The Beta Israel of Ethiopia

History

The central legend of Beta Israel Judaism is the story of King Solomon and Queen Sheba. As told extensively and proudly in the Ethiopian “Book of the Glory of Kings,” the Kebra Nagast, (based upon several Biblical verses about Solomon and Sheba in the Torah [1 Kings 10:1-13 and 2 Chronicles 9:1-12]), the African Queen Sheba went to Solomon and shared his bed, returning to Abyssinia carrying his son. When Sheba’s son, Menelik, became curious about his father he traveled to Israel where he visited Solomon. Upon leaving, Menelik stole the coveted Ark of the Covenant, bringing it back with him to the Abyssinian capital of Axum. Thus, according to the Ethiopian Jews, Axum became the true center of Zion. Some historians believe that the true ancestor of the Beta Israel is not the legendary son of Solomon and Sheba but Dan, progenitor of one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, who migrated through the Nile valley to the ancient African kingdom of Cush. Others believe that the Falashas are not genetic descendants of Israel but that they adopted Judaism well over two thousand years ago as either Yemenite or Egyptian traders flooded the Horn of Africa.

Since the fourth century A.D. when King Ezana declared Christianity the official religion of his kingdom, Beta Israel have been outsiders in the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) community. Ethiopian Christians have long ascribed to the Beta Israel magic powers, accusing them of turning themselves at night into hyenas and of raiding Christian homes to steal possessions and kill Christian children. Ethiopian Christians have also stigmatized Beta Israel as “Christ Killers” and have always kept them far away from political power.

The Beta Israel didn’t fare much better in the international Jewish community. Despite some oblique Biblical references to Jews from the African kingdom of Cush and occasional rumors spread by merchants of a Jewish nation in the Horn of Africa, the Beta Israel had virtually no contact with other Jews from the fourth century until sixteenth century Portuguese traders reported their existence to the West. Though the traders told tall tales of the African’s ancient Biblical rituals, the Western Jewish community rejected the idea that the Beta Israel had any real claim to Hebrew lineage. Nineteenth century Jewish scholar Joseph HaLevy and his pupil, Jacques Faitlovitch, were almost alone in bringing the Beta Israel cause to the Jewish community. Their unrelenting crusade to convince Orthodox Rabbinate to recognize the Beta Israel community culminated in the 1973 decree by Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Ovadia Yossef, that that the Falashas were descendants of the Tribe of Dan and should be allowed to emigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, Israel’s immigration statute that guarantees citizenship to any “verifiable” Jew. In 1975 his Ashkenazic counterpart, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, concurred, and soon thereafter the Israeli Parliament agreed. A few Beta Israel began to migrate to Israel in the ’70s and early ‘80s, but the real emigration came in 1985 when Israel airlifted 15,000 Jews out of the midst of a harsh Ethiopian civil war in Operation MosesThree months later, Operation Sheba brought 500 more Falashas to Israel, but Ethiopia and Sudan closed the borders, holding almost 15,000 Falasha refugees in camps. In 1991 American diplomats convinced an advancing rebel army to stay out of Addis Ababa for three days so that Israel could airlift many of the remaining Jews to safety through Operation Solomon.

Today

Israel’s airlifts have been successful in transporting the bulk of Ethiopian Jewry out of the war-torn nation, but there are still several thousand Ethiopians who claim Jewish ancestry in a compound in Addis Ababa and in small villages around the traditionally Jewish region of Gondar, along the Sudanese border. Many of these remaining Beta Israel are first or second generation relatives of those who emigrated to Israel, yet scholars of the Beta Israel strongly disagree whether they themselves are Jewish. Within Israel they have come to be known as “Falash Mura,” a rather pejorative term implying that they are fraudulent Falashas. Many of these self-proclaimed Jews either converted to Christianity generations ago or have not practiced Judaism for decades, but since the airlifts they have returned to Judaism and petitioned to emigrate. According to the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry (NACOEJ), nearly 2,500 Jews in Addis Ababa participated in High Holiday services this fall, and about 2,000 students attend the NACEJ Jewish school. Recent anti-Jewish raids in the North and unresponsive Jewish organizations which had formerly provided aid have resulted in a sharp increase of starvation and disease among the Beta Israel who still remain in Ethiopia. Jewish groups are petitioning the Israeli government to allow these remaining Beta Israel and their “Falash Mura” relatives to emigrate, but the current Israeli government has not yet been responsive.

The Beta Israel’s Judaism is often difficult for other contemporary Jews to understand. The Beta Israel lost contact with the Western world more than a century before the completion of the Talmud, the commentaries on the Torah that inspired most of the Jews’ contemporary rituals. The Beta Israel therefore base their rituals directly on the Torah. Their spiritual leaders are not Rabbis, teachers who lead the community in study as well as ritual, but cahenats, priests who conduct high religious ceremonies and claim descent from Moses’ brother Aaron. The priests in a particular region elect a high priest who becomes the spiritual leader of the region in that only he may ordain other priests. There are also Beta Israel monks and nuns who live in seclusion in Jewish monasteries, a tradition that scholars believe developed due to contact with 15^th century Catholic missionaries. The center of Beta Israel life is the mesgid, the synagogue. In the courtyard of the synagogue there is a stone altar for the offering of animal sacrifices. The Beta Israel pray in the morning and the evening, both times in Ge’ez, the Ethiopian liturgical tongue. The Sabbath is an essential part of Beta Israel ritual. After they cease work on Friday at midday, every member of the community purifies him or herself by either visiting the mikveh, the ritual bath, or changing into a special suit of Sabbath clothing. Community members spend most of the Sabbath in the mesgid and may not light fire, draw water, leave the bounds of the village or engage in sexual intercourse.

The Beta Israel celebrate festivals according to a lunar calendar exactly as the Torah prescribes. On Passover the cahenats offer up a sacrifice and community members eat unleavened bread for seven days; on Rosh Hashanah, known as Berhan Sarak (“The Light Shone”), and Yom Kippur, “The Pardon,” the cahenats make sacrifices as is written in the Torah. Beta Israel fast on Yom Kippur, during the Hebrew month of Av in order to solemnize the destruction of the Temple and to commemorate the Fast of Esther. Cleanliness is an essential part of Beta Israel ritual. During menstruation women stay in a special hut on the outskirts of the village and only return after they immerse themselves in the mikveh (ritual bath). After birth a woman is kept in the hut for forty days after a male child and eighty days after a female child (as the Torah decrees in Leviticus 12). After the time of impurity the woman shaves her head, goes to the mikveh, washes her clothes and burns the confinement hut. A man undergoes purification after touching somebody or something impure by isolating himself from the community for several days and then washing his body and his clothes with ashes and water – sometimes he even shaves his head to commemorate his purification.

The Beta Israel don’t eat raw meat like other Ethiopians, and only eat cooked meat if a cahenat has slaughtered the animal according to particular rituals, yet Beta Israel kashrut does not include the separation of meat and milk (which is a Rabbinical distinction). They do purify food by sprinkling the ashes of a red heifer, “the water of separation,” as ordained in Numbers 19 – they keep the ashes in an earthenware jar which hangs in the synagogue. Male circumcision takes place on the eighth day after birth. Some villagers do practice female circumcision, though this practice is dying out.

There is controversy over whether the Ethiopian festival of Seged has Jewish or Christian origins. Seged, held on the 29^th of Chesvan, about November, is a pilgrimage festival which has as its focal point the march of the Beta Israel, all carrying stones on their shoulders, up a large hill led by priests. Three times a day they preform Emen (rememberance), which is the act of putting millet on stones for birds to eat, commemorating the dead. People then bring bread, beer and drums to the synagogue and they dance around with the Torah. Seged, according to historian David Kessler, “recalls the actions of Ezra and Nehemiah in rejuvenating Judaism after the trauma of the Babylonian exile, which were seen as ‘a great national confession of guilt and a solemn undertaking to observe the new covenant.’”

Jay plans to visit Ethiopia by the end of 2000 and will return with images and news from any Jewish community that remains there.

©2000 Jay Sand