Beta Israel

Beta Israel
Beta Israel making injera in Gondar, in 1996.
Total population
200,000+ (estimated)
Regions with significant populations
Israel: 127,000 (estimated)[1]  Ethiopia: 22,000 to 50,000 (estimated)[2][3][4][5][6]
Languages
Traditionally, Kayla and Qwara, more recently Amharic; Ge'ez as a liturgical language and now (in Israel) Hebrew as a liturgical and common language
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Tigrays Amharas Qemant Agaw Jews: African Jews (Qemant, Falash Mura), other Jewish groups

The Beta Israel (Hebrew: ביתא ישראל‎: Beta Israel, "House of Israel"; Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl) is the Jewish community originating in Ethiopia, but now most of which lives in Israel. They are also known as Falasha (Amharic for "Exiles" or "Strangers") by non-Jewish Ethiopians, but this term is considered pejorative. Other terms by which the community have been known include the Tigrinya Kayla and the Hebrew Habashim, associated with the non-Jewish Habesha people.

Nearly 85% of the Ethiopian Beta Israel community, comprising more than 120,000 people, have emigrated to Israel under its Law of Return, which gives Jews and those with Jewish parents or grandparents, and all of their spouses, the right to settle in Israel and obtain citizenship. The Israeli government has mounted rescue operations, most notably during Operation Moses (1984) and Operation Solomon (1991), for their migration when civil war and famine threatened populations within Ethiopia. Some immigration has continued up until the present day.

The related Falasha Mura are the descendants of Beta Israel who converted to Christianity. Some are returning to the practices of Judaism, living in Falash Mura communities and observing halakha. Beta Israel spiritual leaders, including Chief Kes Raphael Hadane have argued for the acceptance of the Falasha Mura as Jews.^[7] This claim has been a matter of controversy within Israeli society.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Origins

Beta Israel beliefs

The Beta Israel village of Balankab. From H. A. Stern, Wanderings Among the Falashas in Abyssinia London, 1862; reprinted in the 1901–6 Jewish Encyclopedia, now in the public domain.

The Ethiopian legend described in the Kebra Negast, or "Book of the Glory of Kings," 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) (see 1 Kings 10:1-13 and 2 Chronicles 9:1-12). 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.

Those who accept the Kebra Negast believe that the Beta Israel are descended from a battalion of men of Judah that fled southwards down the Arabian coastal lands from Judaea after the breakup of the united Kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms in the 10th century BCE (while King Solomon still reigned over Judah).

Although the Kebra Nagast and some traditional Ethiopian histories have stated that Yodit (or "Gudit"), a tenth century usurping queen, was Jewish, it's unlikely that this was the case. It is more likely that she was a pagan southerner^[12] or a usurping Christian Aksumite Queen.^[13]

Most of the Beta Israel consider the Kebra Negast legend to be a fabrication. Instead they believe, based on the ninth 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 Beta Israel are descended from these Danites.

Other sources tell of many Jews who were brought as prisoners of war from ancient 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.^[14]

Rabbinical views

The ninth century Jewish traveler Eldad ha-Dani claimed the Beta Israel descended from the tribe of Dan, claiming Jewish kingdoms around or in East Africa existed during this time. His writings may represent the first mention of the Beta Israel, but his accuracy is uncertain; scholars point to Eldad's lack of firsthand knowledge of Ethiopia's geography and any Ethiopian language, although he claimed the area as his homeland.^[15]

Rabbi Ovadiah Yare of Bertinoro wrote in 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.^[16]

Some Jewish legal authorities have also asserted that the Beta Israel are the descendants of the tribe of Dan, one of the Ten Lost Tribes. 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.^[17]

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 who made similar rulings, including the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi.

Other legal authorities, primarily Ashkenazim, have maintained that the Jewishness of the Beta Israel is seriously suspect. Such dissenting authorities include Rabbis Moshe Feinstein, Elazar Shach, 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. Those who believe this consider the conversion a necessity for an Ethiopian Jew to be accepted within other Jewish communities.

DNA evidence

A 1999 study by Lucotte and Smets 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."^[18][19] This study confirmed the findings of a 1991 study by Zoossmann-Disken et al.^[20]. A 2000 study by Hammer et al of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes of Jewish and non-Jewish groups 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."^[21]

A 2001 study by the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University found 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 involving either of these populations. The 4 Yemenite Jews from this study may be descendants of reverse migrants of African origin who crossed Ethiopia to Yemen. The study result suggests gene flow between Ethiopia and Yemen as a possible explanation for the closeness. 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.^[22]

A 2002 study of Mitochondrial DNA (which is passed through only maternal lineage to both men and women) by Thomas et al showed that the most common mtDNA type found among the Ethiopian Jewish sample was present only in Somalia. This further supported the view that most Ethiopian Jews were of local or Ethiopian origin.^[23]

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 at Elephantine.^[24] In the 1930s Jones and Monro argues that the chief Semitic languages of Ethiopia may suggest an antiquity of Judaism in Ethiopia. "There still remains the curious circumstance that a number of Abyssinian words connected with religion, such as the words for Hell, idol, Easter, purification, and 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."^[25] Richard Pankhurst summarized the various theories offered about their origins as of 1950 that the first members of this community were

(1) converted Agaws, (2) Jewish immigrants who intermarried with Agaws, (3) immigrant Yemeni Arabs who had converted to Judaism, (4) immigrant Yemeni Jews, (5) Jews from Egypt, and (6) successive waves of Yemeni Jews. Traditional Ethiopian savants, on the one hand, have declared that 'We were Jews before we were Christians', while more recent, well-documented, Ethiopian hypotheses, notably by two Ethiopian scholars, Dr Taddesse Tamrat and Dr Getachew Haile... put much greater emphasis on the manner in which Christians over the years converted to the Falasha faith, thus showing that the Falashas were culturally an Ethiopian sect, made up of ethnic Ethiopians.^[26]

According to Jacqueline Pirenne, numerous Sabaeans crossed over the Red Sea to Ethiopia to escape from the Assyrians, who had devastated the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. She further states that a second major wave of Sabaeans crossed over to Ethiopia in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE to escape Nebuchadnezzar. This wave also included Jews fleeing from the Babylonian takeover of Judah.^[27] Most historians generally dismiss these theories of an early Jewish presence in Ethiopia in favor of a later ethnogenesis of the Beta Israel and presence of Judaism among Ethiopians. In 1992 Pankhurst stated "The early origins of the Falashas are shrouded in mystery, and, for lack of documentation, will probably remain so for ever."^[26]

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 Miaphysite 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.^[28]

In The Middle Ages

In 1329, Emperor Amda Seyon campaigned in the northwest provinces of Semien, Wegera, Tselemt, and Tsegede, in which many had been converting to Judaism and where the Beta Israel had been gaining prominence.^[29] He sent troops there to fight people "like Jews" (Ge'ez ??:???? kama ayhūd).^[30]

For the next three centuries, these regions were frequently areas of Beta Israel rebellion against the Solomonic dynasty. Religion was less important to the Emperors than loyalty, however. Rebellious Beta Israel leaders often formed alliances with other enemies of the Emperor despite their differing faiths.^[30] The late fourteenth century Christian monk Qozmos, for instance, copied the Orit (Old Testament) for the Beta Israel communities. He led them against local Christians before being defeated by Emperor Dawit I.^[30] Likewise, the fifteenth century governor of Tsellemt used both Jewish and Christian troops for his revolt. The first personal campaign against rebelling Beta Israel areas did not come until the reign of Emperor Yeshaq (r.1414-29). When Yeshaq I defeated the governors of Semien and Dembiya, he began to exert religious pressure. He reduced the Jews' social status below that of Christians. ^[30] Yeshaq forced the Jews to convert or lose their land. It 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. Yeshaq decreed, "He who is baptized in the Christian religion may inherit the land of his father, otherwise let him be a Falāsī." This may have been the origin for the term "Falasha" (falāšā, "wanderer," or "landless person").^[30] In the 1400s, Emperor Zara Yaqob carried out some of the worst massacres, attacks and forced conversions of the Christian kingdom. Zara Yaqob added the title "Exterminator of the Jews" to his name.

Another convert was Abba Sabra (or Sabriqu) of Madra Kabd near Zeqwala in Shewa, who lived in the fifteenth century. According to Falasha tradition, in which he is a seminal figure, Abba Sabra turned to a life of penance after having committed a murder; one act of this penance was building a church in Dankaz near Gondar. Not long afterwards, he "embraced the faith of the Israelites", and converted one of Zara Yaqob's sons, Saga-Amlak, who according to some accounts also converted many other people. Abba Sabra is also remembered for his teaching of the Orit, as well as the laws of purity known in Amharic as attenhugn. He is also believed to have introduced to the Beta Israel monastic practices, which became one of its most distinctive practices as a Jewish sect. The influence of converts like Qozmos and Abba Sabra complicates the work of tracing this group's possible heritage from its earliest adherents.^[31]

Beta Israel autonomy in Ethiopia ended in 1624, when Emperor Susenyos confiscated their lands, sold many people into slavery and forcibly baptized others.^[32] Jewish writings and religious books were burned. The practice of any form of Jewish religion was forbidden in Ethiopia. As a result of this period of oppression, much traditional Jewish culture and practice was lost or changed.

Nonetheless, the Beta Israel community appears to have continued to flourish during this period. The capital of Ethiopia, Gondar, in Dembiya, was surrounded by Beta Israel lands. The Beta Israel served as craftsmen, masons, and carpenters for the Emperors from the sixteenth century onwards. Such roles had been shunned by Ethiopians as lowly and less honorable than farming.^[32] According to contemporary accounts by European visitors: Portuguese merchants and diplomats, French, British and other travellers, the Beta Israel numbered about one million persons in the seventeenth century. These accounts also recounted that some knowledge of Hebrew persisted among the people in the seventeenth century. For example, Manoel de Almeida, a Portuguese diplomat and traveller of the day, wrote 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.^[33]

The extent of De Almeida's knowledge is not known. The Beta Israel were not predominantly of the Arabic race, for instance, but he may have meant the term loosely or meant that they also knew Arabic.

The Beta Israel lost their relative economic advantages, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, during the Zemene Mesafint, a period of recurring civil strife. Although the capital was nominally in Gondar during this time period, the decentralization of government and dominance by regional capitals resulted in a decline and exploitation of Beta Israel by local rulers. No longer was there a strong central government interested in and capable of protecting them.^[32] During this period, the Jewish religion was effectively lost for some forty years, before being restored in the 1840s by Abba Widdaye, the preeminent monk of Qwara.^[32]

Pre-modern and modern contacts with Jews elsewhere

The earliest surviving testimony to those hidden kingdoms comes from the ninth century. In the last decades of that century, the Jews of Kairowan in Tunisia were visited by a man called Eldad son of Mahli, the Danite. Eldad the Danite, as he is referred to in Jewish histories, said he was the lone survivor of a shipwreck. He claimed to have escaped cannibals and had other fabulous adventures before arriving in Tunisia. He was described as having dark skin and speaking only a strange sort of Hebrew and no Arabic. Eldad the Danite claimed to be a Jew of a pastoralist tribe residing in the land of Havilah beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.

He claimed the tribe was 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 three other tribes, Naphtali, Gad and Asher, had joined them in the time of Sennacherib. He laid waste to the northern kingdom of Israel around 722 B.C. Opposite these tribes lived the Children of Moses, Bnai Mosheh, who came 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.

Eldad the Danite said the Children of Moses lived beyond a river of grinding stones. They were impossible to visit, except on the sabbath day when the river ceased its grinding. This was a concept strikingly similar to, if not a direct borrowing from, Sambation. The tribes were pastoralists and mighty warriors. They 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. Eldad the Danite displayed these to the rabbis of Tunisia and Egypt.

The rabbis corresponded with a Gaon of Sura (in Babylon) and concluded that Eldad the Danite was indeed a Jew. They determined that the differences of his practice from their own were legitimate forms of customary law for the Jews of Havilah. In the early modern period, the variations from Rabbinic law which he practiced and obeyed were still cited by Rabbinic authorities as precedents. The facts that he used only Hebrew in the Muslim world and carried a sacred text written in Hebrew which gave details of ritual and other practices suggested that ancient Ethiopian Jewry knew Hebrew.

In the sixteenth 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. During the nineteenth 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 chiefly 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. Halévy first visited the Ethiopian Jews in 1876. Upon his return to Europe, Halévy published a "Kol Korei," a cry to the world Jewish community to save the Ethiopian Jews. He formed the organization Kol Yisroel Chaverim ("All Israel are Friends"), to act as advocates for Ethiopian Jews for years to come.

Ethiopian enclave

A child of Beta Israel awaiting to make aliyah to Israel. Taken in Ethiopia, July 17, 2005.

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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.^[34]

The isolation of the Beta Israel was reported by explorer James Bruce, who published his Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in Edinburgh in 1790. In 1860, Henry Stern, a Jewish convert to Christianity, traveled to Ethiopia to attempt to convert the Beta Israel to Christianity.

Many Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity have been returning to the practice of Judaism. Such people are known as the Falash Mura. They have been admitted to Israel, although not as Jews. The Israeli government can thus set quotas on their immigration and make citizenship dependent on their conversion to Orthodox Judaism. Although no one knows precisely the population of the Falash Mura in Ethiopia, observers believe it is approximately 20,000-26,000 persons. Recently, some reporters and other travelers in remote regions of Ethiopia have noted finding entire villages where people claim they are Jewish or are Falash Mura, that is, Jews who have been practicing Christianity.

In the Achefer woreda of the Mirab Gojjam Zone, roughly 1,000-2,000 families of Beta Israel were found. They have not petitioned to immigrate to the Jewish state. There may be other such regions in Ethiopia with significant Jewish enclaves, which would raise the total Jewish population to more than 50,000 people. Israel has approved the immigration of the Falash Mura at 300 per month. The Ethiopian Jewish community and its supporters have petitioned to increase this number to 600 per month to prevent health problems among the Jews waiting to emigrate from Ethiopia.

Religious traditions

The holiest work is the Torah — Orit. All the holy writings, including the Torah, are handwritten on parchment pages that are assembled into a codex. The rest of the Prophets and the Hagiographa are of secondary importance. The language of their holy writings is Ge'ez.

In addition to the Biblical canon, the Beta Israel hold sacred the books of Enoch, Jubilees, Baruch and the books of Ezra as well. The basic wording of Beta Israel Biblical writings was passed down through ancient Greek translations like the Septuagint, which incorporates some of the Apocrypha.

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

Ethiopian women at the Kotel in Jerusalem during Hol HaMoed (the week of) Passover.

Leaders of the community consider especially important a book about 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 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 treatise known as the Abu Shaker, which was written around 1257 CE. It covered 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).^[35]

The Beta Israel have a unique holiday, known as Sigd on the 29th of Cheshvan. Sigd or Seged is derived from the Semitic root, meaning "to bow or prostrate oneself." In the past the day was called Mehella. The acts of bowing and supplication are still known as mehella. Sigd celebrates the giving of the Torah and the return from exile in Babylonia to Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah. Beta Israel tradition holds that Sigd commemorates Ezra's proclamation against the Babylonian wives (Ezra 10:10-12). In Ethiopia, the Sigd was celebrated 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, or elders of the community, drew a parallel between the ritual mountain and Mount Sinai. Another source described Sigd (calling it Amata Saww) as a new-moon holiday, after which the Kessim withdrew for a period of isolation.^[36]

Social contact between the Beta Israel and other Ethiopians was limited. It was not because of the laws of Kashrut, since all Ethiopians share the same food taboos. Ethiopian Jews were forbidden to eat the food of non-Jews. The Kessim were more strict about the prohibition against eating food prepared by non-Kessim. Beta Israel who broke these taboos were ostracized and had to undergo a purification process. Purification included fasting for one or more days and ritual purification before entering the village. Unlike other Ethiopians, the Beta Israel do not eat raw meat dishes like kitfo or gored gored.^[37]

Languages

The Beta Israel once spoke Qwara and Kayla, closely related Cushitic languages. Now they speak Tigrinya and Amharic, a Semitic language. Their liturgical language is Ge'ez. Since the 1950s, they have taught Hebrew in their schools.

Israeli intervention

Main article: Aliyah from Ethiopia

The Israeli government officially accepted the Beta Israel as Jews in 1975, for the purpose of the Law of Return. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin obtained clear rulings from Chief Sephardi Rabbi Ovadia Yosef that they were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes. They were, however, required to undergo pro forma Jewish conversions, to remove any doubt as to their Jewish status.

Beginning in 1984, the Israeli-led Operation Moses began transporting Beta Israel to Israel. In 1985 it came to an abrupt halt, 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 to allow the remaining Beta Israel a chance to emigrate to Israel. In 1991, the political and economic stability of Ethiopia deteriorated as rebels mounted attacks against and eventually controlled 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 continue covertly with the migration. After El Al obtained 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 Beta Israel non-stop to Israel.

Ethiopian Jews in Israel today

Ethiopian Israeli soldier in Nablus, in 2006, by David Bicchetti

Many of the Ethiopians are employed in the service sector; (above) two janitors cleaning the synagogue in the Western Wall tunnel.

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. Similarly to other groups of immigrant Jews who made aliyah to Israel, the Ethiopian Jews have faced obstacles in their integration to Israeli society. The Ethiopian Jewish community's internal challenges have been complicated by limited but real racist attitudes on the part of some elements of Israeli society and the official establishment.^[39]

One study found that some of the problems with the absorption of the Beta Israel was 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.^[40]

Most of the 100,000 Ethiopian Jews living in Israel are immigrants and descendants of two main waves, the first in 1984 (about 33,000 people) and the second in 1991 (about 20,000 people). These airlifts were known as Operation Moses and Operation Solomon, respectively. Civil war and famine in Ethiopia prompted the Israeli government to mount these dramatic rescue operations. The rescues were within the context of Israel's national mission to gather Diaspora Jews and bring them to the Jewish homeland. At the height of the rescue, 19,000 people arrived in Israel from Ethiopia within 24 hours.

Individual Ethiopian Jews had lived in Eretz Yisrael prior to the establishment of the state. A youth group 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. The numbers of such Ethiopian immigrants grew after the Israeli government officially recognized them in 1973 as Jews entitled to Israeli citizenship.^[41]

To prepare for the absorption of tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews, the State of Israel prepared 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 updated the first in response to the second wave of immigration in 1991 from Ethiopia. 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 single -parent families. Like earlier absorption policies, it adopted a procedural approach which assumed that the immigrants were broadly similar to the existing majority population of Israel. The Plans were, no doubt, created with good intentions and a firm belief in assimilation. As noted in this section, results have been disappointing and suggest that much greater attention needs to be paid to issues of ethnicity.[10]

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 living in Israel in 1999 could not read or write Hebrew. More than half the population could not hold a simple conversation in the Hebrew language. Unlike Russian immigrants, many of whom arrive with job skills, Ethiopians came from a subsistence economy and were ill-prepared to work in an industrialized society. Since then much progress has been made. Through military service most Ethiopian Jews have been able to increase their chances for better opportunities.[11]. Today most Ethiopian Jews have been for the most part integrated into Israeli society, however a high drop out rate is a problem, although a higher number are now edging towards the higher areas of society.

In September, 2006, the Israeli government's proposed 2007 budget included reducing Ethiopian immigration from 600 persons per month to 150. On the eve of the Knesset vote, the Prime Minister's office announced that the plan had been dropped. Advocates for the Falash Mura noted that although the quota was set at 600 per month in March, 2005, actual immigration has remained at 300 per month.^[42]

Prominent Israelis of Ethiopian Jewish background

Qes Adana Takuyo was born in Seqelt and studied with the Qessim as a child. During 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. His oldest son Rabbi Josef Adana, who had immigrated earlier, had become the first Ethiopian Jewish Rabbi.^[43]

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 author of an early Hebrew-Amharic dictionary. He left Ethiopia in late 1979 and immigrated to Israel. Yona was an early proponent of Ethiopian Jews' praying in Hebrew instead of Ge'ez. He believed the latter language was no longer appropriate for those seeking to be part of the modern Jewish world. He felt that Ethiopian Jews should set Hebrew prayers to the traditional Jewish melodies.^[44]

Rabbi Sharon Shalom is a lecturer in Jewish ritual and tradition at Bar Ilan University in Israel. He is a counselor for the Ethiopian-Israeli community in the town of Kiryat Gat.^[45]

Rabbi Yefet Alemu was born in 1961 in a small village in Ethiopia. In 1980, he left his village 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.

While continuing to be a believing Jew, Yefet became disillusioned with organized Judaism and 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 Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies 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 excitedly embraced this pluralistic approach to Judaism. He was accepted by the Schechter Institute and after 6 years of hard work, he received a BA, MA, and his rabbinical ordination.^[46]

Ethiopian-Israelis have been participating more in Israeli political life. The Atid Ekhad party sees itself as the political representative of the community, though other parties include Ethiopian members. In 2006, Shas, a party representing ultra-orthodox Jews of Sephardic and Middle Eastern background, included an Ethiopian rabbi from Beersheba, in its list for the Knesset in a conscious attempt to represent diverse geographic and ethnic groups.

Rabbi Mazor Bayana, rabbi of an Ethiopian community of 10,000 in Beersheba, studied at Yeshivat Porat Yosef, one of the most prestigious Sephardi yeshivot in Israel. Rabbi Bayana, however, 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 was number three on Herut's list.

Adisu Massala, of Labour and later One Nation, is the first Ethiopian-Israeli to have served in the Knesset.

Esti Mamo is an Ethiopian Jewish model. She is one of the first Ethiopian-Israelis to make it into the entertainment industry and is a budding actress. The first Ethiopian-Israeli model was Mazal Pikado in 1990.

Avraham Negussie is one of Israel's most prominent Ethiopian Activists and a member of the South Wing to Zion. His struggle, with the support of many other Ethiopian-Israelis has resulted in the Israeli government 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.^[47]

Meskie Shibru-Sivan is a female Ethiopian-Israeli actress and vocalist, well known in Israel and beyond for acting on theater stages, in television programs, movies as well as being an accomplished singer.

Baruch Tegegne, a prodigy of Bogale, was a leader in protests on behalf of Ethiopian Jewry in the 1980s and 1990s.

Ethiopian Heritage Museum: Rehovot, Israel

Main article: Ethiopian Heritage Museum

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. This is an association of veteran Ethiopian immigrants and former Mossad agents who participated 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."

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 both 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.

Numerous Ethiopian Jews live in Rehovot and surrounding towns, which is why it was chosen as the site of the museum. The city has set aside 6 dunams (6,000 m²), 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.

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. The Jewish Agency asked him to go to Ethiopia to look for Jews and to reach remote villages. His report, together with a 16th Century ruling by Rabbi David B. Zimra, known as the Radbaz, was the basis for chief Sephardic rabbi Ovadia Yosef's determination in 1973 that the Jews of Ethiopia were to be considered Jews according to halakha (Jewish religious law).^[48]

In fiction

Operation Moses was the subject of an Israeli-French film titled Va, Vis et Deviens (Go, Live, and Become), directed by Romanian-born Radu Mihaileanu. The film tells the story of an Ethiopian Christian child whose mother has him pass as Jewish so he can emigrate to Israel and escape the famine looming in Ethiopia. The film was awarded the 2005 Best Film Award at the Copenhagen International Film Festival.

Photos

• A collection of images of Beta Israel
• Ethiopian Jews in the Sigd ceremony

See also

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

References

Related Sources

• 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.
• Lyons, Len. "The Ethiopian Jews of Israel: Personal Stories of Life in the Promised Land." Jewish Lights Publishing. 2007. ISBN_13:978-1-58023-323-1.
• 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.

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
• A New Light for Ethiopian Jews at Tel Aviv University