The history of the Jews in Ethiopia dates back millennia. The largest Jewish group in Ethiopia is the Beta Israel. Offshoots of the Beta Israel include the Beta Abraham and the Falash Mura, Ethiopian Jews who were converted to Christianity, some of whom have reverted to Judaism. Addis Ababa is home to a small community of Adeni Jews. Chabad also maintains a presence in Addis Ababa.
Historical Early history (325– 1270)
According to the Beta Israel tradition, the legendary Kingdom of Beta Israel, later called the Kingdom of Simien, was initially established after Ezana declared Christianity as the official religion of the Kingdom of Aksum. The inhabitants who practiced Judaism refused to convert to Christianity and began revolting; this group was referred to as "Beta Israel". Following a civil war between the Jewish population and the Christian population, the Beta Israel were said to have forged an independent state located in the Semien Mountains region and the Dembia region – situated to the north of Lake Tana and south of the Tekezé River. However, there is no evidence that directly support its existence, and its historicity is considered unlikely by scholars. Nothing in the historical record from the 6th to the 13th centuries, however, has allowed scholars to make anything more than very tentative hypotheses concerning the Jewish communities of that time.Kaplan, The Beta Israel, p. 408
According to Ethiopian legend, a Jewish Queen Judith signed a pact with the Agaw tribes which were pagans. Around 960, the large confederation led by Queen Judith, which included both forces of the Agaw tribes and the Beta Israel forces, invaded the capital city of Aksum, conquering and destroying it (including many churches and monasteries which were burned and destroyed) and imposed the Jewish rule over Aksum. However, legends surrounding a Jewish queen called Judith (Gudit) have been dismissed by scholars like Edward Ullendorff as without foundation in any historical facts.Kaplan, The Beta Israel, p. 500
According to Jewish traveler, Eldad ha-Dani, the Tribe of Dan established their own kingdom in Ethiopia, "They went by way of Egypt further down the upper Nile River and settled in Ethiopia, in East Africa. The Danites were great warriors, and after fighting many battles against native tribes, they established themselves securely, with a kingdom of their own." Marco Polo and Benjamin of Tudela also mention the existence of an Ethiopian Jewish community.
Christian dominance (1270–1855) The earliest recorded mention of the Beta Israel comes from the Royal Chronicle of Emperor Amda Seyon, who sent troops to pacify the northwest provinces of Semien, Tselemt, Tsegede and Wegara where the Beta Israel had been gaining prominence.Pankhurst, Borderlands, p. 79. He sent troops there to fight people "like Jews" (Geʽez ከመ:አይሁድ kama ayhūd).Steven Kaplan, "Betä Əsraʾel", in Siegbert von Uhlig, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A–C (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003), p. 553.
According to both Ethiopian written accounts and Beta Israel oral tradition, Emperor Yeshaq (1414–1429) began to exert religious pressure on the Beta Israel which sparked a revolt. Following the defeat of the rebellion, Yeshaq divided the territories of the Jews into three provinces, which were controlled by commissioners appointed by him. He reduced the Jews' social status below that of Christians and forced the Jews to convert or lose their land. It would be given away as rist, a type of land qualification that rendered it forever inheritable by the recipient and not transferable by the Emperor. Yeshaq decreed, "He who is baptized in the Christian religion may inherit the land of his father, otherwise let him be a Falāsī." This may have been the origin for the term "Falasha" (falāšā, "wanderer", or "landless person"). This term is considered derogatory to Ethiopian Jews.
In 1435, Elijah of Ferrara recounted meeting an Ethiopian Jew in Jerusalem in a letter to his children. The man told him of the ongoing conflict of his nation with the Christian Abyssinians; he relayed some of the principles of his faith, which, Ferrara concluded, balanced between Karaite and Rabbinical Judaism. His people were not familiar with the Talmud and did not observe Hanukkah, but their canon contained the book of Esther and they had an oral interpretation of the Torah. Ferrara further recorded that they had their own language, that the journey from their land lasted six months, and that the biblical Gozan river was found within their borders.
In the mid 15th century, Ethiopian missionaries began to carry out evangelization efforts in Seimen and Tselemt. Later on, the Beta Israel revolted against the Emperor Zara Yaqob (1434–1468) in the region of Seimen, this revolt was put down ruthlessly and many Ethiopian Jews in Seimen were massacred. The chronicler documenting the reign of Zara Yaqob even goes so far as to proudly bestow upon the Emperor the title "Exterminator of the Jews".
In the 16th century, the Chief Rabbi of Egypt, David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra (also called Radbaz, ca.1479–1573), proclaimed that in terms of halakha the Ethiopian Beta Israel community are ethnically Jewish.Mitchell Geoffrey Bard, From tragedy to triumph: the politics behind the rescue of Ethiopian Jewry, p. 19.
The Beta Israel is later mentioned in the Futuh al-Habasha, the history of the conquests of Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi. According to this source, Emperor Dawit II took refuge in a royal stronghold of Bahr Amba on the Simien Mountains, while besieging the stronghold, the Imam came across the Jews of Simien. The chronicler describes the encounter between the Imam and the Beta Israel:
After the death of Dawit II, the Beta Israel then switched their alliance and began supporting Emperor Gelawdewos against the Muslim invaders. The Christian Ethiopians did succeed eventually in defeating the Muslims and preventing Ahmed Gragn from conquering Ethiopia. The Beta Israel then maintained good relations with Gelawdewos until the end of his reign.
During the reign (1563–1597) of Emperor Sarsa Dengel, the Emperor launched a devastating campaign against the Beta Israel with the use of cannons that he recently captured from the Ottomans. While on this campaign, Sarsa Dengel learned that the Borana Oromo had invaded the provinces of Shewa, Wej, and Damot. Despite this, Sarsa Dengel refused to defend these territories against the Oromos and instead continued to focus his attention on the Beta Israel. This decision generated considerable frustration among his officials but the Emperor justified his action by stating: "It is better for me that I fight with the enemies of the blood of Jesus Christ [i.e. Jews] than go to fight against the Galla." The Ethiopian forces continued to pacify the Jews, culminating in the capture and execution of the Jewish rebel leader, Goshen. Following his death, many of the Beta Israel committed mass suicide.Weil, Shalva 2005 'Gweshan', in Siegbert Uhlig (ed.) Encyclopedia Aethiopica, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2: 940.
In 1614, the Jews of Seimen rebelled against the Emperor Susenyos I. By 1624, the revolt had been quelled, and the conclusive defeat of a subsequent uprising the following year marked the end of the political autonomy of the Beta Israel.Kaplan, "Betä Əsraʾel", Aethiopica, p. 554.
Gondar period (1632–1855) After the Beta Israel autonomy in Ethiopia ended in the 1620s, Emperor Susenyos I confiscated their lands and forcibly baptized others. In addition, the practice of any form of Jewish religion was forbidden in Ethiopia. As a result of this period of oppression, much traditional Jewish culture and practice was lost or changed.
Nonetheless, the Beta Israel community appears to have continued to flourish during this period. The capital of Ethiopia, Gondar, in Dembiya, was surrounded by Beta Israel lands. The Beta Israel served as craftsmen, masons, and carpenters for the Emperors from the 16th century onwards. Such roles had been shunned by Ethiopians as lowly and less honorable than farming. These accounts also recounted that some knowledge of Hebrew persisted among the people in the 17th century. For example, Manoel de Almeida, a Portuguese diplomat and traveller of the day, wrote that:
The isolation of the Beta Israel community in Ethiopia was also reported by the Scottish explorer James Bruce who visited Gondar in the 18th century: "The only copy of the Old Testament, which they have, is the translation in Geez, the same made use of by the Abyssinian Christians, who are the only scribes, and sell these copies to the Falasha Jews; and no controversy, or dispute about the text, has ever yet arisen between the professors of the two religions. They have no Ketubah, or various readings; they have never heard of Talmud, Targum, or Cabala; neither have they any fringes or ribband upon their garments; nor is there, as far as I could learn, one scribe among them."James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, p. 409.
The Beta Israel lost their relative economic advantage in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, during the Zemene Mesafint, a period of recurring civil strife. Although the capital was nominally in Gondar during this time period, the decentralization of government and dominance by regional warlords resulted in a decline and exploitation of Beta Israel. According to the early 19th century missionary Samuel Gobat, the Christians considered the Jews boudas, or sorcerers, and they often fell victim to marauding warlords, as Gobat reported "Their cattle are often taken from them. They carry no arms, either for attack or defense."Samuel Gobat, Journal of Three years' Residence in Abyssinia, 1851 (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), p. 263 During this period, the Jewish religion was effectively lost for some years, before being restored in the 1840s by Abba Widdaye, the preeminent monk of Qwara.
16th-century rabbinic view
Rabbi David ibn Zimra of Egypt (1479–1573), when asked about a certain black-skinned woman taken captive from Ethiopia (Judeo-Arabic: אל-חבאש) and sold to a Jew in Egypt (the woman claiming to be of Jewish descent), wrote of the impressions the Jews of Egypt had at that time of their Ethiopian counterparts who claimed Jewish descent:
...Lo! the matter is well-known that there are perpetual wars between the kings of Kush, which has three kingdoms; part of which belonging to the Ishmaelites, and part of which to the Christians, and part of which to the Israelites from the tribe of Dan. In all likelihood, they are from the sect of Sadok and Boethus, who are [now] called Karaites, since they know only a few of the biblical commandments, but are unfamiliar with the Oral Law, nor do they light the Sabbath candle. War ceases not from amongst them, and every day they take captives from one another..., s.v. Part VII, responsum # 9 (first printed in Livorno 1652; reprinted in Israel, n.d.) ()
In the same responsum, he concludes that if the Ethiopian Jewish community wished to return to rabbinic Judaism, they would be received and welcomed into the fold, just as the Karaites who returned to the teachings of the Rabbanites in the time of Rabbi Abraham ben Maimonides.
Modern history The contemporary history of the Beta Israel community begins with the reunification of Ethiopia in the mid-19th century during the reign of Tewodros II. At that time, the Beta Israel population was estimated at between 200,000 and 350,000 people.אהרן זאב אשכולי, ספר הפלשים, עמ' 7
Christian missions and the Rabbinical reformation