JEWS OF ETHIOPIA This book offers the results of the most recent research carried out in European and Israeli universities on Ethiopian Jews. With a special focus on Europe and the role played by German, English and Italian Jewish communities in creating a new Jewish Ethiopian identity, the book investigates such issues as the formation of a new Ethiopian Jewish elite and the transformation of the identity from Ethiopian Falashas to the Jews of Ethiopia during the twentieth century. Tudor Parfitt is Professor of Modern Jewish Studies in the University of London. He is Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He has written on the history of the Jews in Africa and Asia, Judaising movements, genetic discourses surrounding Jews and Modern Hebrew language and literature. Emanuela Trevisan Semi is Professor of Modern Jewish and Hebrew Studies at the University of Venice, Italy. She is the presi- dent of the Society for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry (SOSTEJE) and president of the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Mediterranean (MERIFOR). Her main areas of research concern Judaising movements and marginal groups in contemporary Jewry. ROUTLEDGE JEWISH STUDIES SERIES Series Editor: Oliver Leaman University of Kentucky Studies, which are interpreted to cover the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, culture, politics, philosophy, theology, religion, as they relate to Jewish affairs. The remit includes texts which have as their primary focus issues, ideas, personalities and events of relevance to Jews, Jewish life and the concepts which have characterised Jewish culture both in the past and today. The series is interested in receiving appropriate scripts or proposals. MEDIEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY An introduction Dan Cohn-Sherbok FACING THE OTHER The ethics of Emmanuel Levinas Edited by Seán Hand MOSES MAIMONIDES Oliver Leaman A USER’S GUIDE TO FRANZ ROSENZWEIG’S STAR OF REDEMPTION Norbert M. Samuelson ON LIBERTY Jewish philosophical perspectives Edited by Daniel H. Frank REFERRING TO GOD Jewish and Christian philosophical and theological perspectives Edited by Paul Helm JUDAISM, PHILOSOPHY, CULTURE Selected studies by E. I. J. Rosenthal Erwin Rosenthal PHILOSOPHY OF THE TALMUD Hyam Maccoby FROM SYNAGOGUE TO CHURCH: THE TRADITIONAL DESIGN Its beginning, its definition, its end John Wilkinson HIDDEN PHILOSOPHY OF HANNAH ARENDT Margaret Betz Hull DECONSTRUCTING THE BIBLE Abraham ibn Ezra’s introduction to the Torah Irene Lancaster IMAGE OF THE BLACK IN JEWISH CULTURE A history of the other Abraham Melamed FROM FALASHAS TO ETHIOPIAN JEWS Daniel Summerfield PHILOSOPHY IN A TIME OF CRISIS Don Isaac Abravanel: defender of the faith Seymour Feldman JEWS, MUSLIMS AND MASS MEDIA Mediating the ‘other’ Edited by Tudor Parfitt with Yulia Egorova JEWS OF ETHIOPIA The birth of an elite Edited by Tudor Parfitt and Emanuela Trevisan Semi ART IN ZION The genesis of national art in Jewish Palestine Dalia Manor HEBREW LANGUAGE AND JEWISH THOUGHT David Patterson JEWS OF ETHIOPIA The birth of an elite Edited by Tudor Parfitt and Emanuela Trevisan Semi First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2005 Selection and editorial matter, Tudor Parfitt and Emanuela Trevisan Semi; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-61216-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-33687-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–31838–6 (Print Edition) CONTENTS List of figures ix List of contributors x Acknowledgements xi Introduction xiii 1 The construction of Jewish identities in Africa 1 TUDOR PARFITT 2 Giovanni Ellero’s manuscript notes on the Falasha of Walqayt 43 IRMA TADDIA 3 S. Schachnowitz’s novel Salomo der Falascha (1923) 53 SIGRID SOHN 4 The Falashas in the German Jewish press in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century 65 SIGRID SOHN 5 Ethiopian Jews in Europe: Taamrat Emmanuel in Italy and Makonnen Levi in England 74 EMANUELA TREVISAN SEMI 6 Abraham Adgeh: the perfect English gentleman 101 SHALVA WEIL vii CONTENTS 7 Gete Yirmiahu and Beta Israel’s regeneration: a difficult path 112 CARLO GUANDALINI 8 The Ethiopian Jewish exodus: a myth in creation 122 GADI BEN EZER 9 The sacred and secular: the immigration of the black Jews of Ethiopia to Israel 131 RUBEN SCHINDLER 10 Birth and death in an Absorption Centre: the process of change among Ethiopian Jews in Israel 142 SARA MINUCHIN-ITZIGSOHN, RINA HIRSHFELD AND RIVKA HANEGBI 11 The function of musical instruments in the liturgy of the Ethiopian Jews 155 RON ATAR 12 About the Jewish identity of the Beta Israel 173 AMALELETCH TEFERI 13 The relationship between the Beta Israel tradition and the Book of Jubilees 193 MICHAEL CORINALDI Index 205 viii FIGURES 11.1 Example of a structural hemiola 158 11.2 The nagarit 159 11.3 The qachel 159 11.4 The senasel 160 11.5 The kabaro 160 11.6 Rhythmic type of prayer 163 11.7 Wanivavo Egzee’aviher li Musye 164 11.8 Correlation of performing groups, text, melody and rhythmic patterns 165 11.9 Wi’etus kimi mer’awee 166 11.10 Yitfesa lisaneeya 167 11.11 Herziga 168 ix CONTRIBUTORS Ron Atar, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Gadi Ben Ezer, Psychologist, Department of Behavioural Sciences, College of Management, Rishon le Zion, Israel. Michael Corinaldi, The Israeli Center for Academic Studies, Kiriat Ono, Israel. Carlo Guandalini, Venice University, Italy. Sara Minuchin-Itzigsohn, Rina Hirshfeld and Rivka Hanegbi, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Tudor Parfitt teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Ruben Schindler, Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Sigrid Sohn, Venice University, Italy. Irma Taddia, Bologna University, Italy. Amaleletch Teferi, Food and Agricultural Organization, Nairobi. Emanuela Trevisan Semi, Venice University, Italy. Shalva Weil, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors have great pleasure in thanking Professor Elisa Bianchi and the Università Statale di Milano for organising the SOSTEJE conference in Milan in 1999 on which this volume is mainly based, and for raising a generous subsidy to help towards the publication of this book. Our thanks are also due to Mr Davide Mano for the work he did on the preparation of the manuscript and to all the contri- butors for the care they took in the preparation of their chapters. Tudor Parfitt Emanuela Trevisan Semi xi INTRODUCTION During the writing of this introduction the rumour spread that the Israeli government had decided to organise a third aliyyah from Ethiopia permitting some 20,000 Falash Mura left behind by the previous operations (Operation Moses in 1984/5 and Operation Solomon in 1991) to emigrate to Israel and join their families. In the event this rumour proved to be without any foundation. In recent years some 11,000 Falash Mura, descendants of the Beta Israel who converted to Christianity in the nineteenth century, have emigrated to Israel and have been reunited with their families. But the Ethiopians still living in the compounds in Addis Ababa waiting for aliyyah are not expected to leave immediately for lack of sufficient funds for their integration in Israel. The day the last Jews of Ethiopia leave the country in which they were born, and this day is probably not far distant, the historical ties with Ethiopia will be cut. The process that started with the arrival of the missionaries in Ethiopia in the nineteenth century aiming to convert the Jews of Abyssinia will end not only with the re-Judaisation of people previously converted to Christianity but also with the modern- isation in an Israeli mould of people coming from an undeveloped part of Eastern Africa. This book deals in some detail with the beginning of this process in the creation of an elite among this people once called Falashas or Beta Israel and today called the Jews of Ethiopia. It was after the arrival in Ethiopia of the Protestant missionaries that the Jewish world started showing some interest in the Beta Israel, first by sending out Joseph Halévy on a mission of enquiry and subsequently his favourite student at the School of Oriental Languages in Paris, Jacques Faitlovitch. Faitlovitch devoted the rest of his life to the Beta Israel cause. It was he who introduced the Talmudic–Rabbinical Judaism which would eventually replace the xiii INTRODUCTION traditional religious practices of the Beta Israel, and it was he who introduced the previously unknown Hebrew language which in time will surely completely replace the ancient Ethiopian languages used by this people. Young boys were sent to study in Europe in order to become acculturated to normative and western Judaism but also to modernity: 25 young Beta Israel were received by local Jewish com- munities and individual rabbis. At times they strongly supported the youths’ efforts to adapt to the western world, and at others they abandoned them. They were supposed to become the elite of the Beta Israel but some of them were more successful than others.