The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler

Today's date is: 5/12/2025
HOME | Cover Page | Contents | Introduction 1| Strangers in the Midst 9 | Legend and History 24| Judaism, Christianity and Islam 58 | The Middle Ages 74 | Resistance and Defeat 94 | Missions and Missionaries 106 | Jacques Faitlovitch 130 | The Struggle for Recognition 147| Postscript 170 | Select Bibliography | Images | Index |


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Kebra Nagast, or Glory of Kings, which expounds three principal ideas. First, that the queen journeyed to the Holy Land and returned to her country convinced of the truth of the Jewish religion, which she adopted. Second, that Menelik, the child ofher liaison with the King oflsrael, visited his father in Jerusalem when he was grown up and, escorted by a select band of young Israelites, brought back to his homeland the original Ark of the Covenant containing the tablets of the Law. Third, that Ethiopia 'was specially chosen by God to be the new home of the spiritual and heavenly Zion, of which his chosen people, the Jews, had become unworthy' .(1) This is the core of the tradition on which the Christian state of Ethiopia was built, as ancient Rome was built on the legends of Romulus and Remus.

Whether the queen's journey took place in the tenth century or the eighth is less important than the event itself, though the story becomes vastly more colourful by placing it in Solomon's reign rather than in Hezekiah's. Moreover, seen through the eyes of an Ethiopian - Christian or Jew - the notion that the Queen of Sheba was a Sabaean, who returned to Arabia after visiting Solomon, would destroy the whole foundation on which his history was built and would deprive the Kebra Nagast of its authority. The national saga proclaims that it was Ethiopia which became the new Zion, the resting-place of the Ark of the Covenant and the seat of the direct descendant of Solomon. It was not simply from vanity that the emperors took the title 'Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God'. It meant what it said.

In the process of time, the story of the queen's visit was inevitably enriched with a wealth of legend and mythology. Throughout the ages it has made such a strong popular appeal that it is found, adapted to the requirements of its environment, in Ethiopian, Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions. The case for an Ethiopian - that is a Meroitic or Cushite - origin accords with Jewish and Ethiopian traditions, though not with Islamic writings and later European works. In the eighteenth century the English scholar William Whiston, who translated Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews (1737), added this comment to the story of Solomon:

That this queen of Sheba was a queen ofSabaea in South Arabia and not of Egypt and Ethiopia ... is, I suppose, now generally agreed. And since Sabaea is well known to be a country near the sea in the south of Arabia Felix, which lay south from Judea also;

(1) Budge, The Queen of Sheba and her only son Menyelek, p. xxxiv.


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