(Beta Yisrael) A Historical Analysis by Rabbi S.B. Levy © 2002 Our “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out Common her hands unto God.” Struggle Psalm 68:31 At first glance one might incorrectly assume that the only thing Ethiopian Jews, who call themselves Beta Yisrael (The House of Israel), have in common with black Jews in other parts of the world is that their ancestors once lived on the same continent. While not entire true, this small fact is significant because Africa—whether we acknowledge it or not—is a crucial link that historically unites all Jews. Those whose African connection is more obvious because of race share this, too, as a bond for better or worse. Actually, our similarities are more than skin deep. The direct connections between the Beta Israel and my community of black Jews in the United States antedates the recent public fascination with the African tribe by at least sixty years. The existence of all of our communities raise important questions about the ancient history, current composition, and future of Judaism. This essay covers the ancient history, culture and tradition of the Beta Yisrael. My analysis of their current status in Israel is covered on a separate page devoted to black Jews in Israel today. History The Beta Yisrael are perhaps the best known black Jewish sect in the world. Despite their ancient and well-documented history, they, like all black communities, have had their historical connections to Judaism challenged, the validity of their religious practice scrutinized, and their acceptance within the white Jewish world hindered. When the Ethiopians left the cultural isolation of their remote villages, they entered a world prefigured by race. They soon learned that their Jewish heritage was not the only thing that made them “Falasha,” (outsiders). For the black Jews of America, the existence of Ethiopian Jews was living proof that black people have a connection to Judaism that is as old as any claimed by Europeans. They called themselves Beta Yisrael because for centuries they believed that they were the last remnant of the ancient Israelites. In fact, in the nineteenth century when a French linguist named Joseph Halevy reached one of their villages on a mission from the Alliance Israelite Universelle, they did not believe that he, the European, could be a Jew. As Halevy described it, the Ethiopians said “What!…You a Falahsa! A white Falasha! 2 You are laughing at us. Are there any white Falashas?”1 Imagine the irony of that moment: black Jews questioning the Jewishness of white Jews; and the white Jew trying to convince them of his authenticity. The levity of that scene is surpassed by a far more serious point: when different Jewish communities come together, one will usually occupy the superior position; the one of dominance, authority, and control. Not surprisingly, the dominant group is in a position to judge the subordinate. That is an exercise of power, and power underlies all of these relationships. Dominance or power in this context is established by a combination of any or all of these factors: (1) numeric superiority, (2) access to wealth, (3) primo-occupancy; i.e. the act of being there first, (4) higher social status (this could be based on a privilege afforded one Jewish group by a Christian or Muslim authority that is more power than either Jewish group (5) racial or ethnic superiority (this would be true in racialized societies of the West and was evident in the interaction of Ashkenazim and Sephardim in Europe and Israel). The Beta Israel maintain that their ancestors were descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. That union produced a child called Menileck (in Hebrew Mem Meleck literally means “from king). This child was then trained by the wise men of Solomon’s court. They further assert that when Menileck left Jerusalem with a large retinue of Israelite nobles for Ethiopia they took with them the Ark of the Covenant that God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The Ethiopian claim is based on oral history that has been passed down from generation to generation by their elders, scholars called Dabtaras, and their priests, called Kahens (an Amharic word linguistically similar to the Hebrew word for priest, Kohen).2 The written account of ancient Ethiopian history is known as the Kebra Nagast and it corroborates in even greater detail what the Beta Israel have always affirmed. Moreover, the Biblical record tends to substantiate their claim. It vividly describes the Queen of Sheba arriving in Jerusalem with a large entourage shortly after the completion of the temple. She is granted an audience with the king, they engage in a colloquy in which the queen is impressed with his Solomonic wisdom to the point where there was “no more spirit left in her….And King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all she desired, whatever she asked, in addition to all that he gave her of his royal bounty.”3 Meeting of Solomon and Sheba King Solomon and the Queen of Sheaba Piero della Francesca, c. 1452 Illustrated by Avi Katz 3 Notice how the 15th century painter whose work is shown of the left depicted King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba as being white, archetypal Europeans. The Israeli artist whose work is shown on the right presents a more realistic depiction showing Makeda as the African queen that she was. These conflicting images reflect the old presumption of whiteness that was traditionally applied to all Biblical characters and the new multicultural realism that acknowledges the Eastern and African origins of Biblical figures respectively. Such realism is to be embraced and celebrated rather than denied and discouraged. Rudolph R. Windsor examined the validity of this claim in his book From Babylon to Timbuktu. There he argued that the queen who visited King Solomon in 1012 B.C. was indeed an Ethiopian queen known variously as Makeda or Bilkis. Her dominion at that time included a province on the Arabian peninsula called Sheba; hence the title Queen of Sheba. That area would be in the region of Yemen today. Geographically, the Arabian peninsula is a peninsula of the African continent.4 Yemen and the ancient boundaries of Ethiopia are adjacent points, separated only by a very thin isthmus. Further, the renowned Jewish historian Flavius Josephus identified the ruler of Sheba as a “queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.”5 Not only does this comport with the view that Sheba was a vassal state of Ethiopia, but as Windsor contends, lends credence to the view that the people of this region were black—since Upper Egypt, the area once ruled by Ethiopia, is today called the Sudan and the indigenous people there are very dark. 6 If the Beta Israel are the product of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, then they have been in Ethiopia since the 10th Century B.C. That is twelve centuries before the writing of the Mishnah and sixteen centuries before the codification of the Talmud. The first European traveler did not stumble into their village until the 9th Century A.D. His name was Eldad Ha-Dani (which in Hebrew means Eldad of the tribe of Dan). He reported that he discovered Jews in the mountains of northern Abyssinia. Moreover, he believed that these Jews were also of the tribe of Dan.7 He saw that they were Jews and assumed that they had to be of the tribe of Dan, like him, “because of the tradition among Sephardic Jews that members of that tribe had emigrated when the Kingdom of Solomon split after his death, and they did not want to be ruled by Jerobaom in the northern sector known as Israel.”8 Other travlers such as Benjamin of Tudela, Solomon of Vienna (the first Ashkenazi Jew to reach them in 1626), and the apostate James Bruce in the 18th Century. Their intermittent logs created the lore about black Jews in Ethiopia that the aforementioned Joseph Ha Levy came to investigate. “And when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the Name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. She communed with him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon 4 answered her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the King, which he told her not.” I Kings 10:1-3 Beliefs and Practices How Jewish were the Beta Israel? Dr. Wolf Leslau spent ten months in 1947 living among the Beta Israel. He primarily studied the most urban of their isolated villages in Gondar, which is near Lake Tana and the Blue Nile. The influential book he published from his journals, Falasha Anthology, has become the source of much of the secondary literature on this subject. He observed that every Friday all work in the village stopped early in the afternoon so that the cooking, cleaning, and baking needed for the Sabbath could be completed before sunset. Their synagogues were humble, austere structures having at best a Star of David on display. Inside, the rooms were divided into two sections: the outer chamber for laymen who faced east toward Jerusalem while saying their prayers and the inner chamber—representing the “holy of holies” of the Mosaic Tabernacle—into which only the priests could enter.9 Priests of the Beta Israel pray seven time a day. Like the Levitical Priest of old, they sacrificed kosher animals on small alters built in front of their synagogues. Unlike the Levites, however, their positions were not hereditary; aspiring clerics had to study, apprentice, and live exemplary lives in order to be selected for the office.