Ethiopian Jewry and New Self-Concepts Hagar Salamon

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chapter 15

Although Jews in Israel and Jews in America often experience and shape Judaism in different ways, some issues arise that connect them. One such issue is the Jews of Ethiopia who became known to the Eu- ropean Jewish world in the middle of the nineteenth century. With the encouragement of American Jewish organizations, they reached Israel en masse in the 1980s and early 1990s. These Jews differed widely from other Jewish groups because their religious tradition was not affected by rabbinic Judaism and because their skin pigmentation is “black,” making them different in appearance from the majority of contemporary Jews of European provenance. Since they became known to the wider Jewish world, and particularly since their arrival in large numbers in Israel, the Jews of Ethiopia have stimulated many questions about Jewish identity, both with respect to them and to Jews all over the world. In the selection that follows, Hagar Salamon probes these questions, showing how they entail components of religion, race, and the relationships between Israeli and Diaspora Judaism.

Judaism between Race and Religion: The Case of the Ethiopian Jews

The establishment of the State of Israel brought together Jews from many lands who differ widely from one another in stature and skin color.1 Jewish identity, which in the various Diaspora communities

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was defined primarily vis-à-vis a non-Jewish other, assumed new dimensions with the ingathering of the exiles when, for the first time, Jews coming to the Promised Land found themselves living side by side with Jews so utterly different from them, both physically and culturally. While actually wide in variety, Jewish ethnic diversity in Israel is officially simplified into an East/ West dichotomy.2 Jews originating from Asia and Africa are lumped into the single category of Sephardim or “Oriental” (in Hebrew “mizrahim”), while European and American Jews fall under the collective term “Ashkenazim.” Within these two sweeping categories—“Ashkenazim” and “Oriental” are countless popular subdistinctions and accompanying stereotypes. Throughout the history of the State of Israel, relations between “Oriental” and “Ashke- nazic” Jews have been charged with tension, based on strong senti- ments regarding the privileged position of Ashkenazic Jews in Israeli society. A dynamic of paternalism and power relations, ubiquitous in encounters between East and West, rears its head across the public sphere in education, economics, and politics—and emerges at many levels of social relations and cultural expression. Interethnic diversity and Jewish “otherness” was a confounding phe- nomenon for Israeli Jews and encouraged the search for an “other” lo- cated outside the group boundary. While Jewish-Israeli identity has taken shape, inter alia, vis-à-vis various Jewish “others,” the diametri- cally opposed Arab “other” thus conveniently deflected tension from troubling interethnic relations. The question of boundaries between the Jewish majority and the Arab other, which overshadows and blunts the effects of inter-Jewish difference, penetrates the inter-Jewish discourse in many and diverse ways. Harvey Goldberg (1985) makes the lucid observation that this pat- tern is exemplified by the way in which stereotypic characteristics as- sociated with Jewish ethnic groups are symbolically related to the distinction between Jew and Arab. Because of similarities, both cultural and physical, between “Oriental” Jews and Arabs, these groups are perceived as somehow akin to each other in the Israeli consciousness, and so Arab stereotypes are applied to “Oriental” Jews. But to equate the groups absolutely would erode the boundaries between them and, as Goldberg suggests, would be tantamount to the realization of a lurking and ever-present fear: the “Arabization” of Israel. The Arab stereotype, a synthesis of perceptions and associations, was therefore fragmented, such that each “Oriental” Jewish subgroup was assigned a different ste- reotypical characteristic—the Moroccans were perceived, particularly Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

ETHIOPIAN JEWRY AND NEW SELF-CONCEPTS 229

in the 1960s and 1970s, as “aggressive,” the Yemenites as “authentic,” the Kurds as “primitive” and so forth.3 The arrival of sixty thousand Ethiopian Jews to Israel during the last two decades has offered a new frame of reference for deﬁning Jewish- Israeli identity—a Jewish “other.” Since the qualities that determine interethnic boundaries are dynamic, and largely a factor of historiocul- tural conditions, the social divisions in Israel, up to the arrival of Ethi- opian Jewry, were constantly shifting across Jewish ethnic lines, with a decided Arab other from which Jewish society distinguishes itself. In- tergroup tensions, throughout the years in Israel’s immigrant society, centered, aside from ethnicity, on class, and newcomer-versus-veteran- citizen status—but only with the arrival of the Jews of Ethiopia did long-submerged tensions between race and religion in Judaism well to the surface. Hitherto dormant race issues have become the new focus of the interethnic discourse, presenting new material for considering Ju- daism on the axis of race and religion. Ethiopian Jews are the only group perceived as both Jewish and black, Jewish and racially other and have thus attracted far more attention than other groups of a similar size in the Jewish state. The very existence of this community presents paradoxes to Jewish identity, and thus Ethiopian Jews serve as a prism through which symbolic dimensions of Jewishness are refracted in many directions.

background Originally, the Beta Israel (Falasha), lived in northwestern Ethiopia in approximately ﬁve hundred small villages scattered across a vast territory, dispersed throughout a predominantly Christian society.4 Though no difference in physical appearance distinguished these Jews from their neighbors in this African country, as skilled—albeit low status—craftspeople, they were an occupational as well as a religious minority. Moreover, they clearly saw themselves as a distinct group, maintaining a faith that the majority of Ethiopians had forsaken for the younger and now dominant creed of Christianity. Strongly identifying themselves with the Torah (Orit, the Old Testament written in Ge‘ez), which was the central focus of their beliefs, they meticulously observed its laws and dreamed of the coming of the Messiah and their return to the legendary Jerusalem.5 The modern identiﬁcation of the Beta Israel as part of the Jewish world was a consequence of the missionary activities of the Protestant Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

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“London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews of Ethi- opia,” beginning in 1858.6 This, more than anything else, marks the point at which the Ethiopians came to the attention of world Jewry, first in Europe and later in the United States. Until world Jewry “discov- ered” them, the Beta Israel had shaped and expressed their identity within the context of the wider stream of Ethiopian history. Missionary activity made them aware of a more universal form of Jewish identity. The new awareness of the larger Jewish world outside Ethiopia was a dramatic turning point in their history. A number of prominent Jewish leaders, attracted by the exotic nature of Jewish life in the “land of Kush,” responded to the missionary threat and began to lobby for aid to be sent to the Beta Israel, then known as the Falasha.7 Attempts were made to bring them closer to other Jewish communities by publicizing their story, finding similarities between their rituals and beliefs and those of normative Judaism, and even reforming religious practices to bring them closer to those of other Jews (by in- troducing, for example, the lighting of Sabbath candles, the symbol of the Star of David, and the idea of abolishing animal sacrifices). Such efforts continued into the present era, when the Jewish Agency and other organizations worked to strengthen the ties of the Beta Israel to world Jewry and Israel. Jerusalem, which had been primarily a symbol of a lost era for these Jews, became a reality with the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. The aspiration to reach “Zion” provided yet another motive for struggle and for survival. The new state quickly enacted the Law of Return, ensuring open immigration for all Jews and affirming the position of the Jewish state as sanctuary and homeland. Initially, however, the Beta Is- rael, despite their self-definition and their struggles in Ethiopia as Jews, were not recognized as Jews under this law. In addition to questions about their Jewishness, political, social, and medical considerations were deterrents to the Ethiopians’ aliyah to Israel during the early years of mass immigration to the country. Only in 1973 was there a religious ruling recognizing the Beta Israel as Jews. Drawing on rabbinic opinion from more than four hundred years earlier, Ovadia Yosef, the incumbent Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Is- rael, declared that the Ethiopian community was descended from the lost tribe of Dan.8 Significantly, this proclamation linked the Beta Israel to the Jewish people in a way that did not challenge the otherwise underlying presumption that common descent is the key to Jewishness. Despite the chief rabbi’s ruling, followed by an interministerial committee, which in 1975 officially recognized the Falashas as Jews entitled Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

ETHIOPIAN JEWRY AND NEW SELF-CONCEPTS 231

to automatic citizenship under the Law of Return, the Beta Israel re- mained a source of contention in Jewish discourse. Even after their immigration began in 1977, bitter disputes about their identity continued. If questions raised in Israeli Jewish society based on the relationship between identity and the criterion of origin had been avoided in the past, Ethiopian Jews now made evasion impossible. The chief rabbi’s decision made reference to pzurot Israel (the dispersed ones of Israel) and shivtei Israel (the tribes of Israel), thus invoking the legend about the disper- sion of the “Ten Lost Tribes” to all corners of the earth. The ruling paradoxically invoked the myth of shared Jewish origins to substantiate group membership for a population so visibly distinct and illuminated the difficulty inherent in a post-Holocaust Jewish identity based on ethnic and racial distinctions. The chief rabbi’s recognition also enabled Jews in Israel and the Di- aspora to lobby for their cause. As the Jews of Ethiopia began to appear on the agenda of a growing number of Jewish organizations, Israel came under increasing pressure to agitate for their exodus.9 Beginning in 1977, successive Israeli governments turned their attention to this group. By the middle of 1997 virtually all its members had immigrated. This period saw drastic changes in internal Ethiopian politics and in Ethiopia’s relations to the West. Sensitivity and flexibility were required to negotiate the myriad political complexities. Beginning in 1980, Beta Israel, first in the northern parts of Ethiopia and later from all the regions where the Jews lived, crossed the country’s border into the Sudan. There they waited in refugee camps for months and sometimes years to be taken in groups to Israel. The first massive wave of immigration was in 1984, when Israel, in the dramatic campaign that became known as Operation Moses, flew almost seven thousand people to the Jewish state over the course of two months. By the time the campaign ended in early 1985, the total number of Ethio- pians in Israel had reached over 14,000. The effects of the trek to the Sudan and the sojourn in the Sudanese refugee camps were devastating. There was hardly an individual who did not lose family members along the way, while others were left behind in Ethiopia (Kaplan and Rosen 1994: 62–66). Family reunification thus became the most urgent concern of the Ethiopian community in Israel. Owing to political events and other considerations, only 2,500 additional immigrants were able to make their way to Israel between 1985 and the end of 1989. Some arrived directly from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa; others came in small groups through the Sudan. In 1990, encouraged by representatives of the American Association Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

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for Ethiopian Jews, the community in Ethiopia began to migrate to Ad- dis Ababa. The numbers of those waiting in the capital for exit visas reached twenty thousand by the summer of 1990. It was a time of great political turmoil in Ethiopia, but the pressure on Israel to help the waiting Jews was so great that a massive campaign was launched. Code named Operation Solomon, the campaign reunited most of the Ethio- pian Jews in Israel with their families. Over the course of thirty-six hours in May 1991, more than 14,000 individuals were airlifted to Israel. Sev- eral thousand more have come since 1991 (Kaplan and Rosen 1994: 66). Today virtually all Ethiopian Jewry lives in the Jewish state. Many in Israel saw the ingathering of this ancient Diaspora community as a deeply moving afﬁrmation of the state’s basic raison d’être. An editorial in the London Times praised the Israelis’ daring, compar- ing them to Moses and Aaron in their efforts to rescue the “lost tribe” (Rapoport 1986: 179). Images of the Exodus from Egypt are also laden with meaning for the Ethiopians, and the parallels between their journey and that of the ancient Israelites are sources of pride for the Ethi- opian community. The Beta Israel, once a marginal group in Christian Ethiopia, has become a highly visible community whose presence carries a great deal of symbolic value in Israel. Their long journey, full of vicissitudes, has been accompanied by many struggles and bitter disputes. They continue to be the focus of debate, with some Israelis identifying with their struggles and championing their cause and others still questioning their “au- thenticity” as Jews. Beyond the Beta Israel’s “exotic” characteristics as an isolated Jewish group in the heart of Africa, as a community both Jewish and black—coreligionists to their fellow Israelis but of a different race—they challenge prevailing understandings of Judaism.

religion Since the founding of the State of Israel, responsibility for Jewish religious affairs has been vested in the chief rabbinate. This body alone has been given the authority to render operative and binding rulings on many questions of Jewish religious status that penetrate all realms of life, from the Law of Return through family law. The ruling by Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef recognizing the Beta Israel as authentic Jews therefore did not merely open the doors to immigration. It also gave the chief rabbinate religious jurisdiction over the immigrants, planting the seed for future jurisdictional struggles. And indeed, despite having afﬁrmed the Ethiopians’ communal status as Jews, the rabbinate Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

ETHIOPIAN JEWRY AND NEW SELF-CONCEPTS 233

expressed reservations about the personal status of individuals. The Ethiopians’ ignorance of postbiblical rabbinic literature and law (halakha) gave rise to concerns that centuries of divorces and conversions performed by the Ethiopian Jewish priests (qessotch) might be invalid. According to the rabbinate, this called into question the religious status of hundreds of Ethiopians, with mamzerut, illegitimacy stemming from nonhalakhic divorce, being a particularly grave concern.10 In an attempt to rectify this situation, the rabbinate, throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, required of the Ethiopian immigrants a modified conversion cer- emony consisting of ritual immersion, acceptance of rabbinic law, and a symbolic recircumcision for men. Ethiopian immigrants vehemently rejected the rabbinate’s claims regarding their personal status. A series of demonstrations (widely cov- ered by the Israeli media) by members of the community and their sup- porters gradually led to de facto removal of the rabbinate’s restrictions and requirements—without the rabbinate officially changing its stance. First, the conversion requirement was modified to apply only to those seeking a marriage license. Eventually, the compromise adopted was to teach the priests the strictures of halakha, so that in serving their community they could operate according to the understandings of rabbinic Judaism. Many Israelis viewed the chief rabbinate’s demands that the Beta Israel undergo conversion as fundamentalist religious harassment of a “quiet” and “naive” population. The Beta Israel’s lack of familiarity with halakha—the reason for the rabbinate’s special requirements—is depicted, in this viewpoint, as emblematic of a pure, unspoiled ancient Judaism and contrasted to a rabbinical establishment that imposes fixed religious precepts and overlooks diversity. The Jewish world at large, caught up in a struggle with the Ortho- dox rabbinate, latched onto the Ethiopian cause where the relationship between religion and descent was concerned. Rallying to the support of the Ethiopian community, they pointed to the many Jews who, unlike the Beta Israel, do not observe basic religious commandments found in the Torah but are accepted as Jews by the rabbinate because their descent is unquestioned.

race Hidden behind the often-asked question of “are the Falasha real Jews?” is a silently gnawing preoccupation with race. Of all characteristics symbolizing identity, physiological features—and in par- Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

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ticular skin color—are the most prominent and immutable, and so the Ethiopian Jews’ skin color is central to the ongoing discourse relat- ing to this group. The convergence of underlying tensions between race and religion in Judaism, and the widely held religious belief of a common origin for all Jews, struck a discord and sparked emotionally charged fundamental questions of Jewish identity. One of the first public reactions to Operation Moses referring to racial issues came from Africa: an editor in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi suggested that the airlift might put to rest the old “Zionism is Rac- ism” canard. On the other hand, Mengistu Haile Maryam, the Ethio- pian ruler at the time, railed that the Zionists had “kidnapped” thousands of black Africans in order “to complete their ethnic collection.” William Safire of the New York Times countered, “for the first time in history, thousands of black people are being brought into a country not in chains but as citizens” (Rapoport 1986 : 176). As these voices con- tended, Ethiopian immigrants found themselves singled out as “blacks” for the first time in their history. The Beta Israel are the focus of attempts by Jews outside Israel, particularly those in the United States, to disprove allegations that Judaism is racist. Amid tension between Jews and blacks in the United States, the Ethiopian Jews are touted as proof that in Judaism race is not a condi- tion of group membership. Additionally, the “rescue” of the Beta Israel and their settlement in the Promised Land were experienced by many American Jews as a corrective to the traumas of the Holocaust and guilt they felt about their inability to rescue Jews trapped in Europe.11 For a number of American Jewish organizations and U.S. government offi- cials who played a vital role in the rescue of these Jews, activism was perceived as a way of making amends for the past, in particular for their role in preventing immigration by European Jews fleeing Hitler in the years before World War II (Gruber 1987: 148). Both airlifts, Operation Moses and Operation Solomon—launched by the Jewish state in cooperation with U.S. Jewry and the American government to save a small, beleaguered minority group—became a source of pride for the Jewish world. These secret operations were com- pared with other missions such as the Entebbe rescue, in which Jewish captives were freed by Israeli soldiers in the very heart of Uganda. Through operations Moses and Solomon, a forgotten Jewish tribe otherwise destined to disappear was brought home. Before Operation Moses, the issue of race had rarely if ever been ex- plicitly discussed in Israel. Indeed, given the heightened sensitivity of Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

ETHIOPIAN JEWRY AND NEW SELF-CONCEPTS 235

the connection between Judaism and race in the wake of the Holocaust, to even suggest a link between Jewishness and racial categories was ta- boo. Although groups of differing complexion, on a continuum from light to dark, live together in Israel, it is only the Jews of Ethiopia who are seen unequivocally as “black.” Previously, the category of otherness that “black” connotes to Israelis was reserved primarily for Arabs, with whom the dividing lines are not racial. A latent awareness of the issue of race was evident in the public debate over the group’s absorption into Israeli society. The hope that the Ethiopian immigrants would not become second-class citizens was voiced repeatedly. Care and sensitivity were called for to avoid a situation in which these immigrants would be ultimately employed in un- skilled labor, known as avoda aravit (lit. Arab labor), since it is mainly performed by Arabs, and also referred to as avoda sheh.ora (lit. black labor). Such concerns regarding other immigrant groups like the Russian Jews who came to Israel in the same years as the Ethiopian Jews were never voiced. An attempt to obscure the impression of “otherness,” particularly in the early stages of the Ethiopians’ acculturation, was made by placing the Beta Israel’s color on a continuum with that of earlier Jewish immigrant groups, in particular the Jews of Yemen and India. For example, popular jokes linked the Ethiopian and Yemenite Jews, and the immigrants themselves continually sought physiological likeness to these and other dark-skinned Jewish groups in Israel. A notion expressed by the Beta Israel that was documented in Ethi- opia before their immigration held that they originally had been white but had become black because of the climate in North Africa. After immigration, the skin of the “real” Jews among them was sure to revert to white. Over time, however, this belief was transformed, to “color doesn’t come out in the wash.” The issue of color and race carries multiple levels of association and meaning for the Ethiopians themselves, stemming not only from their experience in Israel but also from categories deeply embedded in Ethi- opian culture. Although the immigrants seldom mention it, they partic- ipated in Ethiopia in a system that assigned different categories and sta- tuses on the basis of color. The Beta Israel perceived themselves, along with their Christian neighbors, as “red.” “Black” referred only to members of low-status groups, among them, slaves. These deeply rooted perceptions, so basic to Ethiopian culture, were a powerful factor as the Beta Israel community came to terms with its situation in Israel. Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

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The warm and affectionate reception that greeted the Ethiopian immigrants on the level of media coverage, government slogans, and other popular expressions, and far exceeded the welcome enjoyed by any of the other immigrant groups to Israel, was a facet of the smothering paternalism that greeted their arrival. Their blackness was interwoven with romantic notions that the Jews of Ethiopia came “straight from the time of the Bible to the twentieth century.” They were commonly depicted as “unspoiled, quiet and polite.” 12 Given these widespread perceptions, many observers in Israel and abroad could only explain the raised voices and even outbreaks of vio- lence at some demonstrations staged by Ethiopian Israelis in terms of spoiled innocence. Occasional reminders that violent struggle, internal and against outside forces, had been a continuous part of Ethiopian experience in Israel and Ethiopia, were generally ignored; the image of the “noble savage” continued to dominate. Race issues continued to brew on many levels, but it was only the oc- casion of a major crisis, the Ethiopian blood scandal, that brought them to the surface.

the blood scandal At the beginning of 1996, a prominent Israeli newspaper revealed that ofﬁcials of the country’s blood bank had for years been routinely disposing of blood donated by Ethiopians. Such had been the secret practice since research linked the HIV virus to Africa. In fact, among the group that awaited visas in Addis Ababa, the high incidence of AIDS and of individuals testing HIV positive created a tangible concern for the general population’s safety.13 The blood was disposed of immediately, without being checked, and certainly without notifying the donors.14 The blood scandal proved to be the catalyst for Ethiopian expressions of frustration over a wide range of issues.15 It marked, moreover, a point of no return in the discourse on race and racism in Israel. The fact that the incident focused on a physical matter as permanent and unchange- able as blood—the same hue no matter what color the skin—strength- ened growing feelings that racism had for many years quietly existed behind a “color-blind” veneer. The incident opened an era of explicit discussion on racial relations. Using the terms “race” and “racism” in relation to internal Jewish affairs had previously been off-limits in a society that reserved them ex- Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

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clusively for relations between Jews and non-Jews. Direct discussion of racial boundaries led to new questions in additional arenas, both within Jewish society in Israel (for example, Oriental Jews versus Ashkenazic Jews) and in reference to non-Jewish groups in the country —princi- pally Palestinian Arabs, Druze, and Bedouins. In the wake of the demonstrations over the blood scandal, a young leader of Ethiopian origin was for the first time included by the Labor party as a candidate for the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. His election campaign was financed in part by an Israeli Muslim Bedouin, who in a public interview explained his support with the words: “We blacks must help each other.” 16 This expression reflects a prevailing sentiment of various Jewish ethnic groups in Israel. A saying commonly heard in the context of the multiethnic experience in Jewish Israel is: “There (in my country of origin) I was a Jew; here I am Moroccan, [or Kurdish, or Russian].” Increasingly, Ethi- opian Jews feel that: “There I was a Jew; here I am Black (kushi).” 17 This experience creates new borders that simultaneously connect and sepa- rate different groups and subgroups in varied and dynamic manners. “Blackness” as a prominent identity symbol overtaking religion, reflects a process that plays an increasingly pivotal role among the youth of Ethiopian origin in Israel. They strongly identify themselves with black musicians, mostly from the United States. Posters of Michael Jack- son, or more recently, Bob Marley, on backgrounds of green, red, and yellow, symbolizing for them the Ethiopian flag, are displayed in their rooms. Occasionally Rastafarian hairstyles, “boom boxes,” and other symbols of identification with American blacks are seen as well. Ob- served on a recent New Year’s Eve at one of the “Soweto” clubs spring- ing up around Tel Aviv’s central bus station were not only foreign labor- ers from Ghana and Nigeria and black American marines temporarily stationed in Israel but also young Ethiopian Israelis. Outward manifes- tations of black identity may be concentrated among younger Ethio- pians, but there are signs that it is penetrating other parts of this population as well. Though a sense of separation on the basis of color may be growing stronger in Israel, other responses are also in evidence. Bumper stickers distributed in the past few months bear the slogan: Am ehad, harbeh tzvaim (“One people, many colors”). A deeper reading suggests that through these stickers an attempt is being made to move from the cate- gorical distinction of white versus black to a much wider range of colors that encompasses all Jewish ethnic groups in Israel. The use of the word Am (people) builds a Jewish connection that blurs the religious Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

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common base, reaching instead in the direction of a common fate and shared experience.

Conclusions

Although the precise religious status of Beta Israel was the subject of debate and controversy even before their arrival in Israel, the topic of racial identity and even more generally the connection between Judaism and race, emerged only relatively late, and explosively, as topics of explicit public discussion. In discussing a process that is com- paratively recent in its origins and in a continuous state of flux, any conclusions are by their very nature highly dynamic. As we have seen, the Ethiopian Jews have served as a catalyst for the exploration of a variety of topics hitherto dormant in Jewish consciousness. Their presence as a group with different skin color and a “deviant” form of Judaism challenges simplistic assumptions about the physical and spiritual unity of the Jewish people. The often-competing attempts of different Israeli and Jewish groups to include them in their definitions of Jewishness and peoplehood bring into high relief questions of power and authority regarding national and religious boundaries and identity. The arrival of Ethiopian Jewry to Israel under the Law of Return ex- pands traditional views of Judaism to include a conception of Judaism as a multiethnic culture. As Beta Israel’s experience unfolds, and their encounter with world Jewry plays out, the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of Jewish identity takes on new color and form. The ethnographic boundaries of Judaism are expanding, opening the way for the very components of the discourse—religion, race, and origin—to enter and exit the arena, perhaps even to be replaced by factors yet unknown. Given the centrality of identity issues in contemporary Judaism and the din of voices competing over the question of “who is a Jew?” it is highly likely that the search for definition of self and other will continue to occupy and preoccupy Israelis and the Jewish world for many years to come.

Notes

1. The most well-known discussion of this question to date, preceding the immigration of the Jews of Ethiopia to Israel, is found in R. Patai’s The Myth of the Jewish Race (1975). Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

ETHIOPIAN JEWRY AND NEW SELF-CONCEPTS 239

2. Official government documents citing demographic data consistently divide the Israeli population into two categories: Asia/Africa and Europe/ America. 3. Despite the fact that the terms “Jew” and “Arab” are presented as oppo- sites in the Israeli context, the relations between the groups, both actual and conceptual, are anything but clear and absolute from a Jewish standpoint. The Arab “other” is thus conceived of compositely and complexly as “aggressive” and “primitive” and at the same time “indigenous” and “authentic.” 4. In most publications they were usually referred to as “Falasha.” They themselves employ the name “Beta Israel” (the House of Israel) when referring to their Ethiopian past and Ethiopian Jews when referring to their new status in Israel. 5. Ge‘ez is ancient Ethiopic, Ethiopia’s Semitic liturgical tongue used by Jews and Christians alike. The Torah-centered, prerabbinic religious ob- servance of the Beta Israel is a function of their existence as a Jewish community separated from other Jewish populations. 6. For more information on the activities of this mission and its influence on the Falasha, see Kaplan 1992: 116 –42; Quirin 1992: 179–91. 7. Kush is the biblical term identified by commentary as ancient Ethiopia. See also note 17. 8. In particular, the opinion of the Radbaz, acronym for Rabbi David Ibn Abi Zimra of Egypt. See also Rapoport 1981: 1–14, 201–3; Waldman 1989: 74 – 76; Kaplan and Rosen 1994: 62. 9. See, for example, Kaplan and Rosen 1994: 60 –69. 10. The status of mamzer is a result of forbidden marriage (not premarital relations) and is applied to the offspring, who are proscribed from marrying other Jews. 11. In discussions of the Beta Israel, echoes of the Holocaust arise in myriad forms. See, for example, Messing 1982: 11–53. 12. Similar expressions echo in Israeli memory about the Jews of Yemen and the Jews of India. See, for example, Goldberg, 1985. 13. Ha-ve ‘ada leberur parashat terumot hadam shel olei Etiopia (The inves- tigative committee of the “blood donations affair” of Ethiopian immigrants), Jerusalem, July 1996. 14. Following publicity of the affair, the Ministry of Health issued a series of confused explanations, portraying its actions in terms of the general public’s safety and explaining that dispensation of the blood had been concealed from the public out of the fear of stigmatizing the Ethiopian Jewish community. Despite the Ministry’s gestures, within a few days unprecedented expressions of frustration were sounded among the Ethiopian immigrants. Bitterness and anguish ignited in a violent demonstration by thousands of Ethiopian Jews and their sympathizers, who viewed rejection of the blood donations as the culmination of snowballing race issues. See also Seeman 1997. 15. On blood as a key symbol for the Beta Israel while being in Ethiopia, see Salamon 1993. 16. The Bedouins serve in the Israel Defense Force, fighting alongside Jews against Arab members of their own faith. Copyright © 2001. University of California Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses Copyright © permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

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17. Kushi in its modern colloquial sense deﬁes straightforward translation. While on a popular level, Kushi is akin to the American word “nigger,” it has an additional meaning as deriving from the Biblical Kush (see note 7). Early in the development of written Hebrew, it was extended to include all black Africa and black people generally.

References

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