... in response to Your ignorance is showing!, posted by surfscum on Jan 6, 2005Too funny. Ignorant? Chew on this and get back to me...I would really like to hear your response...you won't let it die, will you? Incredible!!! (Remember (or did you even know) that there were TWELVE tribes of Israel, not just the Semites as they were only one of the tribes.)
Who are the Falasha? It depends upon your prospective;
To The Beita Yisrael (The Jews of Ethiopia/ Abyssinia/ Cush); their history, sacred texts, and religious traditions span thousands of years. Their practice of the religion of Avraham, Yitzach and Ya’acov traces a clear bloodline to the House of David HaMelech through his son Shlomo HaMelech. Their beliefs state that they are the remnants of an ancient Jewish culture which began with the union in 935 B.C.E., of Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon), king of ancient Israel (reigned 961-922 B.C.E.), second son of David, king of Judah and Israel, and Bathsheba (see 1 Kings 10:1-13, 2 Samuel 12:24). and the third most important convert to Judaism in the Torah, after Yithro and Ruth, Makeida Nigist Saba (The Queen of Saba/Sheba). In fact, for over a thousand years, after news of the destruction of the Holy Temple in Yerushali’im by the Romans (70 C.E.), the Beita Yisrael believed that they were the only Jews left in the world!
To the interested observer; they are an ancient tribe of aboriginal Jews from Ethiopia, who were cut off from the outside word until modern times, and who, for the past 20 years, have been going through the unique trials and tribulations of mass emigration to the land of Israel and assimilation into a modern cosmopolitan society, and world.
Following is a brief synopsis of "The Falasha, The Beautiful People of the Book".
Let us start by determining just who the "Falasha" are?
The term "Falasha (or Phalasha, Fr)" is an Amharic word meaning several things, "stranger", "exiles", "landless ones" or in the original Ethiopian context "Ones who set themselves apart from others." Falashas themselves refer to their sect as Beita Yisrael ("House of Israel"). In Ethiopia, they are also referred to as "ayhud", = "Jews".
In current terminology, the word Falasha is primarily only used among Ethiopian Jews themselves, to describe an individual who still practices Ethiopian Jewish religious traditions in its original classical form. Similar to the " term Hareidi, as a used to describe some Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Among Qessotch the word Falasha also refers to certain esoteric rituals and practices only performed by them and certain male elders.
A dictionary definition is; Fa.la.sha (fe-la1she, fa-) noun, plural Falasha or Fa"la"shas Offensive. Used as a disparaging term for an Ethiopian Jew. [Amharic falasha, from falasi, stranger.]
Origins & History Of The Tribe of Falasha
Falashas, a native Semitic/Hamitic people Jewish sect of Ethiopia.
According to Ethiopian Jewish history and tradition, the story began almost three thousand years ago, somewhere between 961 and 922 Before The Common Era.
The primary Falasha tradition claims to trace their ancestry to Menelik I, son of Shlomo HaMelech [King Solomon] of Israel and Makeida Nigist Saba [the queen of Sheba], and Levites and other Israelites who migrated to Ethiopia, biblically known as Midian or Cush, principally from the tribe of Dan. .
Solomon, Shlomo HaMelech, King of ancient Israel (reigned 961-922 B.C.E. (BC)), second son of David, king of Judah and Israel, and Bathsheba (see 2 Samuel 12:24). In later Jewish and Muslim literature Solomon appears not only as the wisest of sages but as one gifted with the power to control the spirits of the invisible world. He is frequently noted in history and literature as the builder of the Temple.
Solomon succeeded his father despite the claims of Adoniyah, his older half brother (see 1 Kings 1: 1-40). He divided Israel into 12 parts for administrative purposes, and his territory extended "from the river [Euphrates] unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt" (4:21). He made slaves of the Canaanites who remained in the land (9:20-21) and formed an alliance with Hiram (flourished 10th century BC), king of Tyre (now Sur, Lebanon). In return for food, Hiram furnished him with timber, and the ships of the allies went out trading together. The Temple, completed in about seven years, was built in great splendor with Hiram’s aid and dedicated with much magnificence (see 1 Kings 
.
Solomon’s distinguishing quality was as an administrator. He kept the united kingdom largely intact, strengthened its fortifications, and made alliances not only with Tyre, but also with several other nations surrounding Israel. Commerce, consisting of trade by caravan and by sea, and an extensive copper-mining industry were encouraged by the international intercourse. Contact with other nations also resulted in a marked intellectual advance, and it may be assumed that genuine literary activity was carried on. Solomon himself is traditionally regarded as an author of high skill and remarkable output. The writings that have been ascribed to him are the biblical Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the later Psalms of Solomon and Odes of Solomon. Modern scholars have determined, however, that several were written centuries later. The Odes, indeed, are possibly of Gnostic Christian authorship.
Despite his reputation for wisdom, it would seem that Solomon’s extravagance and disregard for his people were partly responsible for the later disruption of the kingdom. Outside conditions, moreover, contributed to his original success. The larger empires were preoccupied with their own affairs, and Israel’s trade and industry flourished in the absence of extensive warfare.
Saba’,
Hebrew Sheba, ancient kingdom of southwestern Arabia (now Southern Ethiopia and the Republic of Yemen) mentioned in the Bible, most notably in the story about the meeting between King Solomon and Makeida Nigist Saba, the queen of Sheba (see 1 Kings 10:1-13).
The inhabitants of Saba’, the Sabaeans, spoke a language in the Hebraic-Arabic group of the southern branch of the Semitic languages. The kingdom probably originated about the 10th century B.C.E. (BC), and it was one of the most powerful states in southern Arabia until about 115 B.C.E. (BC), when the Himyarites gained ascendancy. Its capital and chief city (7th century-2nd century B.C.E. (BC)) occupied the site of present-day Ma’rib, east of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. At the height of its development, in the 8th century B.C.E. (BC), the kingdom of Saba’ maintained colonies along trade routes leading to Palestine, and Ma’rib was one of the wealthiest cities of ancient Arabia.
However, some scholars place the date of their origin before the 2d century B.C.E. [BC], largely because the Falashas are largely unfamiliar with either the Babylonian or Palestinian Talmud.
According to Ethiopian Jewish history, contact was continued with Eretz Yisrael until the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E.
See "History" for more details
Their Jewish Religion
The religion of the Falashas is a modified form of Mosaic Judaism unaffected generally by postbiblical developments.
Their scriptures include the Old Testament and certain apocryphal books. The Bible of the Falashas, The Orit, is written in an archaic Semitic dialect, known as Ge’ez, and the Hebrew Scriptures were unknown to them until approximately 1921.
The Falashas retain animal sacrifice. They celebrate scriptural and nonscriptural feast days, although the latter are not the same as those celebrated by other Jewish groups.
One of the Falasha nonscriptural feast days, for example, is the Commemoration of Abraham.
The Falashas have a number of unique religious traditions which are based upon their interpretations directly from the Orit/Torah. Such as their custom that the Brith Milah should be performed by a son’s father, after the necessary instruction by a Qes. This is based upon the fact that Avraham Avinu, himself, performed the first Brith Milah, on Yishmael and Yitzach, and that Tzipporah, an Ethiopian, performed the Brith Milah on the son of Moshe Rabeinu, thereby saving his life because of his dereliction of duty of the covenant.
The Sabbath regulations of the Falashas are stringent. They observe biblical dietary laws, but not the postbiblical rabbinic regulations concerning distinctions between meat and dairy foods. They also have different interpretations of the definition of scales and fins in determining what are fish. Shrimp and lobster are considered by them to be fish.
See "Holy Writings" for more details (hyper-link to "Holy Writings Page")
Marriage outside the religious community is forbidden. Any Falasha who marries a non-Jew or accepts Coptic Christianity or another religion is considered to have died by his family and village. A funeral is performed and all of that person’s personal belongings are buried.
Monogamy is practiced, marriage at a very early age is rare, although unions between adolescents are often arraigned between parents or families to be consummated years later, and high moral standards are maintained.
The centers of Falasha religious life is the masjid, or synagogue and the mikvah. Falashas believe they become ritually unclean if they come into physical contact with non-Jews, and men do not come into physical contact with women out side of their families. In the case of contamination by non-Jews a Falasha’s clothes are buried or burned, and in either case a mikvah must be taken before one can reenter the community.
The chief functionary in each village is the high priest, or Qes, who is assisted by lower priests.
Falasha monks, unique among all other forms of Judaism, live alone or in monasteries, isolated from other Falashas. It is believed that they study and practice an ancient form of the Kabbalah with additional influences from the beliefs and practices of the Esseans.
Rabbis, as such, do not exist among the Falashas. The religious leader(s) of each village in Ethiopia were, and in Israel are, called a Qes [Qessotch, pl. Amharic, sometimes-spelled Kes]. In Israel these Qessotch have a formal structure headed by Chief Qes/Rabbi, Qes/Rabbi Yoseph HaDana, who was born in Israel, an who was ordained an Orthodox Rabbi in Israel in 1978. Additionally, there are a significant number of Qessotch who have had structured rabbinical training in Israel, and are considered by most orthodox standards and institutions to be Rabbis. Incidentally, at this point in time, all Rabbis ordained from within the Conservative and Reform movements, are not considered to be Rabbis by Israeli Orthodox standards. They are treated as ordinary Jews.
The Falashas lived either in separate villages, primarily in the Gondar region north of Lake Tana, or in separate quarters in Christian or Muslim towns in other parts of Ethiopia.
They were skilled in business trade, import/export trading, goldsmithing, agriculture, masonry, pottery, ironworking, and weaving.
Any Falasha, who converts to another religion, i.e. Coptic Christianity or Islam is considered to be a Falash Murah (Traitor to the faith), and is considered dead within the community.
Under Haile Selassie I, a few Falashas rose to positions of prominence in education and government, but reports of persecution followed the emperor’s ouster in 1974.
Recognized in 1975 by the Chief Rabbinate as Jews and allowed to settle in Israel.
More than 12,000 Falashas were airlifted to Israel from refugee camps in Sudan as part of the Israeli government’s "Operation Moses" and the U.S. government’s "Operation Sheba" in late 1984 and early 1985, when the Sudanese and Ethiopian governments halted the program.
The airlift resumed in 1989, and about 3500 Falashas emigrated to Israel in 1990.
Nearly all of the more than 14,000 Falashas remaining in Ethiopia were evacuated by the Israeli government’s "Operation Solomon" in May 1991.
The Falashas themselves say that they are direct descendants from the family of Abraham, the first Jew.
Terah, Abraham’s father, came from the land of Ur of the Chaldees which was located in the southern part of the Euphrates.
The Chaldees were one of many Kushite tribes of the region and Kushite means Black according to the Biblical dictionary.
The Kushites were descended from Kush a son of Ham.
Godfrey Higgins, an English expert on antiquities stated in his book: "The Chaldees were originally Negroes"
We believe that our people are "a" Fabled ‘Lost Tribe Of Israel’, who else, in all of Judaism can trace their ancestry and lineage, unbroken for thousands of years, to Shlomo HaMelech’s Temple? But make your own mind up The
Humble Lion.
But once they were kings. . .
"Once they were kings. A half million strong, they matched their faith with fervor and out-matched the Moslem and Christian tribesmen around them to rule the mountain highlands around Lake T’ana. They called themselves Beita Israel—the house of Israel—and used the Torah to guide their prayers and memories of the heights of Jerusalem as they lived in their thatched huts in Ethiopia.
But their neighbors called them Falashas—the alien ones, the invaders. And even three hundred years of rule, even the black features that matched those of all the people around them did not make the Jews of Ethiopia secure governors of their destiny in Africa." (Falashas: The Forgotten Jews, Baltimore Jewish Times, 9 November 1979)
For centuries, the world Jewish community was not even aware of the existence of the Jewish community of Ethiopia in the northern province of Gondar. The miracle of Operation Solomon is only now being fully understood; an ancient Jewish community has been brought back from the edge of government-imposed exile and starvation.
For over two thousand years Ethiopia was a Jewish nation, in that the ruling monarchy considered themselves Jewish and direct descendants of King Solomon. Judaism was the national religion, and most of the population practiced Judaism.
Christianity spread through the Axum dynasty of Ethiopia in the 4th century C.E. [AD]. By the 7th century, however, Islam had surpassed Christianity and had separated Ethiopia from its Christian African neighbors.
Prior to this, the Beita Israel had enjoyed relative independence through the Middle Ages. Their reign was threatened in the 13th century C.E. [AD] under the Axumite (Aksumite) Solomonic Empire, and intermittent fighting continuing for the next three centuries with other tribes.
In 1624, the Beita Israel fought what would be their last battle for independent autonomy against Portuguese- backed Axumite Ethiopians. A graphic eyewitness account described the battle:
"Falash a men and women fought to the death from the steep heights of their fortress... they threw themselves over the precipice or cut each other’s throats rather than be taken prisoner—it was a Falasha Masada. [The rebel leaders] burned all of the Falasha’s written history and all of their religious books, it was an attempt to eradicate forever the Judaic memory of Ethiopia."
Those Jews captured alive were sold into slavery, forced to be baptized, and denied the right to own land. The independence of the Beita Israel was torn from them just as it was from their Israeli brethren at Masada centuries before.
The Falasha then undertook a historic migration over the Simian Mountains into the region of Ethiopia, known as the "Birth of the Nile". Many thousands of souls died along the way. The trek took approximately 10 years to complete. Not unlike the trek the ancient Israelites took in the desert of Sinai over a thousand years before. They settled in and around the Lake Tana in what is now called the Gondar region. With this natural barrier between them and their Coptic and Islamic countrymen, they enjoyed a measure of autonomy and peace.
Modern Contact
The first modern contact with the now oppressed community came in 1769, when Scottish explorer James Bruce stumbled upon them while searching for the source of the Nile River. His estimates at the time placed the Beita Israel population at 100,000, already greatly decreased from an estimate from centuries before of a half-million.
Little additional contact was made with the community, but in 1935 their stability was greatly threatened as the Italian army marched into Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s ruler, Emperor Haile Selassie fled his country and actually took refuge in Jerusalem for a short time. Selassie returned to power in 1941, but the situation for the Beita Israel improved little.
In 1947, Ethiopia abstained on the United Nations Partition Plan for the British Mandate of Palestine, which ~, reestablished the State of Israel. By 1955, the non-governmental Jewish Agency of Israel had already begun construction of schools and a teacher’s seminary for the Beita Israel in Ethiopia.
In 1956, Ethiopia and Israel established consular relations, which were improved in 1961 when the two countries established full diplomatic ties. Positive relations between Israel and Ethiopia existed until 1973 when, in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Ethiopia (and 28 African nations) broke diplomatic relations with Israel under the threat of an Arab oil embargo.
The Mengistu Threat
Months later, Emperor Selassie’s regime ended in a coup d’etat. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, whose Marxist-Leninist dictatorship increased the threat to the Beita Israel, replaced Selassie. During the weeks surrounding Mariam’s coup, an estimated 2,500 Jews were killed and 7,000 became homeless.
Soon Mariam instituted a policy of "villagization": relocating millions of peasant farmers onto state-run cooperatives. This policy greatly harmed the Beita Israel by forcing them to "share" their villages (even though they were denied the right to own the land) with non-Jewish farmers, resulting in increased levels of anti- Semitism throughout the Gondar Province. According to the Ethiopian government, over 30% of the population had been moved from privately owned farms to cooperatives as of 1989.
After taking office in 1977, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was eager to facilitate the rescue of Ethiopia’s Jews, and so Israel entered into a period of selling arms to the Mariam government in hopes that Ethiopia would allow Jews to leave for Israel. In 1977, Begin asked President Mengistu to allow 200 Ethiopian Jews to leave for Israel aboard an Israeli military jet that had emptied its military cargo and was returning to Israel. Mariam agreed, and that may have been the precursor to the mass exodus of Operation Moses.
In the early 1980’s, Ethiopia forbade the practice of Judaism and the teaching of Hebrew.
Numerous members of the Beita Israel were imprisoned on fabricated charges of being "Zionist spies," and Jewish religious leaders, Qessotch (sing. Qes or Kes), were harassed and monitored by the government.
The situation remained exceedingly bleak through the early 1980’s. Forced conscription at age 12 took many Jewish boys away from their parents, some never to be heard from again. Additionally, with the constant threat of war, famine, and horrendous health conditions (Ethiopia has one of the world’s worst infant mortality rates and doctor to patient ratios), the Beita Israel’s position became more precarious as time progressed.
The government began to slightly soften its treatment of the Jews, however, during the mid-1980’s when terrible famines wreaked havoc on the economy. Ethiopia was forced to ask Western nations for famine relief, including the United States of America and Israel, allowing them both to exert a modicum of pressure for the release of the Beita Israel.
Over 8,000 Beita Israel came to Israel between 1977 and 1984. But these efforts pale in comparison with the modern exodus that took place during 1984’s Operation Moses.
Operation Moses and Solomon
Under a news blackout for security reasons, Operation Moses began on November 18, 1984 and ended six weeks later on January 5, 1985. In that time, almost 10,000 Jews were rescued and brought to Israel.
But the mission was not without problems. Because of news leaks (blamed primarily on a December 6th article in the Washington Jewish Week and full-page advertisements placed by the United Jewish Appeal), the mission ended prematurely as Arab nations pressured the Sudanese government to prevent any more Jews from using Sudan to go to Israel. Almost 15,0000 Jews were left behind in Ethiopia.
Thus, by the end of Operation Moses in January 1985, almost two-thirds of the Beita Israel remained in Ethiopia. They were comprised almost entirely of women, young children, and the sick, since only the strongest members of the community were encouraged to make the harrowing trek to Sudan where the airlift actually occurred. In addition, many young boys were encouraged to make the dangerous trek to freedom due to the low age of conscription, often as young as age twelve.
As Babu Yakov, a Beita Israel leader, summed up, "Those who could not flee are the sick and infants. Those least capable of defending themselves are now facing their enemies alone."
In 1985, then Vice President George Bush, former head of the CIA, arranged a CIA-sponsored follow-up mission to Operation Moses. Operation Sheba/Joshua brought an additional 2800 Beita Israel from Sudan to Israel. But in the following five years, a virtual stalemate occurred in the rescue of Ethiopian Jewry. All efforts on behalf of the Beita Israel fell on the closed ears of the Mariam dictatorship.
Meanwhile, those Jews who were separated from their loved ones while attempting to adjust to Israeli society.
The new arrivals spent between six months and two years in absorption centers learning Hebrew, being retrained for Israel’s industrial society, and learning how to live in a modern society (most Ethiopian villages’ had no running water or electricity). Suicide, all but unheard of in their tukuls in Ethiopia, even claimed a few of the new arrivals due to the anxiety of separation and departure.
Over 1,600 "orphans of circumstance" lived day to day separated from their families, not knowing the fate of their parents, brothers, sisters, and loved ones.
See "Pictures that speak" for more details (hyper-link to "Pictures that speak Page") Operation Solomon - The Fulfillment of a Dream
The grim prospect of thousands of Jewish children growing up separated from their parents in Israel almost became a reality. Little could be done to persuade the Mariam government to increase the trickle of Jews leaving Ethiopia in the years between Operations Sheba/Joshua and Solomon. But in November 1990, Ethiopia and Israel reached an agreement that would allow Ethiopian Jews to move to Israel under the context of family reunification. It soon became clear, however, that Mengistu was willing to allow Ethiopian Jews to leave outside of the guise of reunification. November and December 1990 showed increased numbers of Ethiopians leaving for Israel. The Ethiopian Jews were finally ready to come home.
In early 1991, Eritrean and Tigrean rebels began a concerted attack on Mengistu forces; meeting with surprising success for the first time since the civil war began in 1975. With the rebel armies advancing each day, Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam fled his country in early May. Rebels claimed control of the capital Addis Ababa shortly thereafter, and the situation of the Beita Israel took top priority in Israel. The Likud government of Yitzhak Shamir authorized a special permit for the Israeli airline, EI AI, to fly on the Jewish Sabbath. On Friday, May 24th, and continuing non-stop for 36 hours, a total of 34 EI AI jumbo jets and Hercules C-130s—seats removed to accommodate the maximum number of Ethiopians—began a new chapter in the struggle for the freedom of Ethiopian Jewry.
Operation Solomon, named for the king from whom one of the theories suggest that the Beita Israel draw their lineage, ended almost as quickly as it began. Timing was crucial, since any delay by Israel could have allowed the rebels to hold the Jews as bargaining chips with Israel or the United States. A total of 14,324 Ethiopian Jews were rescued and resettled in Israel, a modern exodus of the grandest design. Operation Solomon rescued twice the number of Jews in Operation Moses and Sheba/Joshua, in a mere fraction of the time. Though it is too early to predict their impact on Israeli society, the 56,000 Ethiopian Jews now living in Israel (rescue efforts are under way to transport the remaining 2,100 Ethiopians who wish to emigrate to Israel) will play an important role in Israel for generations to come.
Authentic Jews
Because much of the Beita Israel’s history is passed orally from generation to generation, we may never truly know their origins. Four main theories exist concerning the beginnings of the Beita Israel community:
1) The Beita Israel may be the lost Israelite tribe of Dan.
2) They may be descendants of Menelik I, son of King Solomon and Queen Sheba.
3) They may be descendants of Ethiopian Christians and pagans who converted to Judaism centuries ago.
4) They may be descendants of Jews who fled Israel for Egypt after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. and eventually settled in Ethiopia.
Without regard as to which theory may actually be correct (and each theory has its support), the authenticity of the "Jewishness" of the community became an issue. ‘
As early as the 16th century, Egypt’s Chief Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Avi Zimra (Radbaz) declared that in Halachic (Jewish legal) issues, the Beita Israel were indeed Jews. In 1855, Daniel ben Hamdya, a member of the Beita Israel, was the first Ethiopian Jew to visit Israel, meeting with a council of rabbis in Jerusalem concerning the authenticity of the Beita Israel. By 1864, almost all leading Jewish authorities, most notably Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer of Eisenstadt, Germany, accepted the Beita Israel as true Jews. In 1908 the chief rabbis of forty-five countries had heeded Rabbi Hildesheimer’s call and officially recognized the Beita Israel as fellow Jews.
In reaffirming the Radbaz’s position centuries before, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, Israel’s Chief Sephardic Rabbi, stated in 1972, "I have come to the conclusion that Falashas are Jews who must be saved from absorption and assimilation. We are obliged to speed up their immigration to Israel and educate them in the spirit of the holy Torah, making them partners in the building of the Holy Land."
In 1975, Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren wrote to the Beita Israel telling them, "You are our brothers, you are our blood and our flesh. You are true Jews." Later that same year the Israeli Interministerial Commission officially recognized the Beita Israel as Jews under Israel’s Law of Return, a law designed to aid in Jewish immigration to Israel. The Beita Israel were ready to come home.
Indeed, the Beita Israel were strictly observant in pre-Talmudic Jewish traditions. The women went to the mikvah, or ritual bath, just as observant Jewish women do to this day, and they continue to carry out ancient festivals, such as Seged, that have been passed down through the generations of Beita Israel. The Qessotch, or religious leaders, are as widely revered and respected as the great rabbis in each community, passing the Jewish customs through storytelling and maintaining the few Jewish books and Torahs some communities were fortunate enough to have written in the liturgical language of Ge’ez.
Jewish Apathy. . .and its Defeat
The struggle to free the Beita Israel was not fought solely against the Ethiopian government. Much like some timid Jewish leaders during the Holocaust, some recent Jews sought to prevent a shanda fur de goyim (an embarrassment in front of the non-Jews) by not stirring up waves over Ethiopian Jewry.
The history of the Beita Israel’s rescue is at times open to debate regarding the heroes of the Ethiopian Jewry movement. As with many struggles to free oppressed Jewry around the world, many advocated and vocalized opposition to those responsible for the lack of action on their behalf. Others, however, argued for a more quiet diplomacy, void of the public demonstrations and arrests that marked the struggle for Soviet Jewry.
Though over 8,000 Beita Israel managed to flee to Israel during his tenure, it was an Israeli official in charge of the Ethiopian Jews’ absorption who may best symbolize the insensitivity that an extreme minority of people once held. Yehuda Dominitz who served as Director General of the Jewish Agency’s Department of Immigration and Absorption, declared in 1980 that, "[taking] a Falasha (sic) out of his village, it’s like taking a fish out of water...I’m not in favor of bringing them [to Israel]." Dominitz also refused to allow his agency to rent buses so Ethiopian Jews in Israel could travel to Jerusalem to observe their ancient holiday of Seged (Dominitz eventually relented, but had the buses take the Beita Israel to Haifa instead of Jerusalem).
Decades earlier, Malkah Raymist, a writer for the World Zionist Organization wrote in 1956 in The Jewish Horizon (of the Hapoel Hamizrachi of America Movement) that, "the reasons [for not bringing Ethiopian Jews to Israel] are simple and weighty. On one hand, they are well off where they are, while their development and mental outlook is that of children; they could fall an easy prey of exploitation, if brought here without any preparation. On the other hand, being a backward element, they would be and it would take several years before they could be educated towards a minimum of progressive thinking."
In an American Association for Ethiopian Jews (MEJ) press release, the MEJ quoted its founder, Dr. Graenum Berger, as criticizing those who had any thought of ending rescue of the Beita Israel. Berger declared, "Not when Jews are dying...these revelations show once again that the policy of influencing factions of the government of Israel always have been against the immigration of the Ethiopian Jews. And, the same people who controlled their immigration then are controlling it now. These are the same people who gave instructions to the Israeli Embassy in Ethiopia (1956-1973) not to issue immigration visas to any Jew from’ Ethiopia."
Berger himself came under criticism for his outspoken remarks concerning the Israeli efforts to rescue the Beita Israel, showing that nobody was immune from the rhetoric surrounding the issue.
Interestingly, today in many Israeli Orthodox Rabbinical circles, the Falasha and their religious practices, are considered to be one of the purest groups of Jews. This is in large part because the Falashas long isolation from out side influences, and that they are one of a very few Jewish ethnic groups who can directly trace their lineage back, unbroken, for almost 3000 years.
Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto Me,
0 children of Israel, saith the Lord.
Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt,
And the Philistines from Caphtor,
And Aram (Syria) from Kir.
Amos 9: 7
As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu once said in 1998, in a speech on Yom Yerushali’im, "Ethiopian Jews are the Center Jewel in the crown of Judaism."
