Themes of Unity and Division in Beta Israel Identity Formation

Themes of Unity and Division in 

Beta Israel Identity Formation 

Allison Mickel 

Until the early twentieth century, in Ethiopia there lived a 

community of people practicing a form of pre-Talmudic Judaism in 

isolation from the larger Jewish world. Surrounded by the Ethiopian 

Christian ruling class since the fourth century, these people—who would 

later be known as the Beta Israel—faced constant pressure to convert and 

to dissolve their segregated, unified group. For the most part, however, 

they managed to resist and to preserve their adherence to the tenets of 

the Old Testament. 

Soon after the turn of the twentieth century, the Beta Israel 

confronted a similar tension from an altogether different source. 

Western Jews became aware of the plight of the Beta Israel and of 

their commitment to practicing Judaism despite centuries of what 

the West perceived as persecution. Part of the solution proposed 

by leaders of the global Jewish community was to educate the Beta 

Israel in contemporary Jewish practice to encourage assimilation. 

The Israeli government conducted two official operations—along 

with several covert ones—in order to move the entire Beta Israel 

population from Ethiopia to Israel by 1992. 1 Nevertheless, the Beta 

Israel remain an identifiable and separate sect within Israel and the 

worldwide Jewish community. 2 

The process of identity formation for the Beta Israel has not, 

however, been a constant battle against forces attempting to coerce 

their dissolution. Instead, it has involved a continual re-definition of 

the Beta Israel as a group, a response to changing historical conditions 

sometimes favoring integration, sometimes isolation. The matrix below 

summarizes the choices and pressures acting upon the Beta Israel. 

ALLISON MICKEL is a junior at the College of William and Mary majoring in 

Anthropology and minoring in Linguistics. She would like to thank Dr. Brad Weiss, 

Swem Library Interlibrary Loan, and her family. She plans to attend graduate school in 

Anthropology to become an archaeologist of the Middle East and Africa. Allison was also 

published in the Winter 2009 edition of the Monitor.

Themes of Unity and Division in Beta Israel Identity Formation 

"Division from Ethiopian Christian" "United with Ethiopian Christians" 

"Division from Western Judaism and Israel" "Unity with Western Judaism and Israel" 

Through determining the extent to which they located themselves 

within each sector defined on this matrix, the Beta Israel forged a sense 

of unity and a clear communal identity. Ultimately, the very act of group 

self-definition contributed to a sense of unity; in other words, as Beta Israel 

were forced to interact with the pressures outlined in the matrix above, 

they drew together and forged a continually greater sense of community 

over the centuries. Consequently, an examination of the particular ways in 

which these pressures acted upon the Beta Israel—and the unique ways in 

which the Beta Israel responded—will form the basis for an understanding 

of the nature and source of the Beta Israel’s distinction as a group, a 

distinctiveness which remains independent and identifiable even today. 

Division from Ethiopian Christians 

In some ways, the Beta Israel defined their identity by rendering 

the surrounding Christian community as a definitive “other.” 3 Indeed, one 

of the prevailing theories about Beta Israel’s origins maintains that when 

Aksumite King Ezana declared Christianity the official religion of Aksum, 

many people resisted his decree by converting to Judaism. 4 Over time, those 

who disagreed with either the religious tenets of Ethiopian Orthodoxy or 

the politics of the state converted to Judaism and joined the evolving group 

of Beta Israel. 5 This hypothesis implies that the foundation of Beta Israel 

identity relies almost exclusively on a shared disagreement with the stances 

of the Ethiopian Christian dominant discourse. 

In comparison, the Kemant, a group whose religious practices 

were nearly identical to those of the Beta Israel, practiced a general 

policy of acquiescence to their Christian rulers, gradually becoming 

integrated into the Ethiopian Orthodox population; now, unlike 

the Beta Israel, they are no longer a separately identifiable group. 6 

By resisting Christian conventions both religiously and politically, 

the congregation which later became the Beta Israel distinguished 

themselves as an entity separate from their Christian neighbors who 

composed the majority of Ethiopian society. 

7

8 The Monitor - Summer 2010 

Of course, rebelling against the status quo came with consequences 

which exacerbated the schism between Ethiopian Christians and the 

Beta Israel. The dissenters’ resistance turned militant, and a prolonged 

series of conflicts were fought between the state and the rebel groups. 

In the 1620s, the separatists lost a definitive battle and the king revoked 

their right to own land, forcing the now-landless Beta Israel to take on 

the stigmatized artisan jobs Christians refused, including blacksmithing, 

weaving, and pottery. 7 By the seventeenth century, the Beta Israel 

occupied a well-defined caste which was disparaged by the majority of 

society, but which was nevertheless integral to its functioning. 8 Up to 

the time of their immigration to Israel in the late twentieth century, the 

Beta Israel still engaged in these scorned crafts and still belonged to this 

marginalized caste. 9 In this way, the Beta Israel became segregated from 

the Christians around them, not only through their religious and political 

views, but also through their socioeconomic status. 

Moreover, the Ethiopian Christians’ view of the Beta Israel 

was not limited to feelings of superiority: they feared the Beta Israel 

and considered them both evil and dangerous. 10 The Jewish smith was 

viewed as a direct descendant of the blacksmith who forged the nails 

used to crucify Jesus Christ. 11 In fact, in the Ethiopian narrative of the 

crucifixion, Jews disguised as hyenas drove Jesus out of his safe hiding 

place, as the Jewish smith provided the nails to fasten him to the cross, 

and they saw the Beta Israel’s Passover sacrifice of the Pascal lamb as a 

contemporary celebratory reenactment of the crucifixion. 12 

Ethiopian Christians attached other, more superstitious beliefs 

to the professions of blacksmithing and pottery. 13 Allegedly, blacksmiths 

and potters—and by association, Beta Israel overall—transformed into 

hyenas at night and devoured cadavers, or even children. 14 The Beta 

Israel were said to have buda, the evil eye, and making eye contact with 

them could have disastrous consequences. 15 According to Ethiopian 

Christians, a Beta Israel would use even a moment of eye contact to 

enter a Christian’s body, drink his blood, and eat his entrails, or to turn 

him into a hyena or a stone—a fear so potent that when Ethiopian 

Jews were painted, they were depicted in profile so one could enjoy the 

painting without risking possession or infection by the buda. 16 Thus he 

rift between Ethiopian Christians and Jews played out in a tangible way,


as the Christians sought to protect themselves from the buda through 

physical separation, sometimes taking even more drastic measures to 

repel the buda—such as lighting a fire to produce smoke. 17 

Christians in Ethiopia were not alone in pursuing physical separation. 

The Beta Israel considered Christians impure and held themselves apart in 

often extreme ways. According to the tenets of Ethiopian Judaism, a Beta 

Israel could never invite a Christian into his home. 18 They considered it 

unclean to come into physical contact with a Christian or in some cases even 

to hold a conversation with one; in the event that this happened, a Beta Israel 

would have to wash their bodies and clothes in running water. 19 In order 

to pay the Beta Israel their wages, Christian employers or clientele would 

put the money into a dish of water or animal droppings, out of which the 

Beta Israel could remove the money without risking ritual contamination. 20 

Segregation continued after death, as Christians and Jews had separate 

cemeteries in Ethiopia. 21 The maintenance of physical distance, enacted by 

both Ethiopian Christians and Jews, formed a key aspect of determining 

Beta Israel identity in opposition to the Christian “other.” 

Underpinning the material separation were ideological and religious 

boundaries between the Ethiopian Christians and the Beta Israel. Despite the 

fact that the Beta Israel share most of their texts with the Ethiopian Orthodox 

church, they maintain that the religions are undeniably distinct in important 

ways. 22 They often cite their dietary restrictions as an example of this; unlike 

Christians, Ethiopian Jews refuse to eat meat that runs pink, and will only 

consume the flesh of an animal which has been slaughtered according to the 

strictures detailed in the Old Testament. 23 Furthermore, the Beta Israel considered 

Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity to border on polytheism and idolatry. 24 

Where religious practices seem similar, both sides have often proved 

eager to delineate the nuanced differences. For example, the Beta Israel 

performed a ceremony called the arde’et, in which a child was immersed 

in water as a blessing was said over him; in describing this practice to 

outsiders, Beta Israel are consistently quick to remark that the ritual shared 

no similarity to the Christian practice of baptism. 25 Similarly, both the 

Ethiopian Jews and Christians celebrated the holy day of Saint Michael— 

for a long time, on the same day. The Ethiopian Christians, however, 

objected to sharing the date with the Jews, and forced them to observe the 

holiday according to a lunar calendar instead of the solar one. 26 

9


In these ways, both the Ethiopian Jews and the Christians 

contributed to the construction of a system of seemingly impermeable 

boundaries and non-negotiable differences between the two groups. 

These distinctions were expressed in both abstract and concrete ways, 

from religious views to prohibitions on conversations and eye contact. 

When they played into and emphasized these practices and beliefs 

that highlighted the schism between the Beta Israel and the Ethiopian 

Orthodox Church, Ethiopian Jews located themselves—as a coherent 

population—in opposition to the Christian “other,” thereby heightening 

their sense of internal group unity. Yet sometimes these boundaries were 

breached, similarities rather than differences were accentuated, and the 

rift between the communities did not seem so extreme. At these times, 

Beta Israel identity was determined in an explicitly different way. 

Unity with Ethiopian Christians 

In many ways, Ethiopian Christianity and Ethiopian Judaism 

are more similar than they are different, and the Beta Israel have, at 

particular historical junctures, laid claim to these similarities rather 

than their differences from Ethiopian Christians. Their religious 

system developed in Ethiopia, without input from Jewish groups of 

other areas, and several scholars have argued that the religious practice 

of the Beta Israel resembles that of Ethiopian Orthodox Church more 

than it does that of globally recognizable Judaism. 27 Their religious 

leaders were referred to by the same terms, their prayer houses shared 

architectural similarities, they employed the same musical instruments 

in their services, and they celebrated similar life stage ceremonies. 28 

Both the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Beta Israel liturgical books 

are in Ge’ez, and are derived from the same sources. 29 To describe 

the commonalities between their belief systems would require nearendless 

space, but included convictions as far-ranging as the coming 

of a messiah called Tewodros, individual immortality in the afterlife, 

and the existence of zar spirits which could possess individuals and 

cause illness. 30 

Furthermore, the groups’ origins stories highlight further shared 

elements between the traditions. Ethipian Christians used the Kebra 

Negast, which told the story of Menilek I, as proof that God had decided


the Jews were unworthy of the heavenly Zion and had shifted His divine 

attention to Ethiopia and the Christian movement there as the new hope 

for humanity’s redemption. 31 By asserting their relation to the same legend, 

albeit employing a different interpretive scheme, the Beta Israel drew a 

connection between their history and that of the Ethiopian Christian elite. 32 

In this process, they appear to be smoothing out some of the boundaries so 

stringently constructed between themselves and the Christian community. 

Instead of defining themselves in opposition to Ethiopian Orthodoxy, here 

they were defining themselves in terms of their shared history with it. 

Without a doubt, this shared history was extensive. In 1270, the 

Ethiopian Christian state experienced a revival, and renewed its proselytizing 

efforts. 33 Those who disagreed with its methods and theological emphases 

formed rebel communities, similar to those which had been forming in 

opposition to the dominant Christian church since the fourth century, only 

this time the dissident groups included some who identified as Ethiopian 

Christians. 34 Beta Israel, when interviewed, attribute their inability to speak 

or understand Hebrew to this intermingling, and Quirin claims that the 

Beta Israel could not be properly identified as such until this historical fusion 

occurred. 35 At least in some respects, then, Beta Israel identity formulation 

relies upon a lack of separation from Christian society. It depends in certain 

ways and at certain times on interaction between the communities. 

Additionally, while theoretically contact was proscribed between the 

groups, in practice this was only moderately observed. In some urban areas, 

such as Gondar, people of diverse backgrounds were forced to work together 

frequently; in these areas, the Beta Israel often observed their extreme 

religious practices less rigorously. 36 They even began to break out of their 

socioeconomic caste: men began to work as carpenters, masons, and soldiers, 

while women found employment as paint-makers and church-decorators. 37 

More widely, Beta Israel and Ethiopian Christians employed 

creative strategies to permit frequent and intensive interaction. In order 

to circumvent restrictions on physical contact, freshly cut branches woven 

together were used as buffers that could be touched simultaneously by 

both Christians and Jews as they worked together, and the two would 

often converse while separated by a fence. 38 In order to resolve questions 

of dietary restrictions, Jews would often fashion simple clay cups in 

which to serve coffee to their Christian neighbors, who would discard or 

11


keep the cup after using it. 39 The taboo against inviting Christians into 

a Jewish home seems to have been seldom observed in practice, despite 

cumbersome complications of eating together, and some sources attest 

even to intermarriage between Beta Israel and Ethiopian Christians. 40 

In addition, the economic relationship between the Christians 

and the Jews made them indispensible to each other. Christians, for 

example, milked the cows belonging to the Beta Israel on the Sabbath, 

and kept the milk which was forbidden to the Jews by Old Testament 

law—performing a necessary service, as leaving a dairy cow’s udder 

full of milk can lead to infection. 41 Ethiopian Christians performed 

other duties which the Jews considered to be impure, such as bearing 

the corpses of Beta Israel on a stretcher to the cemetery and laying the 

body in the grave. 42 In describing this service, Beta Israel interviewed 

by Salamon emphasized their great dependence on the Christians who 

carried the body. 43 Evidently, the Beta Israel themselves chose to portray 

the Christians as having an integral role within Beta Israel society. 

Moreover, while only Christians could own land, they frequently 

turned to Beta Israel religious leaders to pray for rain and for the fertility of 

the fields, even imploring them to perform sacrifices—an anathema in the 

Ethiopian Orthodox Church. 44 Ethiopian Jews took on the crafts stigmatized 

by Ethiopian Christians and Muslims, and crafts which were imperative to 

the functioning of Ethiopian society despite the fear and hatred associated 

with them. The Beta Israel did not shy from reminding Christians of the 

symbiotic nature of their relationship; as wedding gifts, Jews often presented 

knives—something only a Beta Israel blacksmith could make—to Christian 

newlyweds as an implicit reminder of their mutual dependence. 45 Christians 

offered live sheep to convey a corresponding message. 46 

The similarities in religious practice between the Ethiopian 

Orthodox Church and the Beta Israel and the two groups’ willingness— 

even eagerness—to modify their rules for separation signify that what 

came to define a “Beta Israel” was not simply the ability to establish and 

maintain isolation from the Christian community. Rather, a Beta Israel 

was also characterized by insinuating himself inextricably within the fabric 

of Ethiopian society. This involved recognizing similarities between the 

Christian elite, and laying claim to these commonalities, as well as forging 

a symbiotic socioeconomic relationship with Ethiopian Christians. A


byproduct of this process was a certain degree of identification with 

the Christians, exemplified nowhere more clearly than in Asher Naim’s 

anecdote of Beta Israel women who descended from an aircraft scheduled 

to depart for Israel and clung to a pair of Ethiopian women whom the 

Israeli government had determined ineligible to immigrate (in other 

words, non-Jewish women). 47 The Beta Israel cried that the women were 

part of their family and that they refused to depart without them. In the 

end, the women were allowed onboard the plane and into Israel. 

Underlying this anecdote, as well, is an implicit story regarding 

the meeting of Western Jews with the Beta Israel. Out of this interaction 

arose a great deal of discussion in the global Jewish community about what 

it means to be a Jew, and what precisely constitutes Judaism. A similar 

reaction occurred within Beta Israel society, as they struggled to situate 

themselves both within the larger Jewish discourse and outside of it. 

Unity with Western Judaism and Israel 

As the global Jewish community and the Beta Israel became 

increasingly aware of each other’s existence in the twentieth century, both 

sides attempted to define the Beta Israel within the wider Jewish world, 

and especially with respect to the nascent Jewish state of Israel. The 

official stance that Israel took on the origin of the Beta Israel, allowing 

them to become Israeli citizens under the Law of Return, was that they 

were ethnic Jews descended from ancient Israelites—specifically, the lost 

tribe of Dan. 48 This is also the story most modern-day Ethiopian Jews in 

Israel tell regarding their own origins, thereby validating their position as 

Israelis and rooting it in the ethos of ancient history. 49 

The very name “Beta Israel” assets an Israeli identity This population 

of Jews has been called by many appellations throughout history, such as 

“Kayla” and “Falasha,” both of which are now considered derogatory and 

politically incorrect. 50 In fact, the term “Jew” is an insult in Ethiopia as well— 

yet the Beta Israel now accept “Ethiopian Jew” as an acceptable label, perhaps 

in an effort to associate themselves with the greater Jewish community. 51 

The Beta Israel’s felt connection to Israel is much more far-reaching 

than solely choosing a moniker with “Israel” in the title. David Kessler goes 

so far as to contend that in all of world Jewry, “no section of the people has 

a stronger attachment to the Holy Land than the Jews of Ethiopia.” 52 

13


The Beta Israel’s interest in Jerusalem is evident from an extremely 

early time in their history. 53 The key events of the Kebra Negast—a unique 

Ethiopian document—take place in Jerusalem, and all the main characters, 

the founders of Judaism in Ethiopia, either journey to or reside in the 

Old City. 54 Later, the nineteenth century witnessed a millennial “back 

to Jerusalem” movement in Ethiopia, in which a group of Beta Israel 

attempted—unsuccessfully—to reach Jerusalem through Sudan. 55 The Beta 

Israel who tell this story today describe the venture as valiant and righteous, 

yet another example of the Beta Israel’s well-deserved place in Israeli society. 

In fact, despite the way that the Beta Israel’s exodus was framed as 

an escape from genocide and persecution, the Beta Israel now deny that an 

unhappy life in Ethiopia was the reason for the desire to leave. In fact, the 

Beta Israel and humanitarian groups emphasized famine, illness, war, and 

persecution by Christians while emergency evacuations were under way 

in the 1980’s and 1990’s. 56 Yet now the Beta Israel name one particular 

common reason why it was essential for them to exit Ethiopia: they all 

wanted to go to Zion. 57 As stated by Zimna Berhane, an Ethiopian-Israeli 

centrally implicated in the success of Operation Solomon, “[a]ll real 

Falashas want to go to Jerusalem.” 58 Spoken in this way, it would seem that 

the condition of being a Beta Israel necessarily involves a desire to make 

aliyah and to reconnect with this center of global Judaism. 

Lest it seem that Beta Israel were interested only in a pilgrimage 

to Jerusalem, or even in a direct transposing of their sect, unchanged, into 

an Israeli context, evidence suggests that this narrative is incorrect. By 

several accounts, the Beta Israel appear to desire assimilation into Israeli 

society and the global Jewish community. Zimna, in Asher Naim’s 2003 

account of Operation Solomon’s coming to fruition, proudly narrates 

the moment when he began to “think like an Israeli” and when he “knew 

what it was like to be an Israeli;” he says that after his experience in Israel, 

he wanted to marry an Israeli girl, and to join the army would “make 

[him] a complete Israeli.” 59 

Naim also describes the procedure practiced by the Beta Israel in 

Ethiopia, called a clitoridectomy—the surgical removal of the clitoris. 

He expressed his horror at the practice, along with his certainty that it 

would be entirely abandoned once the Beta Israel began their new life 

in Israel. 60 By 2005, his prediction seems to have come true. 61


The Beta Israel’s eagerness to fit seamlessly into wider Jewish society 

manifests itself even more visibly in their belief, widely espoused before 

their mass immigration, that upon arrival in Israel, the skin of the real Jews 

among them would turn white. 62 They would then be seen as recognizable 

and legitimate members of the established Jewish community—which was 

evidently a valuable and desirable aspect of being a Beta Israel. 

In telling their own history, the Beta Israel draw upon themes and 

language common throughout Jewish history, both ancient and modern. By 

characterizing their time in Ethiopia as an exile from the Jewish homeland, 

they depict an experience felt by Jews as wide-ranging as the biblical Jewish 

slaves in Egypt to contemporary Diaspora Jews in Europe and the Americas. 

Exile is a leitmotif in Jewish cultural identity. 63 Likewise, the European 

memory of Jewish persecution has served as a source of cohesion between Beta 

Israel and Western Jews. 64 Beta Israel have described oppressive Ethiopian 

rulers as “Hitlers” and “Nazis,” and massacres of Beta Israel they have called 

“pogroms” or even “Shoahs.” 65 The parallels emphasized by the Beta Israel 

include events as pertinent to the modern Jewish experience as the Arab- 

Israeli conflict; Salamon’s consultants often used analogies from relations 

between Israel and the Arab world to concretize Ethiopian politics. 66 

Yet the placement of Beta Israel identity as firmly within the context 

of world Judaism was not only a pointed effort on the part of the Beta Israel. 

External forces encouraged this process. In the nineteenth century, European 

groups became interested in rescuing the Ethiopian Jews from the pressure 

to convert presented by Protestant missions active in Ethiopia at the time. 67 

One of the major individual proponents of this effort was Jacques Faitlovich, 

who asserted that the most effective way to save the Ethiopian Jews from 

conversion, and from degradation of their practices, was to educate them 

in the ways of post-Talmudic Western Judaism. 68 In order to help them 

conform their ways to Western practices, he brought young Beta Israel to 

and from Israel to become educated in rabbinical law, and to disseminate 

their knowledge to the Ethiopian Jews. 69 Faitlovich felt that part of his job 

was to reassure the Beta Israel by making sure they knew they weren’t the 

only Jews left in the world—as well as to portray them as something familiar 

to the Western world. 70 By the time he was engaged in this work, famine 

and oppression had forced the Beta Israel to give up some of their more 

prohibitive laws, and shaping their practices into something more normative 

15


could not have been a more difficult endeavor. 71 Indeed, by 1950, the Beta 

Israel liturgical calendar had begun to incorporate postbiblical holidays such 

as Chanukah, which they had not observed previously. 72 

The pressure to conform did not dissipate with the rabbinate’s ruling 

that the Beta Israel were ethnically Jewish. As the Beta Israel gathered in Addis 

Ababa to prepare for departure for Israel, schools run by American and Israeli 

groups preached against behaviors which were a reality in Ethiopian society, 

such as corporal punishment in schools and physical violence against women. 73 

They also advocated for Western hygiene and medicine, and they re-educated 

children to tell time in a Western manner. 74 Once even in Israel, the Beta Israel 

faced compulsion to behave differently in order to be considered as part of the 

global Jewish world. The North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry set 

up after-school programs for Beta Israel children where they played volleyball—a 

game which originated in Massachusetts—and Hebrew video games. 75 

As well-intentioned as they might have been, external sources can be 

held accountable for a great deal of Beta Israel’s identification with the global 

Jewish community. After all, the diplomats involved in effecting the release 

of the Beta Israel from Ethiopia called the project the “family unification 

proposal.” 76 Often, the Beta Israel accepted the call to assimilate. In some 

ways, too, the Beta Israel’s internal conception of their own identity has long 

highlighted their connection to Israel and the wider community of Jewry. Yet 

sometimes the Beta Israel have separated themselves from worldwide Jewish 

culture and have found it necessary to establish boundaries between themselves 

and Western Jews. The times and ways in which they have done this depend, 

like all identity formation processes, on dynamic historical circumstances. 

Division from Western Judaism and Israel 

The Beta Israel’s experience once in Israel gave them great 

incentive to highlight the distinctions between their identity and that of 

Israelis or other Western Jews. They frequently felt unwelcome in their 

new home, forcing them to turn inward and to justify their continued 

isolation by conceiving of their own identity to highlight the ways in 

which they differed from the community which refused to accept them. 

As the Israeli rabbinate considered whether the Beta Israel could 

be regarded as real Jews, they seized upon criteria which were seldom an 

issue when Jewish people from other regions attempted to make aliyah.


Beta Israel, for example, were accused of bastardizing the Jewish race 

through intermarriage with Ethiopian non-Jews, as evidenced by their skin 

color and physical features. 77 Not only was this insulting because official 

Beta Israel religion prohibited marriage with non-Jews, but also because 

almost no other Diaspora Jews seeking to return were held accountable 

for potentially contaminating the Jewish lineage through intermarriage. 78 

Additionally, after the Ethiopian Jews were declared to be real Jews, the 

rabbinate declared in 1985 that all Beta Israel male immigrants had to 

undergo a ritual called hatafat dam b’rit—a token circumcision in which 

the penis is nicked and a drop of blood is offered to God. 79 The requirement 

was lifted in the face of vehement protestation against its inherent prejudice: 

the Beta Israel had always practiced circumcision for male children on the 

eighth day after birth, in accordance with Jewish law. 80 

Perhaps the most publicly scandalous offense came in January 1996, 

when Ronael Fisher published an exposé in Maariv revealing that all blood 

collected from Ethiopian Jews during a nationwide blood drive had secretly 

been thrown away. 81 The government cited the high AIDS rate among 

Ethiopian Jews as its justification, but the Beta Israel were outraged. They 

perceived an unfathomable incongruity in the expectation that young Beta 

Israel would join the army and be willing to die for a country that didn’t 

think their blood was clean enough to save the lives of its citizens. 82 

The reminders that they were viewed as separate from other Jews 

of the world were continuous, often coming from sources other than 

the Israeli government. Russian Jews were entering the country en masse 

around the same time as the Ethiopian Jews, and the Beta Israel observed 

as they received much more welcoming support from the Israeli people 

than the Beta Israel were experiencing. The Russians’ Judaism was never 

called into question, and they seemed to have no trouble finding jobs 

and affordable housing in safe areas. 83 Young Ethiopian Jews, by contrast, 

were sent to boarding schools designed to suit the needs of children 

with family and behavioral problems; as a result, they found themselves 

surrounded by peers who were often hostile, bullying them and calling 

them kushi, the Hebrew slang equivalent of “nigger.” 84 The Beta Israel 

turned clannish in response; instead of repeatedly and self-defeatingly 

trying to integrate with their antagonizers, they set themselves apart and 

emphasized their own exclusivity. 85 

17


Segregation was sometimes promoted in less decidedly 

xenophobic ways. As an illustration, many groups seeking the 

advancement of the Beta Israel in Israeli society suggested the establishment 

of “traditional Ethiopian villages” where Beta Israel sculptors would 

produce and sell figurines advertised as traditional Ethiopian art. 86 

The creation and vending of these figurines—an industry kindled by 

American agencies—began as a way to enter into the tourism market in 

Israel. 87 Initially, the statuettes featured symbols conventionally associated 

with Judaism, such as the Torah scrolls and the magen David, but the 

longer these sculptors have lived in Israel, the more they have begun to 

incorporate more quintessentially Ethiopian motifs into their artwork. 88 

In their own self-expression, the Beta Israel seem to be interested in 

conveying a link to their Ethiopian heritage—a very different principle 

than hoping that their skin would turn white once they reached Zion. 

Historically, maintaining a connection to their unique past had 

always been important to the Beta Israel. In their interaction with groups 

like the American Association for Ethiopian Jews (AAEJ), many Beta Israel 

repeatedly asked the relief workers if they were Jewish, and refused to accept 

food from them if the answer was no. 89 Even as conditions worsened in 

Addis Ababa, where the Beta Israel awaited departure to Israel, and some 

hadn’t eaten for several days, they often refused to eat the food offered by 

humanitarian organizations until they received sufficient proof that it was 

kosher. 90 The Beta Israel in Addis regularly declined medical attention, as 

well, despite the relief agencies’ best efforts to convince them of the efficacy 

of Western medicine. 91 The death rate reached as high as forty Beta Israel a 

month, but because their religious tenets categorized injections and pills as 

compromises in their purity laws, they frequently rejected treatment from 

the organizations stationed in Addis. 92 

Understandably, the Beta Israel have struggled with the transplant 

of their culture. They have had to adjust their religious practices to fit a 

new urban landscape and new social expectations. Reactions from the 

Israeli and Western Jewish populations have not eased the transition. 

Instead, they have been reminded, repeatedly and often callously, that 

they don’t fit in. In response, Beta Israel have often emphasized that 

which makes them different from wider Jewish society; this effort, 

as well, may form part of the cause for their segregation from and by


the Jewish community. Part of the Beta Israel’s identity formation has 

involved interacting with this feedback system and maintaining a level 

of distinction from Western Judaisms. The process of determining, as a 

group, how much they are willing and able to assimilate into mainstream 

Jewish culture has brought the Beta Israel together and has strengthened 

their sense of unity. Facing the prejudices enacted against them, as well 

as the temptation to relinquish their more singular beliefs, has intensified 

the Beta Israel’s feelings of community as they determine what it means 

to be a Beta Israel in the context of modern Judaism. 

Conclusion 

From the fourth century to the present, the Beta Israel have 

found themselves living within two larger societies that have marked 

them simultaneously as both marginal and integral. In Ethiopia, they 

were feared and despised, forced to take on artisanal jobs that segregated 

them into an untouchable socioeconomic caste. Yet by assuming these 

taboo roles, the Beta Israel established themselves as an irreplaceable 

part of Ethiopian society. At times, they even breached the physical 

and intangible boundaries with Ethiopian Christians, recognizing 

the similarities between the groups. Still, the construction of their 

identity as dependent on a relationship with Ethiopian Christians was 

never complete, and the Beta Israel frequently sought to reinforce the 

boundaries between the populations, both ideologically and physically. 

They encountered a similar tension again when they began to 

interact with Western Jewish society. Europeans, Israelis, and Americans 

pressured the Ethiopian Jews to conform to a more normative and 

widely-practiced form of Judaism, and the Beta Israel were not opposed 

to this concept. They had always seen themselves as part of a wider Jewish 

movement. Despite these feelings of unity, however, the Beta Israel 

continued to sustain many of their practices and beliefs which make the 

community distinct from the Jewish mainstream. 

Four extremes were therefore available to the Beta Israel: 

self-identification with Ethiopian Christianity, self-identification 

with Western Judaism and Israel, self-identification in opposition to 

Ethiopian Christianity, and self-identification in opposition to Western 

Judaism and Israel. The Beta Israel refused to situate themselves 

19


entirely at any one of these poles. Together, they faced the benefits and 

repercussions of presenting themselves in any one of these particular 

ways. The process of determining where they saw themselves in relation 

to wider societies and changing historical circumstances clarified the 

complexities of what it meant to be a Beta Israel, giving rise to the 

distinctive identity they assert today. 

Notes 

1 

Steven Kaplan, “The Invention of Ethiopian Jews: Three Models (Trois approches de 

l’”invention” des Juifs ethiopiens),” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 33.132: 645. 

2 

Steven Kaplan, “The Falasha and the Stephanite: An Episode from ‘Gadla Gabra Masih’,” 

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 48.2: 4. 

3 

Hagar Salamon, The Hyena People (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 4. 

4 

James Quirin, “Caste and Class in Historical North-West Ethiopia: The Beta Israel 

(Falasha) and Kemant, 1300-1990,” The Journal of African History 39.2 (1998): 7. See also 

David Kessler, The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia (New York: Schocken Books, 

1985): 18. 

5 

Steven Kaplan, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia (New York: New York University 

Press, 1992a): 32. See also Kessler, 1985, 18. 

6 

Quirin, 1998. 

7 

Steven Kaplan and Chaim Rosen, “Created In Their Own Image: A Comment on Beta 

Israel Figurines,” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 36.141 (1996): 172. 

James Quirin, The Evolution of the Ethiopian Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania 

Press, 1992): 4, 30. 

Kaplan, 1992a, 68, 96. 

8 

Quirin, 1992, 30. 

9 Kessler, 1985, 11. 

10 Asher Naim, Saving the Lost Tribe: The Rescue and Redemption of Ethiopian Jews (New 

York: Ballantine Books, 2003), 119. See also Salamon, 1999; Quirin, 1992, 5; Kaplan, 

1992a, 111. 

11 Salamon, 1999, 8. 

12 Ibid, 38-39 

13 Kay Kaufman Shelemay, “A Quarter-Century in the Life of a Falasha Prayer,” Yearbook 

of the International Folk Music Council 10 (1978): 84. See also Kessler, 1985, 11; Quirin 

1992, 34, 142; Kaplan, 1992a: 104. 

14 Naim, 2003, 119; Quirin, 1992, 5, 111. 

15 Salamon, 1999; Kessler, 1985, 12, 90; Quirin, 1992, 5, 141; Kaplan, 1992a, 111; Naim, 

2003, 119. 

16 

Quirin, 1992, 111, 141. 

17 

Salamon, 1999, 37. 

18 

Stephen Spector, Operation Solomon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005): 20. 

19 

Kessler 1985, 70; Salamon, 1999, 18; Quirin 1992, 5; Naim, 2003, 138. 

20 

Salamon, 1999, 20; Quirin, 1992, 5. 

21 

Salamon, 1999, 18.


22 

Kaplan, 1993, 648. 

23 

Quirin 1992, 190-191; Kessler, 1985: 69-70. 

24 

Wolf Leslau, “A Falasha Religious Dispute,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish 

Research 16: 82; see also Salamon, 1999, 90; Kaplan, 1992a, 111. 

25 


26 

Kaplan, 1992a, 110; Quirin, 1992, 150. 

27 

Kessler, 1985, 15, 66; Kaplan, 1992a, 72; Quirin, 1992, 6. 

28 

Kay Kaufman Shelemay, “Historical Ethnomusicology: Reconstructing Falasha Liturgical 

History,” Ethnomusicology 24.2 (1980): 245; Kessler, 1985, 68-72; Quirin, 1992, 6, 16, 

68, 151; Kaplan, 1992a, 17. 

29 

Kessler, 1985, 53; Quirin, 1992, 6. 

30 

Quirin, 1992, 68, 151-152 

31 

Naim, 2003, xvii; Kaplan, 1992a, 22; Kessler, 1985, 12; Quirin, 1992, 18. 

32 

Kaplan, 1993, 652. 

33 


34 

Steven Kaplan, “Categories and the Study of World Religions in Ethiopia: The Case of 

the Beta Israel (Falasha),” Journal of Religion in Africa 22.3 (1992b): 215. 

35 

Quirin, 1992, 40; Leslau, 1946, 79. 

36 

Kaplan, 1992a, 99, 103-104; Quirin, 1992, 89. 

37 

Kessler, 1985, 104; Kaplan and Rosen, 1996, 173; Quirin, 1992, 100, 102; Quirin, 

1998, 205; Kaplan, 1992a, 100. 

38 

Salamon, 1999, 20. 

39 

Ibid. 

40 

Quirin, 1998, 207; Kaplan, 1992b, 21; Salamon, 1999, 41. 

41 

Salamon, 1999, 28. 

42 

Ibid, 48. 

43 

Ibid. 

44 

Ibid, 60-61. 

45 

Ibid, 41. 

46 

Ibid. 

47 

Naim, 2003, 223. 

48 

Ahmed Karadawi, “The Smuggling of the Ethiopian Falasha to Israel through Sudan,” 

African Affairs 90.358 (1991): 23; Spector, 2005, 195. 

49 

Kaplan, 1993, 652. 

50 

Quirin, 1992, 11; Kessler, 1985, 10. 

51 

Kaplan, 1992a, 165. 

52 

Kessler, 1985, 3. 

53 

Steven Kaplan, ”The Beta Israel (Falasha) Encounter with Protestant Missionaries: 

1860.1905” Jewish Social Studies 49.1 (1987): 38; Kessler, 1985, 111; Quirin 1992, 191. 

54 

Kessler, 1985, 37. 

55 

Leslau, 1946, 89; Kaplan, 1987, 39. 

56 

Spector, 2005, 42. 

57 

Ibid , 43. 

58 

Naim, 2003, 131. 

59 

Ibid, 139-140. 

60 

Ibid Naim, 2003, 163. 

61 

Spector, 2005, 66. 

62 

Salamon, 1999, 123. 

21


63 

Kessler, 1985, 3; Kaplan, 1993, 651. 

64 

Teshome G. Wagaw, “The International Political Ramifications of Falasha Emigration,” 

The Journal of Modern African Studies 29.4 (1991): 558; Kaplan, 1993, 651. 

65 

Spector, 2005, 87; Kaplan, 1993, 651. 

66 

Salamon, 1999, 13. 

67 

Kessler, 1985, 16; Quirin, 1992, 191; Shelemay, 1978, 84. 

68 

Quirin, 1992, 193; Kaplan, 1992a, 153. 

69 

Kessler, 1985, 133; Quirin, 1992, 197. 

70 

Kessler, 1985, 133; Kaplan, 1993, 649. 

71 

Kaplan, 1992a, 153. 

72 

Spector, 2005, 8. 

73 

Ibid, 64. 

74 

Ibid. 

75 

Spector, 2005, 56. 

76 

Naim, 2003, 71. 

77 

Quirin, 1992, 8; Kessler, 1985, 9, 17; Naim, 2003, 58. 

78 

Quirin, 1992, 5, 162. 

79 

Naim, 2003, 55-56. 

80 

Ibid. 

81 

Spector, 2005, 190; Naim, 2003, 252. 

82 

Ibid. 

83 

Naim, 2003, 253. 

84 

Ibid , 248. 

85 

Ibid. 

86 

Kaplan and Rosen, 1996, 175 

87 

Ibid, 173. 

88 

Ibid, 179. 

89 

Spector, 2005, 59. 

90 Ibid. 

91 Naim, 2003, 96. 

92 Ibid.

Themes of Unity and Division in Beta Israel Identity Formation

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?