The Jews of Ethiopia

The Jews of Ethiopia PDF Author: Tudor Parfitt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134367678
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This book offers the results of the most recent research carried out in European and Israeli universities on Ethiopian Jews. With a special focus on Europe and the role played by German, English and Italian Jewish communities in creating a new Jewish Ethiopian identity, it investigates such issues as the formation of a new Ethiopian Jewish elite and the transformation of the identity from Ethiopian Falashas to the Jews of Ethiopia during the twentieth century.

The Jews of Ethiopia

The Jews of Ethiopia PDF Author: Tudor Parfitt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134367678
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This book offers the results of the most recent research carried out in European and Israeli universities on Ethiopian Jews. With a special focus on Europe and the role played by German, English and Italian Jewish communities in creating a new Jewish Ethiopian identity, it investigates such issues as the formation of a new Ethiopian Jewish elite and the transformation of the identity from Ethiopian Falashas to the Jews of Ethiopia during the twentieth century.

The Hyena People

The Hyena People PDF Author: Hagar Salamon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520923010
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
The Jews (Falasha) of northwestern Ethiopia are a unique example of a Jewish group living within an ancient, non-Western, predominantly Christian society. Hagar Salamon presents the first in-depth study of this group, called the "Hyena people" by their non-Jewish neighbors. Based on more than 100 interviews with Ethiopian immigrants now living in Israel, Salamon's book explores the Ethiopia within as seen through the lens of individual memories and expressed through ongoing dialogues. It is an ethnography of the fantasies and fears that divide groups and, in particular, Jews and non-Jews. Recurring patterns can be seen in Salamon's interviews, which thematically touch on religious disputations, purity and impurity, the concept of blood, slavery and conversion, supernatural powers, and the metaphors of clay vessels, water, and fire. The Hyena People helps unravel the complex nature of religious coexistence in Ethiopia and also provides important new tools for analyzing and evaluating inter-religious, interethnic, and especially Jewish-Christian relations in a variety of cultural and historical contexts.

Saving the Lost Tribe

Saving the Lost Tribe PDF Author: Asher Naim
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This extraordinary history of the Falashas, the Black Jews of Ethiopia, is chronicled by the former Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia. Naim also recounts the rescue mission in 1991 that delivered them to the safety of Israel. 8-page full-color photo insert with b&w photos throughout.

The Beta Israel in Ethiopia and Israel

The Beta Israel in Ethiopia and Israel PDF Author: Tudor Parfitt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136816615
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
For decade the Falashas - the Black Jews of Ethiopia - have fascinated scholars. Are they really Jews and in what sense? How can their origins be explained? Since the Falashas' transfer to Israel in the much publicised Israeli air lifts the fascination has continued and and new factors are now being discussed. Written by the leading scholars in the field the essays in this collection examine the history, music, art, anthropology and current situations of the Ethopian Jews. Issues examined include their integration into Middle Eastern society, contacts between the Falasha and the State of Israel how the Falasha became Jews in the first place.

The Beta Israel

The Beta Israel PDF Author: Steven B Kaplan
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814748481
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
...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.

From Sinai to Ethiopia

From Sinai to Ethiopia PDF Author: Sharon Shalom
Publisher: Gefen Books
ISBN: 9789652296375
Category : Jewish law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Some two thousand years ago, a group of Jews settled in Ethiopia and was for millennia cut off from the rest of world Jewry, preserving its heritage with great self-sacrifice. When this community, the Beta Israel, ultimately made its way to Israel to rejoin its brethren in the late twentieth century, a host of complex dilemmas emerged. Should the Beta Israel shed its venerated customs, based on ancient, pre-rabbinic Jewish law, and adopt the rabbinic halakhah of modern-day Jewry? Or is there a place for the unique legacy of the Ethiopian Jews within the umbrella of the wider Jewish community? Rabbi Shalom's startlingly original Shulhan ha-Orit delves into the history, customs, and law of the Beta Israel, codifying the ancient cultural heritage of Ethiopian Jewry for the first time and contrasting it with Orthodox rabbinic law. He offers suggestions for honoring Beta Israel tradition while fully participating in the greater Jewish community. This book provides an invaluable service to Jews of Ethiopian descent on how to practically conduct themselves throughout the Jewish year, but more than that it is a fascinating meditation on the tension each of us faces between individual practice and group togetherness, between difference and unity. For anyone who has ever pondered the balance between communal belonging and being true to one's own self, this is a mesmerizing read.

Surviving Salvation

Surviving Salvation PDF Author: Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 9780814792537
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Their mutual interest in the Ethiopian Jews, as well as a series of unique circumstances, led them to join forces to produce this engrossing and handsomely illustrated volume. But this is not a book about the journey of the Ethiopian Jews; rather it is a chronicle of their experiences once they reached their destination. In Ethiopia, they were united by a shared faith and a broad network of kinship ties that served as the foundation of their rural communal society. They observed a form of religion based on the Bible that included customs such as the isolation of women during menstruation, long abandoned by Jewish communities elsewhere in the world. Suddenly transplanted, they are becoming rapidly and aggressively assimilated. Thrust from isolated villages without electricity or running water into the urban bustle of modern, postindustrial society, Ethiopian Jews have seen their family relationships radically transformed.

The Jews of Africa and Asia: Contemporary Anti-Semitism and other pressures

The Jews of Africa and Asia: Contemporary Anti-Semitism and other pressures PDF Author: Tudor Parfitt
Publisher: Minority Rights Group
ISBN: 0946690561
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 11

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Book Description
'The archetypal oppressed minority' For centuries, Jews have lived in Africa and Asia, including the Middle East. Over recent decades, however, their numbers have declined dramatically and in countries like Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Morocco have been reduced sometimes to only a few hundred people. Within a few generations, these and other communities are likely to disappear altogether, either because of the attraction that Israel provides or because of overt anti-Semitic animosity. For many, there is a precarious balance between survival and persecution. Persecution of Jews by a variety of host societies permeates history and continents. In Europe, anti-Jewish prejudice existed in Greek and Roman times and later the Christian church waged ideological warfare for centuries against the synagogue. Wide-scale and violent destruction of Jewish lives and property erupted periodically, especially in troubled times when people looked for scapegoats. Waves of European Christian anti-Semitism spread to many countries, chiefly to areas of the Islamic world where traditional social and religious attitudes towards Jews provided fertile soil for discrimination. Under Islam, the State was required to protect Jews, but they were nearly always reduced to second class citizens. Alarmingly, anti-Semitic hostility has recently spread to countries where Jews have never lived and are virtually unknown, such as in Japan. By contrast, there are a few countries in which small and less historic Jewish communities continue without discrimination. The Jews of Africa and Asia, the new Minority Rights Group Report, provides an historical analysis of European and Islamic experiences of anti-Jewish prejudice and persecution and the rise of contemporary anti-Zionism. The Report gives a graphic detailed picture of the current situations of Jewish communities remaining in Africa and Asia in a country by country survey. It is essential reading for all those concerned with racism and history.

Ethiopian Jews and Israel

Ethiopian Jews and Israel PDF Author: Michael Ashkenazi
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412822862
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Ethiopian Jews have been immigrating to Israel in ever increasing numbers since 1979. This volume describes the phenomenon and explains the issues related to the Ethiopians' absorption by Israeli society. The authors explore the immigrant's lives as Ethiopians, the experience of other waves of immigrants to Israel, and applicability of theoretical issues deriving mass immigration in the experience of other societies. They examine the effects of immigration on the immigrants as well as on the host itself. The volume addresses a broad range of themes deriving from the very real problems inherent in this immigration. It will be of value to all those interested in Middle Eastern and immigration studies. Michael Ashkenazi is the senior instructor of anthropology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He is the author, with Alex Weingrod, of Ethiopian Immigrants in Beersheva: An Anthropological Study. Alex Weingrod is the Chilewich Professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He is the author of After the Ingathering: Studies in Israeli Ethnicity; Israel: A Study in Group Relations; and Reluctant Pioneers.

The Ethiopian Jewish Exodus

The Ethiopian Jewish Exodus PDF Author: Gadi BenEzer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134480946
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This book presents new research into the exodus of 16 thousand Jewish immigrants from Ethopia to Israel between 1977 and 1985. Issues from trauma and memory to race and migration are raised.