[Museum] FROM BETA ISRAEL TO ETHIOPIAN JEWS: DIASPORA AND MIGRATION

[Pedro Pereira Leite <pedropereiraleite@hotmail.com>]

CONVITE

 

 

Convidam-se todos os interessados a assistir à conferência From Beta Israel to Ethiopian Jews: Diaspora and Migration, que será proferida pela Professora Shalva Weil (Hebrew University of Jerusalém) e comentada por Isabel Boavida (Centro de Estudos Africanos, ISCTE-IUL) no dia 1 de Setembro, pelas 17h30, na sala Brasil do Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisboa.

 

Ver também em www.iict.pt – IV Ciclo de Conferências “Ciência nos Trópicos”.

 

FROM BETA ISRAEL TO ETHIOPIAN JEWS: DIASPORA AND MIGRATION

Dr. Shalva Weil
President-Society for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

 

The Ethiopian Jews in Ethiopia were known as Beta Israel (“House of Israel”), Israeletoch or Israelawi (“Israelites”) or Falasha. The latter designation was considered stigmatic and indicated their lowly outsider status.

 

The Beta Israel lived in North-West Ethiopia, in hundreds of villages scattered throughout the Simien region, Dembeya, Begemder province, Tigray, Lasta and Qwara. They spoke a Cushitic language, Agau, mixed with the two principal languages of the regions in which they resided: Amharic and Tigrinya.

 

The Beta Israel were monotheistic and practiced a Torah-based Judaism, without observing the Oral Law, known to other communities of Jews. They observed a complex cycle of fasts, as well as festivals, most prescribed in the Torah. They circumcised their boys on the eighth day, as did other Ethiopians, and refrained from work on the Sabbath. Some   religious festivals known to other Jewish communities were not marked by the Beta Israel. Their religious practices were influenced by Ethiopic Christians and many elements were in common to both religions, such as praying to Jerusalem, the common liturgical language of Geez, and the longing for Israel and Zion.

 

The origins of the Ethiopian Jews, as they are known today, are shrouded in mystery.

Early documentary evidence of a Judaized group opposing the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is found in a royal chronicle from the reign of Emperor Amde Zion (1314-1344). From the period of Emperor Ishaq (1413-1438) until the reign of Susenyos (1607-1632), there are reports of "Ayhud", who may have been "Jews". During the reign of Emperor Fasilades (1632-7), Gondar became the political metropolis of the empire, and the situation of the Beta Israel improved.

 

The encounter with the Western world began as late as the nineteenth century.  In 1867, Prof. Joseph Halevy (1827-1917), a Semitic scholar from the Sorbonne, Paris, met with the Beta Israel in Ethiopia.  Dr. Jacques Faitlovitch (1881-1953), his student, left Paris for his first expedition to Ethiopia in 1904.  Between 1905-36, he returned to Palestine and Europe with 25 “Falasha” boys, who were educated in Europe.

 

There was no mass emigration from Ethiopia by the Beta Israel after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, as with other Jewish communities. Until 1980, about 250 Beta Israel managed to reach Israel. Finally, in 1984-5, Operation Moses took place, in which 7,700 Beta Israel were airlifted from the Sudan to Israel. International pressure, and in particular the intervention of American Jewish organizations advocating to “rescue” the Beta Israel, built up, culminating in  Operation Solomon, which brought 14,310  Jews out to Ethiopia to Israel in 1991. Since then, thousands belonging to a group now being called “Felesmura”, whose ancestors converted to Christianity in the past, were also brought to Israel.

 

This paper will examine the change as a result of migration from a stigmatized minority in Ethiopia, where they were part of the Jewish "Diaspora", to a Jewish ethnic group in Israel known as "Ethiopian Jews". The paper will refer to daily obstacles in acceptance and the meaning of being an Ethiopian Jew in Israel.