The Government found allies among both religious and lay leaders who doubted whether the Falashas qualified to join the Jewish brotherhood. The rabbis insisted that their failure to observe the Oral Law and their tendency to bring outsiders into the community justified their non-recognition. The secular point of view was expressed by such academics as Professor S. D. Goitein of the Hebrew University, an expert on the Jews of the Yemen, who spoke of the Falashas as 'the so-called Jews of Ethiopia. Their beliefs and practices have very little to do with Judaism.' (1) Edward Ullendorff, the professor of Ethiopian studies at London University and a graduate of the Hebrew University, doubted whether the Falashas should be 'dubbed' the Jews of Ethiopia. Indeed, his reading of history had led him to assert that 'in fact, not until the Christian and Jewish missionary activities of the nineteenth century have the Falashas learnt to regard themselves as Jews'. They 'have never,' he maintained, 'until the Italian occupation of 1936-41, suffered as Jews but as the occasional victims of tribal warfare-a fate they have shared with many other Ethiopians.' (2) Clearly, if they were not Jews they could not suffer as such! This is a remarkable doctrine for, as the numerous examples cited in this book have shown, the Falashas have suffered precisely because they adhered strictly to the teaching of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, and refused to accept the doctrines of Christianity. The logic of his thinking led Ullendorff to the conclusion, in 1967, that

the Israeli Government . . . has wisely refrained from all involvement in Falasha affairs. Anyone familiar with the Ethiopian scene will question the wisdom of pro-Falasha activities - however well-meaning and noble the motives may be. The Ethiopian Government is extremely sensitive to the

(1) Religion in the Middle East, ed. A.J. Arberry, vol. 1, p. 228 (1969).
(2) J.C., 6 January 1967.