In due course Meroe declined and by the fourth century AD the Axumite kingdom was prepared to take its place. The Jewish religion was already established there when King Ezana, one of Axum's greatest rulers, descended on his northern neighbour and absorbed his territory into his domains, As a result of this conquest the country which had been called Ethiopia became merged with Abyssinia and the name of the land known as Cush moved southwards from Meroe to Axum. It was Ezana who, towards the end ofhis reign, brought his country into Christendom.

The uncertainty as to the origin of the Falashas greatly impeded the long struggle for their recognition as part of the community of Israel. It was a frustrating experience. Nearly a hundred years elapsed after Bruce's stay in Gondar before the first Jewish emissary visited Ethiopia. The task was assigned by the recently founded philanthropic organisation, the Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris, to Joseph Halevy, who was then making a name for himself as a Semitic and Ethiopian scholar. He went to Abyssinia at a bad moment, in 1867, when the country was in turmoil and the erratic behaviour of Emperor Theodore had provoked the British Government into mounting a military expedition to rescue his European captives.

Halevy, who had studied his subject profoundly, visited the people in their villages and was convinced that the Falashas were Jews and that it was the duty of their more fortunate brethren to come to their help. Years later, disappointed by the results he had achieved, he wrote a deeply moving description of the heroism of the Falashas in the sixteenth century when they defended their independence and resisted forcible conversion to Christianity, recalling the cry of the defenders of Masada: death rather than dishonour.

On the eve of the Franco-Prussian War the leaders of French Jewry were not in a mood to assume fresh commitments outside their normal sphere of operation, nor prepared to give Halevy their full backing. For the next forty years, interest in the Falashas dwindled until the Alliance decided to send another representative. This time they chose a Turkish rabbi, Haim Nahum, who,