The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
Today's date is: 5/12/2025
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| 44 All this is remarkably reminiscent of the life of the Falashas today. True, they have no temple but they have retained aspects of temple worship such as animal sacrifice, purification with the ashes of a red heifer and prostration before the Ark and in prayer. (1) They do not share the rabbinic opposition to intermarriage, which they practise freely provided the partner adopts the Jewish religion by a simple, though meaningful conversion ceremony, (2) and they take both biblical and Ethiopian names. Like the ancient Egyptians, the Copts (who are Christains) as well as the Muslims practise circumcision and abhor pork, which makes proselytisation easier. A number of Jewish-Aramaic words have entered the Ge'ez (ancient Ethiopic) language which 'belong to the preChristian Jewish leaven in Ethiopia'.3 If that leaven entered Ethiopia from the Nile valley, and not from Arabia, we must look to the Elephantine community as the source of that linguistic infiltration. In these circumstances, it is surprising that Professor Ullendorff, quoting with approval the views of Conti Rossini, concluded that 'such aspects of Elephantine religious life as emerge from the papyri are in sharp contrast to the entire cast of religious expression among the Falashas in particular and the Judaizing trends of the Abyssinian Church in general. This estimate remains true even when the fullest allowances are made for the inevitable deficiencies in our knowledge of the Elephantine community. '(4) Herodotus has described (5) how, in the reign of Pharaoh Psammetichus III, who was subsequently dethroned by the Persian conqueror Cambyses, a garrison at Elephantine, not having been relieved for three years, revolted and migrated to Ethiopia. As the documents show that the Jewish community was already in existence by then, and that it formed part of the garrison, it is quite possible - if not probable - (pace Ullendorff) that this group of emigrants contained some Jews. There are no records to show how long the Elephantine Jewish community lasted nor whether it survived the passing of Persian rule and the turbulent period which preceded Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BC. The last Egyptian pharaoh before the coming of the Greeks, Nekhtharehbe, fled to Ethiopia about 340 (1)Leslau, Coutumes et Croyances des Falashas (Paris 1957), pp. 68, 72 and 73. |