The Beta Israel: Falasha in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century

by Steven Kaplan

...balanced and well informed...a striking piece of scholarship aimed at demythologizing the origins of the Ethiopian Falasha.
-Foreign AffairsKaplan's definitive treatment will be of interest to students and scholars of Jewish history, African history, and comparative religion, as well as anyone interested in Jewish affairs and the modern Middle East.
The Midwest Book ReviewKaplan's conceptualizations are judicious and clearly expressed...incisive and well documented... and provides essential background for the process of assimilation now taking lace in Israel.
-The International Journal of African Historical Studies
Kaplan's able interdisciplinary approach is of great value for persons interested in religion, civilization, and process of change.
-Religious Studies Review
Kaplan's well-written, lucid presentation make[s] this important, competent contribution accessible to all levels of readers. Highly recommended.ChoiceInsightful and thorough, a welcome contribution.Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Professor of Music, Harvard UniversityUndoubtedly the most detailed, most scholarly, and most dispassionate argument of Falasha history hitherto published. [T]his work deserves ... the most careful study by all those (and in particular in Israel) who have any practical or scholarly connection with the Beta Israel.
-- Edward UllendorffEmeritus Professor of Ethiopian Studies, University of LondonFellow of the British AcademyGiven Kaplan's facility with both written and oral sources, he is in a unique position to synthesize and reconcile the new historical findings of ethnographers with the written sources and differing conclusions of earlier historians and linguists. His work is insightful and thorough, a welcome contribution.
-- Kay Shelemay, Wesleyan University
The origin of the Black Jews of Ethiopia has long been a source of fascination and controversy. Their condition and future continues to generate debate. The culmination of almost a decade of research, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia marks the publication of the first book-length scholarly study of the history of this unique community.
In this volume, Steven Kaplan seeks to demythologize the history of the Falasha and to consider them in the wider context of Ethiopian history and culture. This marks a clear departure from previous studies which have viewed them from the external perspective of Jewish history. Drawing on a wide variety of sources including the Beta Israel's own literature and oral traditions, Kaplan demonstrates that they are not a lost Jewish tribe, but rather an ethnic group which emerged in Ethiopia between the 14th and 16th century. Indeed, the name, Falasha, their religious hierarchy, sacred texts, and economic specialization can all be dated to this period. Among the subjects the book addresses are their links with Ethiopian Christianity, the medieval legends concerning their existence, their wars with the Ethiopian emperors, their relegation to the status of a despised semi-caste, their encounters with European missionaries, and the impact of the Great Famine of 1888-1892.
Kaplan's definitive treatment will be of interest to students and scholars of Jewish history, African history, and comparative religion, as well as anyone interested in Jewish affairs and the modern Middle East.

Genres: Ethiopia, Africa, History

246 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1992

Reviews

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

remembering Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello, the Nobel Prize winning playwright and author, produced a play called, in English, "It's So If You Think It Is So". While this observation may seem far-fetched while reviewing a book about the Beta Israel of Ethiopia, I think the ultimate status of the Jews (or not-so- much-Jews) of that country bears some relationship to the title. Like the author, I don't want to get involved in the fairly useless question of whether or not the Beta Israel are bona fide Jews but merely point back to Pirandello's title.

I found this a most fascinating book and strongly recommend it to all those who are interested in 1) Jewish history, 2) Ethiopian history and 3) the process of religious formation over time. The legend of descent from Solomon and Sheba, or another legend of a 'lost tribe that wandered all the way to the highlands of the Horn of Africa' are here debunked. Kaplan tries to stick to the facts as we know them so far. Though there were Judaized elements of the population during the Aksum period (300-800 AD), when contacts with Jewish groups in South Arabia were common, there was no real tradition of Judaism. Groups of outsiders in the remoter parts of the highlands were called ayhud and these people adhered closely to some Old Testament traditions. However, the Christian Ethiopians were not far away from these traditions either. From the 1300s on, there is more information about the Beta Israel. They had powerful rulers, fought and traded with other groups in the Ethiopian culture area, and adopted many customs not found elsewhere in the Jewish world---monasticism, animal sacrifice, and purification rituals being three main ones. Were they Jews or only Judaized Ethiopian Orthodox ? That's the question I avoid. Kaplan follows the Beta Israel through their difficult history, up to the early 20th century. The people called themselves Jews (or rather, Israelites) and were called so by others. When Western Protestant missionaries found them in the 19th century, they induced considerable cultural confusion among the Beta Israel by denying that they were really Jewish. At the same time there were a few, first weak links with mainstream Jewry in Europe. Wars, loss of land rights, and finally a great famine brought the Beta Israel to a new low by 1900. A certain Faitlovitch tried to interest world Jewry in the plight of the Beta Israel and created a myth of their utter difference from the "primitive Africans" around them, leading to a campaign to save them. If we look at the whole story in terms of Christian vs Jew or a tussle between two religions, we miss, says Kaplan, the whole point of Beta Israel history, which must be seen as a part of Ethiopian history in which wars strictly between religions seldom loomed large, in which syncretism played a role, in which the Beta Israel lived always as a part--albeit often a low ranking part--of the society.
Though I was surprised at the number of typos in my edition, I can't say anything else negative about this most interesting book. Well-written, clear, well-organized. This has got to be THE book on the Beta Israel.

[David Waldron · Rating 4 out of 5]

An accessible evidence-based history of the Beta Israel, the Jews of Ethiopia.