Among his pupils at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris, Halevy was fortunate to find one who was inspired by his ardour for the Falasha cause. Jacques Faitlovitch, fifty-four years his junior, corning from a rabbinic family in Lodz, in Poland, was imbued with a crusading spirit and a taste for adventure. Halevy had little difficulty in persuading him to study Amharic and Tigrinya and to place his talents at the service of the Ethiopian Jews. It was a happy collaboration which set the course for the young man's life's work and he lost no time in seeking support for what he regarded as his mission. He was not yet twenty-three when he succeeded in arousing the sympathy of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the enlightened head of the French banking house, whom he persuaded to finance his first visit to Abyssinia.

It is not difficult to imagine with what sense of excitement he set out from Paris in January 1904 to follow in the footsteps of his master. The spirit of adventure which, ten years earlier, had led him, with a friend, to leave his home in secret with the intention of studying abroad to become a rabbi and a doctor stood him in good stead on this exploit. His boyish escapade had taken him no further than Breslau but on this occasion, with the support of one of the principal leaders of French Jewry, he would fulfil his aim to bring a message of hope to his hard-pressed and neglected brethren in Ethiopia. After landing at Massawa he made his way to Asmara and thence to Adowa and on to Axum. Here he met his first Falasha, a carpenter who came to repair his bed and who gladly put him in touch with members of his community. In the face of considerable difficulties he travelled to Gondar - which Halevy had been unable to reach owing to the disturbed state of the country - and visited many Falasha villages in Dembea, living with the people for eighteen months, gaining their trust and affection and studying their religion and customs.

In August 1905 he was back in Paris, well satisfied with his adventure, and presented his report to Baron de Rothschild.(1) In October, in a long interview with the Paris correspondent of the

(1) Subsequently published in Paris under the title Notes d'un Voyage chez les Falachas.