It was not until 1867, when General Napier was preparing his assault on Emperor Theodore's fortress at Magdala to rescue the British hostages, that the first emissary, Joseph Halevy, was commissioned by western Jewry to make contact with the Falashas. Thereafter, nothing further was done for the best part of thirty years until Jacques Faitlovitch took up the theme and fought almost alone to bring succour to his neglected co-religionists. Even ten years ago Norman Bentwich was constrained to protest that 'the Jewish neglect of the Falashas for one hundred and fifty years is not credible'.

It is to Bentwich that I owe my initiation into the problem of the Ethiopian Jews. As we walked together across the Bloomsbury squares late one night in 1967 after attending a lecture he turned to me and asked what he should do about the Falashas. I was at a loss for an answer as I was ignorant of the subject but I agreed to join the committee over which he presided.

This book is the indirect outcome of that encounter and aims to fill a gap which has existed for too long. It would probably not have come into existence but for the interest displayed by Max Braude, the former Director-General of World ORT Union, whose support and encouragement converted an idea into reality. I am therefore pleased to have this opportunity to record both my gratitude for his help in bringing this project to fruition and my admiration for his ability and dedication in leading his organisation to the unchallenged position it now occupies in the field of technical education in many parts of the world. His enthusiastic adoption of the Falasha cause brought to its side at a critical moment the full weight of his prestigious Organisation for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT).(1)

I am only too well aware of many deficiencies caused by attempting to cover a very big subject in a relatively small compass and I sometimes marvel at my temerity. However, I believe there is a need to piece together the scanty references which have survived ( there can be little doubt that in the course of time much written evidence has been destroyed) and to try to present a balanced account from the earliest times to today. While this endeavour aims to lift the veil which has covered a remote corner

(1) The initials are derived from the Russian name of the original Society for Handicrafts and Agricultural Work among the Jews of Russia which was founded in 1880 at St Petersburg (see L. Shapiro, The History of ORT).