The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
Today's date is: 5/12/2025
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The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
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| travel'.(1) He must have cut an astonishing figure in Gondar with his immense height, red hair and ruddy complexion in striking contrast to the people around him; a visitor from another world or an African version of Mark Twain's Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. He harboured no illusions about the barbarity ofhis hosts, with whom he rode to war, whose ailments he treated and in whose feasts he participated. He described in some detail one such celebration where the participants devoured the living flesh of a cow or bull 'having satisfied the Mosaical law' by first spilling six or seven drops of blood on the floor. The wretched beast, skinned and eaten alive, was allowed to bleed to death while the revellers of both sexes, fortified by drink, 'are very much elevated; love lights all its fires, and everything is permitted with absolute freedom. There is no coyness, no delays, no need of appointments or retirement to gratify their wishes; there are no rooms but one in which they sacrifice both to Bacchus and to Venus. '(2) He wrote of the prevalence of superstition and mentioned that 'the Falasha are addicted to this in still a greater degree, if possible'. He also remarked that 'it is always believed by every individual Abyssinian that the number of hyenas the smell of carrion brings into the city of Gondar every night are the Falasha from the neighbouring mountains, transformed by inchantment'. (3) On his journey by the traditional route from Axum to Gondar, soon after crossing the gorge of the Takazze river, which separates the province of Tigrai from the Semien mountains, Bruce found himself near the Jews' Rock, 'famous in the history of this country for the many revolts of the Jews against the Abyssinian kings'.(4) He described the almost impregnable formation of this natural fortress which had once been the residence of the Falasha kings but, when he passed by, was the seat of a rebellious Amhara governor of the province. He mentioned that the region 'is in great part possessed by Jews, and there Gideon and Judith, king and queen of that nation, and, as they say, of the house of Judah, maintain still their ancient sovereignty and religion from very early times'.(5) However, Hess thinks that Bruce may have allowed himself to romanticise since Falasha independence had virtually ceased a century and a half earlier. It is possible, nevertheless, that in Bruce's day the Falashas enjoyed some measure of autonomy for he tells us that since their defeat by the Amharas 'they have (1)James Bruce in Beckingham, C. F. ed., Travels to Discover the Source ef the Nile, p. 19. |
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