I PR PERSESNETNT AR RI D A N D A N I A R I A R A

mesorah QQuestuest We’d been to numerous times since the 1980s,

and our latest jaunt was actually just a that throughout the centuries they kept few-day stopover on the way to Uganda their own identity and were reviled by (that’s for another time). Yet all our pre- their neighbors as Jews, called a host vious visits centered around the Gondar of derogatory names including falasha, region, the area where about 90 percent meaning stranger in Ge’ez, and buda, of Ethiopian Jews originated, and on this meaning evil eye. trip we decided to go somewhere differ- Although there is no way to definitively ent — we wanted to see the remnants of prove their origins, in 1973 Rav Ovadiah the Jews of Tigray. Yosef ruled — based on centuries-old piskei Our schedule was tight: Shabbos was to halachah — that the Ethiopian Jews are be spent with Israeli friends — including fully Jewish, accepting an alternate the- the Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia — in ory they themselves propound, that they Addis Ababa. That left us Friday to shecht are descended from the Tribe of Dan. Not for the Jews of Ethiopia and only Thursday all poskim agreed. Rav Moshe Feinstein’s to explore the northern area of Tigray. letter on the subject was typical of those Timing was everything, and we finally who did not fully accept their Jewishness. found the man who could put it togeth- He stated then that we are dealing with er for us: Amram Aklom. He is a native people who want to live as Jews, are liter- son, an expert on the Jews of Tigray, has ally dying to be Jewish, and it is a mitzvah led groups back on “roots tours,” and his to help them. In fact, after the first mass brother Fereda Aklom was a larger-than- airlift, the Chief Rabbinate instituted a life hero who was pivotal in the secret policy of giyur l’chumrah, which would Operation airlift at the end of 1984. unequivocally fix various problems of Our own connection with the Beta lineage and status. Buried in Yisrael, or Ethiopian Jews, actually goes When Menachem Begin was elected back to the mid-1980s, when we traveled prime minister of in 1977, one of his there on several missions for the North first actions was to get the Ethiopians rec- American Conference of Ethiopian Jew- ognized as Jews for purposes of the Law ry (NACOEJ). The first question people of Return, and then directing the head of asked then was: Who are they? Whether the Mossad to arrange their aliyah. they are descendents of Shlomo HaMelech And this is where Fereda Aklom comes and the , locals who were into the picture. converted by Yemenite Jews over the cen- Fereda was born in 1949 in the northern turies, descendants of Jews from south- Ethiopian province of Tigray. Like Jews ern Egypt (Elephantine) who made their around the world, his parents pushed way down the Nile, or just a “Jewish-like” him to get an education so that he could Christian sect, what is indisputable is get ahead in life. He studied education in

Africphotos & text by Ari Z. Zivotofsky and Ari Greenspan a

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Addis Ababa and in 1976 was appointed prin- the operation flew some 7,800 Ethiopian Jews no house numbers. Being the only whites in cipal of a school. He then convinced ORT — a from Sudan directly to Israel. Thousands of town, we attracted an entourage of kids who secular, international Jewish nonprofit or- Beta Yisrael had fled Ethiopia on foot for ref- followed us. We finally found what we thought ganization that promotes vocational train- ugee camps in Sudan; an estimated 4,000 died was his house and walked in. The house had ing and education — to open two schools in during the grueling, dangerous trek. The op- no Jewish symbols, for that would have meant Tigray, and was soon after appointed head of eration was abruptly terminated by the Suda- imprisonment or worse, but as we looked up the city council in his town of Inda Aba Guna. nese on January 5, 1985, after Prime Minister on the walls around the single room, we saw The following year, in 1977, Israel and Ethi- Shimon Peres publicly confirmed the airlift, a poster of people on a beach. We noticed that opia signed a “guns-for-Jews” deal that the leaving some 1,000 Ethiopian Jews strand- there was Hebrew writing on it and realized Ethiopians demanded be absolutely secret. ed in hostile territory. Many were evacuated that it was from an Israeli paper. That was the Fereda organized the transport of Jews from later in the US-led Operation , and six sole Jewish symbol he could have in his life. the north to Addis Ababa, from where they years later, Operation brought an ad- Sheffero wasn’t home, but his son told us to would be airlifted to Israel. But following the ditional 14,000 Beta Yisrael to Israel directly come back after dark. That night, trying to re- aliyah of the first 200 people, then-foreign min- from Ethiopia. trace our steps, we suddenly heard footsteps ister Moshe Dayan revealed the operation in a Fereda settled in Beer Sheva but continued chasing us, followed by a whispered “shalom.” press conference. The Ethiopian government to make numerous trips back to neighboring It was Sheffero. He made us jump a ditch and instantly terminated the deal, froze ties with African countries in order to help his breth- quickly took us across a muddy field into a Israel, and expelled all Israelis. Fereda was ren, until his untimely passing in early 2009, tuckle, the round mud hut with a thatched threatened with the death penalty and fled during a visit to Addis. And while Fereda roof that is a typical Ethiopian house. Inside, to Sudan. With the cash from selling his wed- was the legendary hero, his brother Amram with cow skins on the walls and a bench going ding ring, he sent desperate cables to the US, modestly admits that he and another brother around the room, were ten men, each of whom Canada, and the Geneva ORT office relaying were no small part of the clandestine opera- told us his tale of woe and oppression. One his whereabouts and requesting assistance in tion in Sudan. man was a cashier in a hotel and $500 — more getting to Israel. He then spent months living than a year’s salary — was found missing. He in the alleys of Sudan scrounging for food to Message from the Mossad When was being blamed and stood to go to prison survive. The Geneva letter eventually made its we made our first trips to Ethiopia in the for many years. We understood that we had way to the Mossad office in Tel Aviv. mid-1980s soon after , the rare opportunity to fulfill the mitzvah of Meanwhile, due to political instability in many families had been separated, as it pidyon shvuyim, the redemption of prisoners. Ethiopia, Christian and Muslim refugees was the able-bodied young people who We gave him the money in front of everybody were streaming across the Sudanese border, were able to make the journey to Sudan. and he was saved from jail. and that letter planted a wild idea in a Mos- Many women with children and the elder- Today Sheffero’s family lives in Beit sad agent’s head. He transmitted a message ly stayed behind. Shemesh, and we’ve stayed in touch, with to Fereda: Stay put. The idea was to have the With the passage of time we can finally ex- Ari G. treating some of his kids in his dental Jews join this exodus into Muslim, anti-Israel pose the following story. clinic. Before our 2009 trip back to Ethiopia Sudan and from there the Mossad, which as As young 20-somethings, we traveled deep we contacted Sheffero, who informed us that yet had no infrastructure in Sudan, would into the wilds of Africa on a mission. Today, his wife was there and we should meet her. somehow get them out. a cell phone works everywhere, but in those The idea was to have the Jews join Nineteen years earlier, her brother tried to Soon Fereda found himself in the center of days, there were barely any telephones. Once escape to Sudan to get to Israel, but he was a top-secret mission to transfer the Ethiopi- you got to your destination, you were incom- this exodus into Muslim, anti-Israel never heard from again and presumed dead. an Jews to Israel via Sudan. Fereda’s story is municado, in an enemy country with no real Suddenly, out of the blue he contacted them. complicated and often harrowing — he spent contact with the outside world. Sudan and from there the Mossad, He had been imprisoned for all those years and several years operating in hostile territory as a Via NACOEJ, we had been entrusted with a was finally freed and she had gone to see him. lone wolf until the Sudanese secret police put message from the Mossad. We were to inform which as yet had no infrastructure in It wasn’t exactly , but we met up a bounty on his head. He managed to get to specific people that a particular “bus stop” in with her in a hotel in Gondar City. Israel, but not before laying the groundwork Sudan that had been a contact point was now A yahrtzeit candle left on a grave in Sudan, would somehow get them out On another occasion, Ari G. was at a wedding for Operation Moses, a complex alliance be- dangerous and not to be visited. We were told Tigray by a relative from Israel is one in and spotted a familiar-looking tween the Israel Defense Forces, the CIA, the to reach a certain Sheffero Desi in the town of remnant of Jewish life in this northern Ethiopian chef. The chef recognized Ari and US embassy in Khartoum, mercenaries, and Bahar Dar on the southern tip of Lake Tana province (top). Back in the 1980s, Ari explained that he was Sheffero’s son Abebe. Sudanese state security forces. and give him the message. Both the streets and and Ari — on a mission from the Mossad Ari told him that when Abebe had his first From November 21, 1984, to January 5, 1985, floors of Bahar Dar were dirt, and there were — enjoy a salami on Lake Tana baby boy, Ari wanted to do the bris. True to

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his word, Abebe called Ari G. in 2012 with the a notable role in a region that was once good news and a request to be the baby’s mohel. home to Jews scattered throughout hun- It was a defining moment in a relationship be- dreds of villages. Although the area draws tween two sets of such different Jews that had few Jewish tourists besides those with stretched over 30 years and three generations. family roots, it’s actually a popular tourist It was a difficult time for Ethiopia in the late destination, as the city was the center of a 1980s, when we first visited. The last emperor significant empire for over 1,500 years. of Ethiopia was I, heir to a dy- Local tradition claims that the Aron Bris nasty that claimed to trace its lineage back to Hashem — the , is housed King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (known in one of the churches in Aksum. According to in Ethiopia as Queen Makeda, Empress of legend, after the Queen of Sheba visited Shlo- Aksum). He ruled from 1930 until he was vi- mo HaMelech she had a son called Menelik I. olently deposed in 1974 by a radical Marxist, He grew up in Ethiopia but later visited and Mengistu Haile Mariam. Mengistu’s reign of lived with his father in Jerusalem. Upon re- terror is believed to have claimed the lives of turning home, the tradition goes, he brought over 1.2 million people. Before returning the the Aron with him and there it remains. We bodies of loved ones, the regime would bill Jews, of course, believe that there is no truth families of its victims for the bullets expended to this myth, but couldn’t resist driving by the in executions. Obviously, the mere suggestion church where this holy artifact supposedly of involvement in Zionist activity in Ethiopia remains. The “Ark” is supposedly kept in an teaser text here teaser txt here teaser text here teaser xt was enough to get one jailed and tortured. armed building and guarded by one priest, The brutal Mengistu reign was dominated although no one has ever seen it. here teaserext here teasertext here teasertext by numerous wars, rebellions, and famines. Thanks to Amram we were able to connect Among the many factions fighting the regime with a history professor at Aksum University at the time was the Tigrayan People’s Libera- who is especially interested in the legacy of tion Front (TPLF), and although there were the local Jews. Kidane was waiting still Jews and ancient Jewish sites in Tigray, for us when we landed, and even arranged for throughout the ’80s and early ’90s it was unsafe the university’s 4x4 and driver. Off we went for us to visit the region. Now, years later, we deep into the dry countryside, passing ancient decided that the time had come to explore the monasteries and farmers working much like region and see what Jewish memories remain. our forefathers did in biblical times. We no- ticed that they were performing the dishah On to Aksum We had arranged that (threshing grain) and zoreh (winnowing) just With back-to-basics farming, we could finally understand the art of we would be back in Addis for Shabbos, as it was done thousands of years ago. Wanting The “Ark” is supposedly kept in an armed building and winnowing. Plus, we learned why oxen so when we landed from Israel at 5 a.m. to understand these biblical activities better, shouldn’t be muzzled. They love to Thursday morning we hopped on a flight we stopped to join a group of farmers in the guarded by one priest, although no one has ever seen it snack while they work to Aksum (or ), the historical capital field. First we participated in winnowing and of Tigray, to track down any remnants of slowly shook the grain into the wind. Lo and the Ethiopian Jews there. Aksum may not behold, the wind carried off the chaff. We then be such a major metropolis, but it played observed threshing of grain. This process of

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1. ALL THAT’S LEFT Relatives come back with candles to honor loosening the edible part of the wheat from the Inda Aba Guna as well. As we drove across their loved ones chaff was done before winnowing by having a bumpy field, we saw a solitary wall in the 2. DESERT SACRIFICES Ari and Ari oxen walk in circles on the grain. The farmer distance, surrounding what was once the discovered the mountain behind pointed out to us that these animals had their synagogue. The broken glass on the top of the village of Bet Mariah, where mouths tied shut so they could not eat from the wall was to prevent people from break- an altar was once erected the grain that they created. This, in fact, is ing in. We were quite surprised to see an 3. PROTECTING HIS PLOT The last exactly what the Torah forbids when it states old Magen rusting over one of the Jew of Beit Mariah returned from “lo sachsom shor b’disho — do not muzzle an windows, and upon entering the struc- Israel in order not to lose his land ox when it is threshing grain” (Devarim 25:4). ture, we saw where the aron kodesh had We continued west from Aksum toward vil- been located within the shul. We looked 4. GRAVE RESULTS Relatives lages that had once had sizable, vibrant Jewish across the valley and saw the village where marked this tomb in blue, but not before a tree managed to grow communities. The area didn’t look like the Fereda had grown up, and on the way out out of the stone Ethiopia we knew; the landscape and fauna we passed a bustling school. Samuel con- were so different from what we were used to firmed our hunch: what is now a govern- in Gondar and in Addis Ababa. Even the an- ment school had once been the Jewish imals were different. Here camels wandered ORT school that Fereda founded. the fields, something you don’t see in the more Samuel also took us to two Jewish cem- 1. southern regions. eteries, far off the beaten path in hills deep

F Amram told us the legend of the origin of inside the territory. Traditionally, the Jews the Jews of Tigray. Many years ago, one of here marked their graves with just a pile of the leaders of the community had stones and no headstone or memorial at all. a dream that G-d would lead them back to Is- Yet we noticed an interesting phenomenon. rael as He did at the time of the Exodus from The relatives of these deceased have been Egypt. This man gathered a large following and coming back from Israel to visit their fami- attempted to reach Israel, but the plan failed ly plots, keep them up, and pray over them. and many died en route. The surviving rem- Most remarkably, small yahrtzeit candles nant settled in Aksum and the surrounding from Israel are found on many tombs in the villages. The exodus in the early ’80s was far cemetery. Near the front of the cemetery is a more successful and though many died on the large monument topped with a huge Magen way, thousands did make it to Israel. David (which they call “David’s cross”). The During our ride we asked Samuel what the local population asserts that for generations non-Jewish locals thought of that attempted and until today, a tiger and serpent sleep on mass exodus. The locals, he said, were afraid that spot and guard it, an indication of its sig- that the Jews might be secretly supporting nificance as the burial site of Abba Tsegay, the 4. one of the other militias. The TPLF called a first local religious leader. 3. F three-day conference, demanding that the On the way back, Samuel took us to another

F Jews explain why they were leaving. But the smaller cemetery that had all but disappeared, Jews insisted that there was no subterfuge, no in the village of Slehleka. This town had been treachery, simply a desire to return to the land known as “the village of Beta Israel,” and had from which their forefathers had been exiled. been a center of pottery, one of the crafts the Jews specialized in. Once we got to the main Grave Reality Ultimately, we reached path of the village, Samuel scooped a local child our destination of the once-vibrant Jew- off the street, took him in our jeep, and had ish community of Inda Aba Guna. The him direct us in the direction of the cemetery. Ethiopian Jews had once been mocked by Then the driver and the child stayed behind as their neighbors for always washing them- Samuel and the two of us headed toward the selves for Shabbos and in accordance with darkening horizon to find a few Jewish graves. the laws of family purity. To accommodate It was soon pitch-dark, yet we traipsed down this need, most Jewish villages were built dirt alleys and into a field with hyenas baying near a river or lake, and this was true of in the distance to find a few isolated tombs.

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Samuel insisted that this had been a large had recently decided to return to Israel, as burial ground, and due to the absence of Jews he was too old and tired to work the land to maintain it, it shrinks every time he visits. alone. We made our way back from the country- The High Point Not far from Inda side to Aksum. Returning to our hotel, after Aba Guna is the village of Bet Mariah. As having been up and moving for close to 48 we entered, we were struck by the sight of hours, we were ready to hit the sack. Only then Bed bugs can live a mountain seeming to pop up out of the did our hosts tell us that a formal dinner had flat plain adjacent to the village. When been arranged with the president of Aksum anywhere and are we arrived amid growling dogs and eager University, which has 10,000 students, to see not just restricted children, we too were excited, for we had how we could “collaborate” in the future. We to your bedroom. been told that at the top of this mountain realized then, that they thought we had come was a “Jewish mizbei’ach” (although pri- as part of an Israeli university research project. vate “bamos” were actually halachically How disappointing. First we had to explain They can live anywhere period! These prohibited). Neither Samuel nor Amram that we could only eat the canned tuna fish pesky critters usually lodge themselves had ever been there; they were pretty sure and crackers that we had brought — and not in tiny nooks and crevices. They tend no tourist had ever ventured up to see it. partake of the fried chicken and soup on the to hide in some of the most unlikely places such as in between doorknob While the reed-thin Ethiopians nimbly menu. And rather than dash their hopes of handles, under carpets, cracks in the hopped up the mountain, we limped and collaboration, we explained, to their delight, wall and even possibly your shoes. So krechtzed our way up, gasping for air and that in addition to being involved in university next time before you wear your shoes, chiding ourselves for being so out of shape. research, we were also writers for an important make sure to dust them out or else you Only upon our return to Israel did we dis- Jewish periodical called Mishpacha magazine, might be in for a rude surprise. cover that it is well over a mile above sea and that they would get great exposure. In the level and called the “roof of Africa,” and end the university president didn’t show up, but thus the air is quite thin. in truth we did discuss ideas for collaboration. When we finally reached the site, pant- Erev Shabbos we flew back to Addis ear- ing, we found ourselves by a pile of stones, ly in the morning. There, in the backyard of a gal avanim, which had been used as a what for close to a century had been the local Concerned You May Have Bed Bugs? prayer site. The jury was out on whether shlacht hoiz, we shechted 150 chickens and Schedule a they actually did animal sacrifices there, three sheep for our friend and host Menashe K9 Inspection but what we do know is that every Shabbos and his extended family. The koshering took and on holidays Jews would make the trek almost until Shabbos, so we zoomed back to *

*When used in up the mountain and offer their prayers his house, finished up some cooking and then conjunction with a $ ThermaRid treatment. Sp ECI al 95 to Hashem. As we stood looking down on got ready for a relaxing Shabbos with a fasci- small clusters of huts in the distance for nating Friday night meal.

.com .com miles around, we could imagine that for Among the guests were Israeli ambassador mg Hassle-Free 2,500 years there was a vibrant Jewish Belaynesh Zevadia and her husband, whom park Total Bed Bug presence in Ethiopia, and we pictured we had contacted and asked to join us. She is Jews streaming from the nearby villages the first Ethiopian-Israeli to be appointed as Eradication to this mountain sanctuary. an ambassador. And there was an additional Through gain for our new friend, the professor from The Last Jew After the mountain Aksum University. We made a shidduch be- Heat climb, a man in his 60s who recognized tween the ambassador and Samuel, and they our yarmulkes came up to us, greeted us are now in professional contact. Treatment with “shalom” and began to speak in He- So in the end, everyone benefited, but the brew. He is Jewish and had made aliyah luckiest of the lot was us, having the opportu- with the rest of the Ethiopians years be- nity to see up close the remains of an ancient fore, but didn’t want to lose his farmlands, community, yet being privileged to live in an so he returned to try to work them. He era, and in the Land, where we’ve witnessed the 877.987.7013 was sad, lonely, and a recent widower, and ingathering of the furthest-flung of the exiles. — www.thermarid.com