If it had been difficult to overcome the objections of the rabbis to the recognition of the Jews of India, who at least followed the precepts of the Halacha, or Oral Law, it was a great deal harder to meet their prejudices in regard to the Falashas, who were not only ignorant of all rabbinic teaching but, quite obviously, did not conform with the popular notion of so-called 'racial purity'. In addition, an influential section of the world of Jewish scholarship gave its support to the rabbis by declaring that the Falashas represented a Judaised sect which followed many non-Jewish practices but was not a Jewish tribe. The Israeli Government found it convenient to accept these arguments in order to justify it in discouraging immigration from Ethiopia, or Aliyah, to use the Hebrew term. The word was put about that the Falashas were not Jews; both rabbis and scholars had said so, therefore it must be true. In such a climate it was difficult to persuade the great Jewish charitable organisations to part with their funds. The 'Responsum' of Rabbi David ben Abi Zimrah in the sixteenth century, the declaration of Rabbi Hildesheimer in the nineteenth, the appeal of the forty-four Orthodox rabbis and of Rabbi Kook in this century, to say nothing of the opinions of such scholars as Luzzatto, Halevy or Faitlovitch, were ignored or disregarded.

By sheer persistence Bentwich made some progress. He gained the support of Lady Henriques (the widow of Sir Basil Henriques), the dynamic head of the British OSE Society, an organisation whose function was to bring medical aid to impoverished Jewish communities abroad. The Jewish Colonisation Association OCA), which encourages Jewish agricultural settlements in various parts of the world, and was then presided over by Sir