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Return of a Lost Tribe: The Unfinished Exodus of the Ethiopian Jews
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13572 |
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CULTURE
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| Issue
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4 / 1988 |
4,051 Words |
| Author
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Marc Shapiro
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The unfinished exodus of Ethiopian Jews into Israel has created a brokenhearted people: Almost every Ethiopian Jew has loved ones in both countries. Of the many children who made it to Israel, their parents either were left behind in Ethiopia or died in the camps in Sudan. Many elderly people and many women with very young children stayed behind, unable to endure the three-week-long trek along a treacherous escape route. Since Operation Moses came to an abrupt end in early 1985, no further steps have been taken to bring the rest to the promised land of their dreams.
Preferring the name Beta Israel (House of Israel), Ethiopian Jews are better known the world over as Falasha, a Ge'ez (ancient Ethiopic) term meaning "stranger" or "exile." They number approximately twenty-five thousand people--sixteen thousand of whom currently reside in Israel. One of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, their history in Ethiopia is ancient and their origins are obscure.
According to their own tradition, they are descended from Jews who accompanied Menelik, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, from Jerusalem to Ethiopia. More scientific theories place the Falasha in the Agau family of tribes. Some scholars claim that Judaism reached them from Jews living in southern Arabia, Egypt (possibly in Elephantine), or even from a permanent Jewish community in Ethiopia. Isaiah 11:11 strongly implies that there was an established Ethiopian Jewish community in the days of that prophet, approximately 740 B.C. Scholars, however, are hopelessly divided on the date when Judaism was adopted by the Falasha.
Rabbinic authorities have adopted a different approach. In the fifteenth century a great rabbi, David Ibn Zimra of Egypt, ruled that the Falasha were descendants of the lost tribe of Dan. His ruling was based upon the report of the famous ninth-century traveler Eldad Hadani. Eldad reported that his people (the tribe of Dan) and three other tribes lived in northeast Africa. Although Eldad's testimony has never been granted any validity by scholars, Zimra's ruling has often been cited by rabbis as proof that the Falasha are Jews.
Jewish literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries makes further reference to Ethiopian Jews and their constant battles with their neighbors in Ethiopia. A few Ethiopian Jews were seen in Jerusalem during that time. But because of their near-total isolation, most of the scanty material relating to the Ethiopian Jews was based on rumor. In 1489, for example, the great rabbinic scholar Obadiah Bertinoro wrote from Jerusalem that the Lost Tribes of Israel were engaged in battle with Prester John, the legendary Christian monarch who was said to rule Ethiopia (and other near-mythical kingdoms) from the fourteenth century onward. Very little new information came to light regarding the Falasha for the next few hundred years.
While Jews in other parts of the world were barely aware of the Falasha for many years, the Falasha thought they were the only remaining Jews. They continued to follow Judaism as it was practiced before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Mainstream Judaism had incorporated the Oral Law codified in the Talmud to guard against erosion of the faith through non-Jewish influences; in isolation, the Falasha developed their own interpretations of the faith. They placed far more emphasis upon certain forms of ritual purification than did mainstream Judaism, but were less strict
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