The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
Today's date is: 5/12/2025
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The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
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| amongst the Falashas . . . they sent out the most courageous missionary on their staff, Henry Aaron Stern'.(1) The most courageous he may have been but he was also among the most maladroit and undiplomatic. He cannot escape a major share of the responsibility for the situation which led, by degrees, to the dispatching of the costly military expedition under General Sir Robert Napier which was later mounted in order to free him and others from imprisonment. This campaign left the country as unsettled as it was before it began and retarded all missionary activity for many years. Stern was a German Jew, born in 1820, who had been converted by the C. M.J. in London and, wishing to become a missionary, was sent to Jerusalem where, at the age of twenty-four, he was ordained by his fellow convert Bishop Alexander. He saw service in Mesopotamia, Persia and the Yemen, from where he had been obliged to flee to Aden in fear of his life. Whatever his shortcomings, Stern was zealous and ready to face whatever hardships came his way. He arrived in Ethiopia in March 1860 accompanied by another missionary called Bronkhorst. In spite of the fact that he was an ordained clergyman, Stern was given permission by the emperor and the Abuna to work among the Falashas provided, once again, that all converts were baptised into the Ethiopian church. After a year visiting Falasha villages, with Flad acting as interpreter, Stern returned to England to report to the C.M.J. and to write his book Wanderings among the Falashas in Abyssinia, which, while casting much light on conditions in Ethiopia, was surprisingly thin on information regarding the Falashas. The book, first published in London in 1862, contained disparaging remarks about the emperor - including the story of his mother's lowly status - and was contemptuous in its comments on the Ethiopians and their church. The Emperor Theodore, meanwhile, having established his supremacy in Ethiopia, aimed to extend his contacts beyond the frontiers of his realm. He saw himself as the great Christian ruler who would lead a new crusade against Islam. Who better to join forces with him than the great Christian Queen of England, the head of the most powerful nation in the world? In 1862 he addressed a letter to Queen Victoria in which he proposed that he should send an embassy to England and gave it to the new British Consul, Captain Cameron, the successor to Walter Plowden, who, he anticipated, would deliver it in person. However, Cameron used messengers instead and when, eventually, the letter (1) Ethiopian Jews, p. 36. |
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