Back in Eritrea he made the final preparations for his return journey to Europe, calling at Palestine on his way. Getie Jeremias, who had been with Faitlovitch during the whole of this tour, had been joined at Amba Gualit by a friend, Solomon Isaac, and when they reached Jerusalem both young men were put in the care of the school of the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, a German Jewish philanthropic institution operating on the same lines as the Alliance Israelite, which had been founded in 1901.

Faitlovitch had been deeply suspisious of the Alliance and the Nahum mission before he set out for Abyssinia but it was only when he reached Florence that he learned from the pro-Falasha committee of the damage which had been inflicted by the rabbi. Months before his official report was published in the Bulletin of the Alliance Nahum had been giving interviews to the press and insisting that educational aid for the Falashas was unnecessary. In reply, Faitlovitch hastened to publish his account of his travels with the object of refuting Nahum's recommendations, which were based, he considered, on inaccurate information and gave the philanthropists whom the pro-Falasha committee approached an excuse for refusing their help.

Faitlovitch was scathing in his attack on the rabbi. He contrasted the latter's opinion with the plea of an Abyssinian scholar contained in a letter to Charles Singer, written in July 1904, before Faitlovitch had published the report of his first journey, and, therefore, uninfluenced by the latter's 'missionary zeal'. 'What educated man', asked Wolda Haimanot, 'could be found without being touched with sympathy when he heard the story of these people who stick to their marvellous religion for so long a time in the midst of wild African people?' He went on to urge Christians and Jews 'to assist in teaching them agriculture, arts, trades, elementary education etc. according to modern views'.(1)

Despite opposition encouraged by the Nahum report, which placed serious obstacles in his way, Faitlovitch pursued his objective with immense energy. He succeeded in establishing pro-Falasha committees in a number of countries, including one in the United States which attracted a fair measure of support in influential quarters. In 1913 he paid his third visit to Ethiopia. This time he was able to establish his first village school and appointed

(1)Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 17, 1905, pp. 142-7.