ethiopia, Gonder, in Dembiya, surrounded by Beta Israel lands. They served as craftsmen, masons, and carpenters for the Emperors from the 16th century onwards, roles that were typically shunned as lowly and unhonorable as compared to farming.^[7] According to accounts by European visitors of that time, Portuguese merchants and diplomats, French, British and other travellers, the Beta Israel even numbered about one million persons in the 17th century.^{[citation needed]} These accounts also testify that some knowledge of Hebrew remained even in the 17th century. For example, Manoel de Almeida, a Portuguese diplomat and traveller of the day, writes that:

"The Falashas or Jews are ... of [Arabic] race [and speak] Hebrew, though it is very corrupt. They have their Hebrew Bibles and sing the psalms in their synagogues."^[8]

How far, however, de Almeida actually knew the Ethiopian Jews firsthand must remain speculative: certainly they are not predominantly of the Arabic race, but he could easily have meant the term loosely or meant that they also knew Arabic. The Beta Israel lost these economic advantages, however, during the Zemene Mesafint, a period of recurring civil strife, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Although the capital was still nominally in Gonder during this time period, the decentralization and dominance of regional capitals resulted in a decline and exploitation by local rulers, as there was no longer a strong central government that was interested in and capable of protecting them.^[7] The Jewish religion was also lost for some forty years during this period, before being restored by Abba Widdaye, the preeminent monk of Qwara, in the 1840s.^[7]

[edit] Pre-modern and modern contacts with Jews elsewhere in the world

The earliest still surviving testimony to those hidden kingdoms comes down to us from the 9th century. In the last decades of that century a strange man visited the Jews of Kairowan in Tunisia, a man called Eldad son of Mahli, the Danite. Eldad the Danite, as he is often still referred to in Jewish histories, said he was the lone survivor of a shipwreck, escaped cannibals, and spoke of many other fabulous adventures he had had before arriving in Tunisia. He was of dark skin, spoke only a strange sort of Hebrew (and no Arabic), and claimed to be a Jew of a pastoralist tribe residing in the land of Havilah beyond the rivers of Ethiopia (the southern Sudan, most likely, but possibly Somalia). This tribe was made up of the descendants of the tribe of Dan, which had emigrated from Judaea at the time of Jeroboam's accession, after the death of Solomon. He said there were three other tribes with his, Naphtali, Gad and Asher, who had joined them in the time of Sennacherib (who laid waste the northern kingdom of Israel around 722 B.C.E.). Opposite them lived the Children of Moses, Bnai Mosheh, sprung from those Levites who had mutilated the fingers of their right hands rather than sing the songs of Zion by the rivers of Babylon, and chose instead to flee to the south.

The Children of Moses lived beyond a river of grinding stones and so were impossible to visit, except on the sabbath day when the river ceased its grinding (strikingly similar to, if not a direct borrowing from the concept of Sambation). The tribes were pastoralists and mighty warriors, and were ruled together by a king assisted by a learned Torah judge-prophet. They did not know of the Talmud, but had their own traditions written down in Hebrew, which he displayed to the rabbis of Tunisia and Egypt. The rabbis corresponded even with a Gaon of Sura (in Babylon), and concluded that he was indeed a Jew and the differences of his practice from their own were legitimate forms of customary law for the Jews of Havilah. The variations from Rabbinic law that he practised and obeyed were still being cited by Rabbinic authorities as precedents in the early modern period. The use of Hebrew as his only medium of communication in the Muslim world and even a written sacred text in Hebrew giving details of ritual and other practices strengthen the likelihood that ancient Ethiopian Jewry knew Hebrew.

In the 16th century, the Chief Rabbi of Egypt, Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra (Radbaz) proclaimed that in terms of Halakha (Jewish legal code), the Ethiopian community was certainly Jewish. Throughout the 19th century, the majority of European Jewish authorities openly supported this assertion.

In 1908, the chief rabbis of 45 countries made a joint statement officially declaring that Ethiopian Jews were indeed Jewish. This proclamation was in large part due to the work of Professor Jacques Faitlovitch, who studied Amharic and Tigrinya at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris under Professor Joseph Halévy. Halevy first visited the Ethiopian Jews in 1876. Upon his return to Europe, he published a "Kol Korei," a cry to the world Jewish community to save the Ethiopian Jews. He also formed an organization called Kol Yisroel Chaverim ("All Israel are Friends"), which was to actively advocate on behalf of Ethiopian Jews for years to come.

[edit] Ethiopian enclave

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One of the earliest dated references to the Beta Israel in Ethiopian literature is in the Glorious Victories of Amda Seyon, which mentions a revolt in the province of Begemder by "the renegades who are like Jews" in the year 1332. ^[9]

The isolation of the Beta Israel was reported by an explorer James Bruce, who published his Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in Edinburgh in 1790. But in 1860, H.A. Stern, a Jewish convert to Christianity traveled to Ethiopia in order to attempt to convert the Beta Israel to Christianity. Popularly touted as a "lost" tribe, the Beta Israel at first found many cultural barriers to assimilating in Israel.

It should be noted that there are many descendants of Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity who are now returning to the practice of Judaism. This group of people is known as the Falash Mura. They are admitted entrance to Israel, although not as Jews, thus enabling the Israeli government to set quotas to their immigration and make citizenship dependant on Orthodox conversion. Although nobody knows for certain what the exact population is of the Falash Mura in Ethiopia many say it is roughly 20,000-26,000 individuals. However, recently some reporters and other travelers in remote regions of Ethiopia have noted that they have found entire villages where people claim they are Jewish or are Falash Mura (Jews who have been practicing Christianity).

In the Achefar woreda of the Mirab Gojjam Zone, roughly 1,000-2,000 families of Beta Israel were found. However, as of now, they have not petitioned to immigrate to the Jewish state. Yet there are estimates that there are other such regions in Ethiopia with significant Jewish enclaves, raising the total Jewish population to perhaps well over 50,000 people. Israel has approved the immigration of the Falash Mura at 300 a month although the Ethiopian Jewish community and its supporters have been petitioning to increase this to 600 a month in order to prevent the spread of disease and malnourishment amongst the Jews still waiting in Ethiopia.

[edit] Religious traditions

The holiest work is the Torah — Orit (i.e., oraita, "Tora" in Aramaic). All the holy writings, including the Torah, are handwritten on parchment pages that are assembled into a book rather than a scroll. The rest of the Prophets and the Hagiographa are of secondary importance. The language of the holy writings is Ge'ez, not Hebrew. It appears that following the conquest of the Kingdom of Gondar^{[dubious — see talk page]} in the 17th century, all Jewish holy books were destroyed, and their study forbidden.^{[citation needed]} If Hebrew writings were still extant, this is the time when they were definitively lost. However, the Jews persisted in reading what they could, including the "Old Testament" of the Christian scriptures written in the Christian holy tongue Ge'ez. The Jewish monks, in any case, had retained knowledge of Ge'ez from their ancient Christian antecedents. Great care was taken by these monks and priests to eliminate specifically Christian texts, practices and ideas. Thus, ironically, the Christian religious literature was used selectively to provide the continuing foundation for study of the Jewish sources. This helps to account for some of the texts (and practices) used by the Beta Israel that are not found elsewhere amongst Jews.

Outside the Biblical canon, a number of the external writings — the books of Enoch, Jubilees, Baruch and the books of Ezra — are held sacred as well. The basic wording of Beta Israel Biblical writings was passed down apparently through the ancient Greek translations like the Septuagint, which incorporates some of the Apocrypha as well.

The Beta Israel possess several other books, among these other books are the Arde'et, Acts of Moses, Apocalypse of Gorgorios, Meddrash Abba Elija (Midrash Eliyahu Rabbah}, and biographies of the nation's forebears: Gadla Adam, Gadla Avraham, Gadla Ishak, Gadla Ya'kov, Gadla Moshe, Gadla Aaron, Nagara Musye, Mota Musye.

A book of special importance for the leaders of the community is one dealing with the Shabbat and its precepts — Te'ezaza Sanbat (Precepts of the Sabbath). The leaders of the Beta Israel also read liturgical works including weekday services, Shabbat and Festival prayers, and the wordings of the various blessings: Sefer Cahen deals with priestly functions, while Sefer Sa'atat (Book of the Hours) applies to weekdays and Shabbat. The Beta Israel religious calendar is set according to a treastise known as the Abu Shaker, which was written around 1257 CE, and dealt with the computation of Jewish holidays and chronological matters. The Abu Shaker lists civil and lunar dates for Jewish feasts including Matqe' (New Year), Soma Ayhud or Badr (Yom Kippur), Masallat (Sucot), Fesh (Passover), and Soma Dehnat (Fast of Salvation) or Soma Aster (Fast of Esther).

The Beta Israel have an interesting holiday, known as Sigd on the 29th of Cheshvan, which is unique to them. Sigd or Seged is derived from the Semitic root meaning "to bow or prostrate oneself." In the past the day was called Mehella , and the acts of bowing and supplication are still known by that name. It celebrates the giving of the Torah and the days of the return from exile in Babylonia to Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah. It is further stated in Beta Israel tradition that Sigd commemorates Ezra's proclamation against the Babylonian wives (Ezra 10:10-12). In Ethiopia the Sigd would take place on hilltops outside villages. The location was called by several names, including Ya'arego Dabr (Mountain for making prayers) and in Amharic Yalamana Tarrara (Mountain of Supplication). The Kessim draw a parallel between the choice of a mountain and Mount Sinai. Another source describes Sigd (calling it Amata Saww) as a new-moon holiday after which the Kessim withdrew for a period of isolation.

Social contact between the Beta Israel and other Ethiopians was limited, in part because of the laws of Kashrut that they followed. It was forbidden for Ethiopian Jews to eat the food of non-Jews and the Kessim were even more strict about the prohibition against eating food prepared by non-Kessim. In the past, Beta Israel who broke these taboos were ostracized and had to undergo a purification process, including fasting for one or more days and ritual purification in a mikvah before entering the village. Unlike other Ethiopians, the Beta Israel do not eat raw meat dishes like kitfo or gored gored.

[edit] Languages

The Beta Israel once spoke Qwara and Kayla, both closely-related Cushitic language, but now they speak Amharic, a Semitic language. Their liturgical language is Ge'ez; since the 1950s Hebrew has been taught in schools.

[edit] Israel intervenes

The Israeli government officially accepted the Beta Israel as Jews in 1975; Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin obtained clear rulings from Chief Sefardi Rabbi Ovadia Yosef that they were legitimate descendants of the lost tribes. They were however required to undergo pro forma Jewish conversions to Judaism, as is done in all cases of doubt, however slight.

Beginning in 1984, Israeli-led Operation Moses began transporting Ethiopian Jews to Israel. It came to an abrupt halt in 1985, though, leaving many of the Beta Israel still in Ethiopia. It was not until 1990 that the governments of Israel and Ethiopia came to an agreement that would allow the remaining Beta Israel a chance to migrate to Israel. In 1991, however, the political and economic stability of Ethiopia deteriorated as rebels mounted attacks against and eventually won over the capital city of Addis Ababa. Worried about the fate of the Beta Israel during the transition period, the Israeli government along with several private groups prepared to covertly continue along with the migration. With El Al obtaining a special provision to fly on Shabbat (because of the danger to life), on Friday, May 24, Operation Solomon began. Over the course of 36 hours, a total of 34 El Al passenger planes, with their seats removed to maximize passenger capacity, flew 14,325 Ethiopian Jews non-stop to Israel.

[edit] Ethiopian Jews in Israel today

Just as interesting as the stories of the various Ethiopian Jews who made their way to Israel are some of the stories of Ethiopian Jewish life in Israel. Ethiopian Jews are gradually becoming part of the mainstream Israeli society in religious life, military service (with nearly all males doing national service), education, and politics. However, this transition has not been entirely smooth, and just as other groups of immigrant Jews who made aliyah to Israel, the Ethiopian Jews have faced obstacles in their integration to Israeli society. This has also been complicated by racist attitudes on the part of some elements of the Israeli population and official establishment. ^[10]

Furthermore, another study found that some of the problems with the absorption of the Beta Israel is due to the model of absorption chosen.

Planning for the absorption of Jewish immigrants to Israel has been dominated by a procedural approach, which has generally been insensitive to the particular circumstances and needs of minority ethnic groups. This approach has emphasised the `national interest’ as defined by the dominant group, namely Ashkenazi Jews who originated in Central Europe. The social and cultural traditions of other groups have been treated as `problems’ that need to be overcome, and minimal attention has been given to the processes of adaptation such groups undergo. ^[11]

Most of the 90,000 Ethiopian Jews now living in Israel arrived in two main waves, the first in 1984 (about 33,000 people) and the second in 1991 (about 20,000 people) in two airlifts known as Operation Moses and Operation Solomon, respectively. (Although there had been individual Ethiopian Jews who lived in Eretz Yisrael prior to the establishment of the state, as well as a youth group that arrived in Israel in the 1950s to undergo training in Hebrew education and returned to Ethiopia to educate young Jews there. Also, Ethiopian Jews had been trickling into Israel prior to the 1970s, and the numbers grew larger after the Israeli government officially recognized them as Jews entitled to Israeli citizenship in 1973) These people arrived as a result of dramatic rescue operations prompted by civil war and famine in Ethiopia, within the context of Israel’ s national mission to gather Diaspora Jews from all over the world and bring them to the Jewish homeland. At the height of the rescue, 19,000 people arrived in Israel from Ethiopia in a period of just 24 hours. ).^[12]

The State of Israel prepared itself for the absorption of Ethiopian Jews by formulating two `Master Plans’ (Ministry of Absorption, 1985, 1991). The first was prepared in 1985, a year after the arrival of the first wave of immigrants; the second simply updated the first in response to the second wave of immigration from Ethiopia in 1991. The first Master Plan contained an elaborate and detailed program. It covered issues of housing, education, employment and practical organization, together with policy guidelines regarding specific groups including women, youths, and lone-parent families. Like earlier absorption policies, it adopted a procedural approach, assuming that the immigrants were broadly similar to the existing majority population of Israel. The Plans were, no doubt, formulated with the best of intentions and a firm belief in the underlying principles of absorption. However, as indicated in this section, the results have been disappointing and suggest that much greater attention needs to be paid to issues of ethnicity.[9]

According to a November 17th 1999 BBC article, a report commissioned by Israel's Ministry of Immigrant Absorption stated that 75% of the 70,000 Ethiopian Jews that were living in Israel in 1999 could not read or write Hebrew and over half of the population could not hold a simple conversation in the language. Unlike Russian immigrants, many of whom arrive with job skills, the Ethiopians came from a subsistence economy and were ill-prepared to work in an industrialized country. Since that time much progress has been made, especially through military service where most Ethiopian Jews have been able to increase their chances for better opportunities.[10]

In September, 2006, the Israeli government's proposed 2007 budget included limiting Ethiopian immigration from 600 per month to 150; on the eve of the Knesset vote, the Prime Minister's office announced that the plan had been dropped. However, advocates for the Falash Mura noted that although the quota was set at 600 per month in March, 2005, actual immigration has in fact remained limited to 300 per month. ^[13]

[edit] Prominent Israelis of Ethiopian Jewish background

Qes Adana Takuyo was born in Seqelt and studied with the Qessim as a child. During the time of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, he had moved to Ambober where he worked as a farmer. He studied Hebrew briefly in 1955 when an Israeli Rabbi taught in Asmara. in 1985 Qes Adana immigrated to Israel along with his wife and eleven children, where his oldest son Rabbi Josef Adana who had immigrated earlier had become the first Ethiopian Jewish Rabbi.

In the 1920s, Yona Bogale was sponsored by Jacques Faitlovitch to study abroad. He spent two years in British Mandate Palestine, four in Germany, one in Switzerland, and one in France. After returning to Addis Ababa around 1930, he taught in the Faitlovitch school there. During the Italian occupation he went into hiding and worked as a farmer in Wolleka. After the war Yona Bogale worked for the Ethiopian Ministry of Education for twelve years and then for the Jewish Agency.

Yona Bogale was fluent in Hebrew, English, and German as well as Amharic. He was also an author of an early Hebrew-Amharic dictionary. He left Ethiopia in late 1979 and immigrated to Israel. Yona was an early proponent of Ethiopian Jewish praying in Hebrew instead of Ge'ez since he felt that it was no longer appropriate for those seeking to be a part of the modern Jewish world. He did feel though that the Ethiopian Jews should set Hebrew prayers to the traditional Jewish melodies.

Rabbi Sharon Shalom is a lecturer in Jewish ritual and tradition at Bar Ilan University in Israel and a counselor for the Ethiopian-Israeli community in the town of Kiryat Gat. Born in Ethiopia in 1973, he is the first Ethiopian-Israeli to have received rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of the State of Israel.

Rabbi Yefet Alemu, who was born in 1961 in a small village in Ethiopia. In 1980, he left his village seeking to go to Israel. He was arrested in Addis Ababa and escaped from prison. He arrived in the Gondar region and then set out walking to Sudan. There he met a Jewish Red Cross director who arranged for him to fly on one of the Israeli organized secret flights to Israel. In Israel he studied and became a nurse.

At the same time, while continuing to be a believing Jew, he became disillusioned with organized Judaism and with the Israeli religious establishment's insistence on a conversion ceremony for all Ethiopian Jews. Yefet helped organize an Ethiopian protest vigil opposite the Chief Rabbinate building in Jerusalem. At the vigil, he met students from the Schecter Institute of Jewish students who were studying to be Conservative rabbis. He was confused and surprised to see that they were without beards and without long black coats. The students replied that there was more than one type of rabbi, more than one way of being Jewish. Yefet excitingly embraced this pluralistic approach to Judaism. He was accepted by the Schecter Institute and after 6 years of hard work, he received a BA, MA, and his rabbinical ordination. [11]

Ethiopian-Israelis have also been participating more and more in Israeli political life. In 2006, the Shas, the party representing ultra-Orthodox Jews of Sephardic and Middle Eastern background, in its list for the Knesset, included an Ethiopian rabbi from Beersheba, in a conscious attempt to represent diverse geographic and ethnic groups. Rabbi Mazor Bayana, rabbi of an Ethiopian community of 10,000 in Beersheba, learned at Yeshivat Porat Yosef, one of the most prestigious Sephardi yeshivot in Israel . Rabbi Bayana, however, ultimately did not win a seat in the Knesset.

Shas was not the only party attempting to appeal to the Ethiopian vote. Herut and Kadima both had Ethiopians on their lists. Shlomo Mula, head of the Jewish Agency's Ethiopian absorption department, was ranked 33 on Kadima's list and Avraham Nagosa is number three on Herut's list.

So far, only one Ethiopian Israeli has served in the Knesset, MK (Member of Knesset) Addisu Masala, of Labour.

Avraham Negussie is one of Israel's most prominent Ethiopian Activist and a member of the South Wing to Zion. His struggle, with the support of many other Ethiopian Israelis has resulted in the Israeli governments continuing to bring the last 23,000 Ethiopian Jews from Ethiopia; though the Israeli government has set a quota of 300 Jews per month, half of what they agreed to under pressure from Negussie, NACOEJ and the United Jewish Communities.

Shas's spiritual mentor, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, enthusiastically embraced Ethiopians when they first began immigrating to Israel four decades ago. Despite Rabbi Ovadia's halachic ruling, some refuse to marry Ethiopians without a conversion in accordance with official Chief Rabbinate policy. Only in cities and towns with rabbis that accept Ovadia's ruling or the ruling of Rabbi Shlomo Goren are Ethiopians married without immersion in a ritual bath (mikva) or, for men, hatafat dam, הטפת דם, see brit milah), the symbolic cut to produce a drop of blood instead of circumcision.[12]

[edit] Ethiopian Heritage Museum: Rehovot, Israel

A museum highlighting the culture and heritage of the Ethiopian Jewish community is to be built in Rehovot. The museum, planned as a research, interpretive and spiritual center, is the brainchild of Tomer, an association whose members are veteran Ethiopian immigrants and former Mossad agents who took part in the first operations to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

"The Jews of Ethiopia have a rich cultural heritage, and are the only Jews who strictly kept their Judaism although they were entirely cut off from the Jewish people," said Tomer chairman Moshe Bar-Yuda. "The museum will present Ethiopian Jewish culture to Israelis who are not familiar enough with it, and also to young Ethiopians who fall between the cracks - on one hand they are not connected to their parents' culture, and on the other, they sometimes find it hard to become part of the dynamic of life in Israel. When they see the ancient culture of their forbears, they will be filled with pride, and it will be easier for them to become part of veteran Israeli society," he says.

Plans for the museum, expected to cost some $4.5 million, include a model Ethiopian village, an herb garden, an artificial stream, an amphitheater, classrooms and a memorial to Ethiopian Jews who died in Sudan on their way to Israel and Ethiopian Zionist activists. "We view the conservation of the past as very important and believe the museum will attract young people and adults alike," Rehovot Mayor Shuki Forer says.

A large number of Ethiopian Jews make their home in Rehovot and surrounding towns, the reason for its selection as the site of the museum. The city has set aside six dunams, 1.5 acres, of land for the museum complex.

"All 21 members of the Rehovot City Council, both coalition and opposition, voted for the establishment of the center," says Abai Zaudeh, a council member and a member of Tomer's board of directors. "It's the first time they all agree and leave politics behind to focus on the reality that the establishment of the museum will assist the absorption of the Ethiopian community a great deal," he says.

One of the museum's founders was Baruch Tegegne, who pioneered escape routes from Ethiopia via Sudan and fought for the right of Jews to emigrate to Israel. Other founders include veteran Ethiopian rights activist Babu Yaakov, a former member of the Ramle City Council, and Shetu Barehon, who worked in the transit camps in Sudan to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel. A number of Ethiopian Jewish spiritual leaders and rabbis are also working to increase support for the project in the community and the Diaspora.

Bar-Yuda's long association with the Ethiopian Jewish community began in 1958, when the Jewish Agency asked him to go to Ethiopia to look for Jews, reaching remote villages. The report he prepared, along with a 16th Century ruling by Rabbi David B. Zimra, known as the Radbaz, was the basis for the 1973 ruling by then-chief Sephardic rabbi Ovadia Yosef that the Jews of Ethiopia were to be considered Jews according to halakha (Jewish religious law).^[14]

[edit] Origins

[edit] Traditions of the Beta Israel

The Ethiopian legend described in the Kebra Negast relates that Ethiopians are descendants of Israelite tribes who came to Ethiopia with Menelik I, alleged to be the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (or Makeda, in the legend). The legend relates that Menelik, as an adult, returned to his father in Jerusalem, and then resettled in Ethiopia, and that he took with him the Ark of the Covenant. In the Bible there is no mention that the Queen of Sheba either married or had any sexual relations with King Solomon; rather, the narrative records that she was impressed with his wealth and wisdom, and they exchanged royal gifts, and then she returned to rule her people in Kush. However, the "royal gifts" are interpreted by some as sexual contact. The loss of the Ark is also not mentioned in the Bible.

However, most of the Beta Israel consider the Kebra Negast legend to be a fabrication. Instead they believe, based on the 9th century stories of Eldad ha-Dani (the Danite), that the tribe of Dan attempted to avoid the civil war in the Kingdom of Israel between Solomon's son Rehoboam and Jeroboam the son of Nebat, by resettling in Egypt. From there they moved southwards up the Nile into Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian Jews are descended from these Danites. This tradition was made known to Rabbi Ovadiah Yare of Bertinoro who wrote a letter from Jerusalem in 1488:

I myself saw two of them in Egypt. They are dark-skinned...and one could not tell whether they keep the teaching of the Karaites, or of the Rabbis, for some of their practices resemble the Karaite teaching...but in other things they appear to follow the instruction of the Rabbis; and they say they are related to the tribe of Dan. ^[15]

Other sources tell of many Jews who were brought as prisoners of war from Eretz Israel by Ptolemy I and also settled on the border of his kingdom with Nubia (Sudan). Another tradition handed down in the community from father to son asserts that they arrived either via the old district of Qwara in northwestern Ethiopia, or via the Atbara River, where the Nile tributaries flow into Sudan. Some accounts even specify the route taken by their forefathers on their way upstream from Egypt. [13]

[edit] Rabbinical views

Some Jewish legal authorities have asserted that the Beta Israel are the descendants of the tribe of Dan, one of the Ten Lost Tribes. This is supported by the medieval traveller Eldad ha-Dani. In their view, these people established a Jewish kingdom that lasted for hundreds of years. With the rise of Christianity and later Islam, schisms arose and three kingdoms competed. Eventually, the Christian and Muslim Ethiopian kingdoms reduced the Jewish kingdom to a small impoverished section. The earliest authority to rule this way was the Radbaz (Rabbi David ben Zimra, 1479 – 1573). Radbaz explains in a responsum concerning the status of a Beta Israel slave:

But those Jews who come from the land of Cush are without doubt from the tribe of Dan, and since they did not have in their midst sages who were masters of the tradition, they clung to the simple meaning of the Scriptures. If they had been taught, however, they would not be irreverent towards the words of our sages, so their status is comparable to a Jewish infant taken captive by non-Jews … And even if you say that the matter is in doubt, it is a commandment to redeem them. ^[16]

In 1973 Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, then the Chief Sephardic Rabbi, based on the Radbaz and other accounts ruled that the Beta Israel were Jews and should be brought to Israel. He was later joined by a number of other authorities including the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi who made similar rulings. Although Yosef's view appears more lenient, it leads to a tremendous stringency. Since the Beta Israel had no formal process of [get], they must all be assumed to have the status of a Mamzer, an illegitimately born Jew who cannot marry regular Jews.

Other legal authorities, primarily Ashkenazim, have maintained that the Jewishness of the Beta Israel is seriously suspect. Authorities who have also ruled this way include Rabbis Moshe Feinstein, Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, and Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.

In either case, some modern rabbinical authorities require the Beta Israel to undergo shortened conversions as a religious precaution. Among those who carry the latter opinion, however, conversion is no mere formality if an Ethiopian Jew wishes to be accepted within other Jewish communities.

[edit] DNA evidence

Gerard Lucotte and Pierre Smets in Human Biology (vol 71, December 1999, pp. 989 – 993) [14] studied the DNA of 38 unrelated Beta Israel males living in Israel and 104 Ethiopians living in regions located north of Addis Ababa and concluded that "the distinctiveness of the Y-chromosome haplotype distribution of Beta Israel Jews from conventional Jewish populations and their relatively greater similarity in haplotype profile to non-Jewish Ethiopians are consistent with the view that the Beta Israel people descended from ancient inhabitants of Ethiopia who converted to Judaism." [15] This study confirms the findings of an earlier study by Avshalom Zoossmann-Disken, A. Ticher, I. Hakim, Z. Goldwitch, A. Rubinstein, and Batsheva Bonné-Tamir titled "Genetic affinities of Ethiopian Jews," published in Israel Journal of Medical Sciences 27:245 (1991).[16]. A study of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes of Jewish and non-Jewish groups titled Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June, 2000 suggested that "paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population," with the exception of the Beta Israel, who were "affiliated more closely with non-Jewish Ethiopians and other North Africans." [17]. These Y-chromosome studies only speak to the paternal lineage (some ethnic groups are a product of one maternal lineage and a different paternal lineage, see Métis people (Canada)), but a study of the Mitochondrial DNA [18] (which is passed only along the maternal lineage) shows that the most common mtDNA type found among the Ethiopian Jewish sample was present elsewhere only in Somalia, furthering the view of most that Ethiopian Jews are of local (Ethiopian) origin.

However, a study performed by the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University did find a possible genetic similarity between 11 Ethiopian Jews and 4 Yemenite Jews who took part in the testing. The differentiation statistic and genetic distances for the 11 Ethiopian Jews and 4 Yemenite Jews tested were quite low, among the smallest of comparisons that involved either of these populations. Ethiopian Jewish Y-Chromosomal haplotype are often present in Yemenite and other Jewish populations, but analysis of Y-Chromosomal haplotype frequencies does not indicate a close relationship between Ethiopian Jewish groups. It is possible that the 4 Yemenite Jews from this study may be descendants of reverse migrants of African origin, who crossed Ethiopia to Yemen. The result from this study suggests that gene flow between Ethiopia and Yemen as a possible explanation. The study also suggests that the gene flow between Ethiopian and Yemenite Jewish populations may not have been direct, but instead could have been between Jewish and non-Jewish populations of both regions. ^[17]

[edit] Scholarly view

In the past secular scholars were divided on the origins of the Beta Israel; whether they were the descendants of an Israelite tribe, or converted by Jews living in Yemen, or by the Jewish community in southern Egypt (Elephantine). Some have conjectured, based on references in the Bible, that they could be remnants of an ancient Jewish community in the region. For example in the Book of Isaiah the author prophesies that "the Lord will bring back a remnant of his people...returning them to the land of Israel from Assyria, Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, Ethiopia, Elam, Babylonia, Hamath, and all the distant coastlands" (Isaiah 11:11). In the Book of Zephaniah it is also prophesied that "from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my worshipers, even the daughter of my dispersed people, will bring my offering" (Zephaniah 3:10). Both books are believed to have been written during the 8th and 7th century B.C.E.

Modern scholars of Ethiopian history and Ethiopian Jews, such as James Quirin, Steve Kaplan, Kay Shelemay, and Harold Marcus, consider the Beta Israel to be a native group of Ethiopian Christians, who took on Biblical practices, and came to see themselves as Jews. As Paul B. Henze explains:

These groups came into conflict with the military colonies and Christian missions which were the main instruments of the extension southward of the Ethiopian state. They may have been joined by dissidents or rebelling northern Christians who felt their interpretation of ritual, sacred texts and traditions of art represented a more ancient Israelite connection than Orthodox Monophysite [sic] Christianity itself. The Beta Israel can thus be understood as a manifestation of the kind of rebellious archaism that has often come to the surface in Christianity -- e.g. Russian Old Believers and German Old Lutherans. Assertion of Jewish derivation, they felt, provided them with a stronger claim to legitimacy than their Christian enemies. ^[18]

[edit] In fiction

Operation Moses was the subject of an Israeli-French film titled Va, Vis et Deviens (Go, See, and Become), directed by Romanian-born Radu Mihăileanu. The film is based on an Ethiopian Christian child whose mother forces him to pass off as Jew so he can emigrate to Israel along with the Jews in order to escape famine that is looming in Ethiopia. The film went on to get the 2005 best film award at the Copenhagen International Film Festival.

[edit] Photos

• Ethiopian Jews in the Sigd ceremony

[edit] See also

• Jews and Judaism in Africa
• Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa)
• Yemenite Jews
• Bnai Ephraim
• Lemba

[edit] References

1. ^ (From Page 40, A.H.M. Jones and Elizabeth Monroe, A History of Ethiopia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935).)
2. ^ cf. Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity, Edinburgh UP, 1991, p. 65
3. ^ Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia: 1270-1527, Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1972, pp.38-9
4. ^ Knud Tage Andersen, "The Queen of Habasha in Ethiopian History, Tradition and Chronology," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 63, No. 1 (2000), p.20.
5. ^ Steven Kaplan, "Eldad Ha-Dani", in Siegbert von Uhlig, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), p.252.
6. ^ ^{a b c d e} Steven Kaplan, "Betä Əsraʾel", in Siegbert von Uhlig, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A-C (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003), p.553.
7. ^ ^{a b c d} Kaplan,"Betä Əsraʾel",Aethiopica p.554.
8. ^ History of High Ethiopia or Abassia, trans. and ed. C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B.Huntingford, London: Hakluyt Society, 1954, pp. 54-55
9. ^ Glorious Victories of Amda Seyon I, trans. G.W.B. Huntingford [Oxford: Clarendon Press], p. 61
10. ^ The Black Jews of Ethiopia, by Onolemhemhen Durrenda Nash, Scarecrow Press; Reprint edition (March 2002), page 40
11. ^ Ethnicity, Citizenship, Planning and Gender: the case of Ethiopian immigrant women in Israel, by Tovi Fenter, Tel Aviv University, Israel, Gender, Place and Culture, Vol. 5, No. 2, page 179, 1998
12. ^ Ethnicity, Citizenship, Planning and Gender: the case of Ethiopian immigrant women in Israel, by Tovi Fenter, Tel Aviv University, Israel, Gender, Place and Culture, Vol. 5, No. 2, page 181, 1998
13. ^ Heilman, Urile. "Falash Mura supporters hail vote to keep monthly immigration steady", Connecticut Jewish Ledger, 2006-11-17, pp. 22, 26. Retrieved on November 17, 2006. (in English)
14. ^ Museum on history of Ethiopian Jewry to be built in Rehovot, by Ayanawu Farada Sanbetu, 19:26 18/07/2005, HAARETZ.com [1]
15. ^ Avraham Ya'ari, Igrot Eretz Yisrael, Ramat Gan 1971.
16. ^ Responsum of the Radbaz on the Falasha Slave, Part 7. No. 5, cited in Corinaldi, 1998: 196.
17. ^ Distinctive genetic signatures in the Libyan Jews, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001 January 30; 98(3): 858–863, 2001, The National Academy of Sciences [2]
18. ^ Paul B. Henze. Layers of Time. Palgrave, 2000. p. 55.

• Kaplan, Steve The Beta Israel (Falasha in Ethiopia: from Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century). New York University Press, re-issue edition, 1994. ISBN 0-8147-4664-0
• Berhanu, Girma Learning In Context (An Ethnographic Investigation of Meditated Learning Experiences Among Ethiopian Jews in Israel). Goteborg University Press, 2001. ISBN 91-7346-411-2
• Leslau, Wolf Falasha Anthology (Translated from Ethiopic Sources with an introduction by Wolf Leslau). Yale Judaica Series, vol. 6. New Haven & London: Yale University Press 1951. ISBN 0-300-03927-1.
• Marcus, Harold G. A History of Ethiopia. University of California Press, updated edition, 2002. ISBN 0-520-22479-5
• Quirin, James. The Evolution of the Ethiopian Jews: A History of the Beta Israel (Falasha) to 1920. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992. ISBN 0-8122-3116-3
• Shelemay, Kay Kaufman. Music, Ritual, and Falasha History. Michigan State University Press; 1989. ISBN 0-87013-274-1
• Aescoly, A.Z. Recueil de textes falachas: introduction textes Ethiopiens (edition critique et traduction). Paris: Institut d'ethnologie 1951.
• Aescoly, A.Z. Notices sur les Falacha ou juifs d'Abbyssinie, d'apres le journal de voyage d'Antoine d'Abbadie. Cashiers d'etdues africaines 2; 1961.
• Neugebauer, Otto. Ethiopic Astronomy and Computus. Vienna: Verlag der osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften; 1979.

[edit] External links

• Ethiopian Jews site
• Collection of photos of Ethiopian Jews celebrating the Sigd Festival in Jerusalem
• Construction of Beta Israel Identity
• Jewish Encyclopedia
• The Jews of Ethiopia and their Names
• Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews
• Exile in Ethiopia
• Abstract of the Lucotte-Smets article.
• Marc Shapiro, "Return of a lost tribe." details the rediscovery of the Falasha.
• History of Ethiopian Jews
• North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry