A Jew On Ethiopia Street

A promising Ethiopian soccer star in Israel is courted by an American sports agent. The athlete is involved with another Ethiopian who risks being deported. Meanwhile, there is also a reckless, clandestine operation afoot to airlift one last group of Falasha Jews from Ethiopia to Israel. "In 1996, Israel announced a blood shortage and urged its citizens to give generously. The Falasha-Ethiopian Jews who were new immigrants and eager to embrace their spiritual homeland-turned out in record numbers. A newspaper report later revealed that all of the Ethiopian blood had been discarded, untested, because of a fear of AIDS and other diseases. The Ethiopians were humiliated, and the Israeli government, thrust into damage control, recognized that the people rescued from oppression from Northeast Africa (through airlift operations nobly named 'Moses' and 'Solomon') were now facing discrimination in the very state meant to be a safe harbor for all Jews. Israel's complex relationship with the Falasha (which literally means 'stranger') provides the foundation for A JEW ON ETHIOPIA STREET, Allan Havis's new play." -Caroline Palmer, American Theater "A play about the fascinating story of Ethiopian Jews." -Max Sparber, Citypages

This book reviews the status of Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews) through a most recent comprehensive research of the roots of Jewish Identity. The author argues that Jewishness is not determined by scientific and sociological techniques alone, but is a function of halakha (Jewish Law). Consequently, where, as here, "historical truth" is uncertain, it is "halakhic truth" which is definitive for Jews. All of these issues revolve around the crucial question "who is a Jew?"The upsurge of aliyah from Ethiopia reached its peak, as is well-known, with "Operation Moses" in 1984-1985, and with "Operation Solomon" in 1991, rescue airlifts that resonated around the globe. This immigration of 70,000, including the current return of the Falas Mura, has intensified debates on questions concerning the Law of Return.

Between 1977 and 1992, practically all Ethiopian Jews migrated to Israel. This mass move followed the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia and its ensuing economic and political upheavals, compounded by the brutality of the military regime and the willingness—after years of refusal—of the Israeli government to receive them as bona fide Jews entitled to immigrate to that country. As the sole Jewish community from sub-Sahara Africa in Israel, the Ethiopian Jews have met with unique difficulties. Based on fieldwork conducted over several years, For Our Soul describes the ongoing process of adjustment and absorption that the Ethiopian Jewish immigrants, also known as Falasha or Beta Israel, experienced in Israel.

At the end of 1984 and in May 1991 virtually the whole of the ancient black Jewish community of Ethiopia - known as the Falashas or Beta Israel - was transported to Israel in two massive secret airlifts. This drastic step was necessary because the situation of the approximately 50,000 people had become desperate. The only way to rescue them from intolerable conditions was to unite them with their co-religionists in the Promised Land where, throughout the centuries, they had longed to live. In the first two editions of this book David Kessler gave a brief outline of the history of these people from Biblical times and described their struggle against the lay and religious establishment for recognition as an authentic branch of the Jewish people. The airlifts of 1984 and 1991 were a vindication of their claim. This third, revised edition comprises the whole of the original volume and is enhanced by the addition of a new preface and an afterword which seek to reply to criticisms of the author's argument about the origins of the Falashas, and include some new thinking on the subject. Drawing on tradition and legend to reinforce his argument, the author again traces the source of the community to the Jewish settlements which existed in ancient Egypt (particularly at Elephantine on the Nile) and in the ancient Meroitic kingdom, in present-day Sudan, known in the Bible as Cush.

This is an ethnographic study of Ethiopian Jews, or Beta Israel, a few years after their migration from rural Ethiopia to urban Israel. For the Beta Israel, the most significant issue is not, as is commonly assumed, adaptation to modern society, but rather 'belonging' in their new homeland, and the loss of control they are experiencing over their lives and those of their children. Ethiopian Jewish immigrants resist those aspects of the dominant society which they dislike: they reject normative Jewish practices and uphold Beta Israel religious and cultural ones, ideologically counteract disparaging Israeli attitudes, develop strong ethnic bonds and engage in overt forms of resistance. The difficulties of the present are also overcome by creating a perfect past and an ideal future: in what the author calls 'the homeland postponed', all Jews will be united in a colour-blind world of material plenty and purity.