A BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE ETHIOPIAN JEWS, 1958-1984
BY JON ABBINK, NIJMEGEN

Since Professor Wolf Leslau published his bibliography on the Falashas, now generally designated as the Ethiopian Jews, in the 1957 issue of SBB (volume 3, pp.9-27) no additional one has appeared listing the works which have been published since that year. The present list is intended to make a large part of the more recent literature on the subject more accessible to the growing number of people interested in this 'long-lost' part of the Jewish people.

The Ethiopian Jews have indeed received an extraordinary amount of attention in recent years. The reasons for this are:
a) the continued quest for the origins and the history of the group;
b) the Jewish interest in Ethiopian Judaism in relation to mainstream Judaism and to Ethiopian Christianity;
c) the dramatic social, political and economic problems of the Ethiopian Jewish population in Ethiopia itself, and the question of immigration to and integration in Israel. Numerous articles of concerned supporters dealing with this last issue have appeared, especially in the Jewish press of the United States and Israel. The world press also took up trhe issue in January 1985, when it was revealed that many thousands of Ethiopian Jews had secretly been brought to Israel in November-December 1984 (Such items are not included here).

Needless to say, this bibliography cannot claim to be complete. In his own bibliography, Professor Leslau rightly noted the difficulty of compiling a 'complete' list. Nevertheless, he arrived at an invaluable one, citing all the important items; and what is more, he decided to include every possible item, although he was aware of the specific bibliographic problem of whether it is useful to include the very short and rather irrelevant references as well (Leslau, 9).

I have decided not to include the largely trivial items which do not substantially add to our knowledge of the subject, e.g. the short notes in foreign encyclopedias or the passing references (often only in a few words or lines) in books on Africa, Ethiopia, or Judaism. Throughout, my guideline has been to include articles and books which convey some important new information about the history and way of life of the Ethiopian Jews and about recent developments which concern the community in Ethiopia and Israel. This meant excluding articles which showed too much overlap - and there are many of these, often to such an extent that their text is virtually the same. This is especially the case with articles on the issue of the rescue and assistance of the group, which have appeared in the American Jewish press (which however is not to diminish their imporatnce). All the vital works on the Ethiopian Jews that have appeared after 1957 are, however, mentioned here.

Perhaps a word may be said here on some unpublished sources for (future) knowledge on the Ethiopian Jews, especially on their recent history. There is a great amount of material, but, due to its apparently still delicate nature, not all of it is freely available for use. I mention here three kinds of sources:
a) the reports, letters and plans of the British Christian missionaries who were activce among the Ethiopian Jews. They are partly stored in the Church Missionary Society Archives in London and in the Church's Ministry among the Jews, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Some of this material has already been used by historian J. Quirin (see item 77 below);
b) the documents, letters, proposals and policy outlines relating to the 'Falashas' in Ethiopia and Israel in the archives of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. This material is of value with regard to the perception of the 'Jewishness' of the Ethiopian Jews by the Rabbinate and government officials in Israel (in the 1950's), and equally for an assessment of the educational programs for the Ethiopian Jews conceived or proposed at that time;
c) finally, there is also much material in the files of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews (with its head office now in Highland Park, Illinois). They also contain most of the documents and letters from the Israeli Committee for Ethiopian Jews (founded by Prof. A. Tartakower). Apart from this, there is also material in the Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem, as well as in the personal files of some important longtime activists on behalf of the Ethiopian Jews (in the U.S. and Israel), of course not available for everyone.

With this list and its accompanying notes, I can only claim to have summed up the most important items on the Ethiopian Jews for the past 27 years. For each year, the items are listed alphabeticallyt by author's or editor's name. Work on this bibliography was essentially completed in Fall 1984; further additions can of course be made and are much encouraged.