The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
Today's date is: 5/12/2025
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| 110 S. D. Luzzatto, had been inspired, when only thirteen, by Bruce's Travels to find out all he could about the Falashas. At sixteen he read d'Abbadie's article and was so deeply moved by it that he immediately wrote to the explorer, who was then in Abyssinia, asking for further information. Communication with the interior of Ethiopia was difficult and young Luzzatto had to wait exactly two years before he received a reply. In his interview in the Jewish Chronicle d'Abbadie had mentioned this exchange of correspondence and had regretted that he was not better informed on Jewish subjects. d'Abbadie gave the Falashas a solemn undertaking to bring their wretched condition to the attention of the Jews of Europe and, with Luzzatto's help, he was as good as his word. The young scholar worked enthusiastically on the material which was placed at his disposal and in 1851 he had the satisfaction of seeing the first of many long instalments of his work published in the Archives Israelites of Paris(1) which continued to print his contributions until his premature death on 25 January 1854. In a short obituary the editor noted that Luzzatto wrote the last instalment in great pain and that he was working on his favourite subject until the last days of his life. He died in Padua from a disease of the brain which according to Mario Stock, the historian of the Jewish community of Trieste, a local tradition ascribes to syphilis contracted during a long stay in Paris. His tombstone disappeared during the Second World War when the old Jewish cemetery was damaged by Allied bombing but a record of the inscription in Hebrew and Italian has been preserved in the community archives. Would the Falashas' fate, one wonders, have been different ifhe had lived? In England, too, d'Abbadie and Luzzatto received some support. The Jewish Chronicle, more of a newspaper and less of a magazine than the Archives Israelites, in 1851 published nine weekly instalments of translations extracted from the French articles as well as a report of Filosseno's death. (2) Luzzatto, perhaps a little unjustly, criticised Bruce for not paying more attention to the Falasha religion. He stressed the importance of a knowledge of the Falashas for the study of the history of the Jewish religion and hoped that, with the help of inquiries made by d'Abbadie on the spot, he might be able to fill the gaps left by Bruce. He had compiled a long list of questions for the French explorer to ask Abba Ishaq, 'the most wise spiritual leader of the Falashas', who lived at the monastery at Hoharwa, (1)The Archives Israelites de France, a quarterly journal, was founded in 1840 and closed with its issue of 21 November 1935. |