Thursday, September 22, 1949 DETROIT J EWISII CIIRO NICLE Black Jews of Ethiopia Are Remnant of Empire Page 29 necessity of adapting the laws contained in the Bible for prac- tical use under conditions differ- ent from those originally con- templated, of commenting • on them, and of creating new rules observe the lunar year, every dress is a large piece of coarse fourth year having thirteen cloth worn like a Roman toga. months. Five of the original Ara- The standard of life is very low. maic names for the months are A few Falashas have migrated still in use. to the big towns, mainly the cap- Circumcision, of course, is ital, Addis Ababa. These few are By HERBERT A. SCIIABLIN practiced. (In India, Israel, Bombay) thoroughly westernized, speak Falashes are in a happier posi E (Continued on Page 30) THIOPIAN JEWS aid Israel_. 'he Jewish community in Addis lion than European Jewry. The Ababa is collecting funds for relief to Israel. The plan is to bulk of them are agriculturists ••■■•■ ■ collect $5,000 and already $2,500 has been sent to aid children in and craftsmen, and they do not old Jerusalem. suffer under the obvious dis Happy New Year Ever since the 9th century advantages of the paradoxical legendary r epor t s circulated outwardly Coptic Christians, position typical of the Jewish in among the Jewish communities of practise many definitely Jewish • habitants of western-European 'Europe and the Near East, reports rites, provides proof of forced countries whose ranks include UPHOLSTERING mass-conversions. These as well which spoke of a race of Jewish more university professors than Custom Built Furniture warriors, masters and rulers of a as the heavy death rate of con- farm-hands. Hence economic dark territory, now known geo- tinuous warfare progressively re- Draperies — Slip Covers anti-Semitism is hardly known in duced the number of Falashas graphically as ANsinia. Abyssinia, except in certain West- and at the beginning of this cen- Many times in the following ernized circles where it had been centuries these tales received new tury they were estimated to com- fostered during the Fascist occu- impetus from Jewish travellers prise approximately 90,000 souls. 10350 Dexter TO. 8-6120 pation. Since then the missionary ac- who succeeded in contacting • • • Corner Collingwood • Abyssinia's Jews, the Falashas as tivities of the Coptic Church and STILL PRIMITIVE ..1=0••■• •■ 1.01M, they are called by the rest of the of Protestant missions, the de- IT WOULD BE erroneous, how- population, or the Beth Israel structions of the Italo-Abyssinian ever, to compare the Falashas (House of Israel) as they call War and of the 2nd World War soil tiller or artisan with his have reduced the number still themselves. GREETINGS European counterpart. The Abys- further and recent estimates The many reports received, speak of 10,000 Falashas sinian villager—and the Falashas (i.e. however, were discounted or dis- roughly one in every thousand of is in no way different—lives in regarded by geographers of their the 'population), the pitiful rem DR. S. ANDHIL FINEBERG's a primitive but without ever day, until, in the 18th century, "Punishment Without Crime", having heard about the sanitary Jacob Bruce, an Englishman who nants of a once mighty empire. • • • a book citing the techniques by and other blessings of civil- had lived in Abyssinia from 1788- which individuals can fight ization and without having ex- 1774 finally put the Falasha "on NEGROID TYPES THE FALASHAS are of dis bigotry, has recently been pub- perienced any appreciable meas- the map." ure of progress for several thou- tinctly Negroid appearance lished. • • • sand years. black-skinned with short hair and 3646 E. Outer Drive ORIENTAL VESTIGES short faces. On the average they All males carry arms - shields, GREAT IMPORTANCE must are taller of stature than the sur- in accordance with the general T1V. 2-2050 spears and daggers - footwear is tenor of 4he holy writings. be attributed to this develop- rounding Amharans. Their origin unknown, and the main item of • • • ment, occuring at the same time is clouded in darkness. HAVE OWN 'TALMUD' as Rahabi's "discovery" of the The most likely theory sug- Bene Israel in India. IN ASIA MINOR and in Eu- gests that the Falashas are the rope this necessity led to the New Year's Greetings These two events, more than Season's Greetings descendants, blended with the rest creation of the Talmud whilst any amount of tradition and rit- of the population by the inter- in Abyssinia an oral and written ual, turned the eyes of western marriage and missionarism, of the tradition developed which, though Jewry towards the east. prosperous Jewish colony of different in form, basically is The Falasha and the Bene Elephantine in upper Egypt, very similar to the Talumd and Israel provided living proof that which disappears from written provides striking proof of how the Yemenite Jew is not an iso- history with the victory of the clearcut and uniform the moral Distributors Weston's and lated phenomenon, but that Abyssinians over the Egyptians. code really is, which finds ex- Salerno Mr. and Mrs. I. Feinberg Jewry has always remained The Falashas themselves claim pression in the Pentateuch. deeply rooted in oriental coun- Crackers-Cookies-Pretzels Otherwise it would be incon- 808 Stephenson Bldg. tries despite many branches to be descended from Solomon 1124 OAKMAN BLVD. and the Queen of Sheba, and not ceivable that 2.000 years of en- spreading towards the west. TR. 5-8319 as is sometimes erroneously stat- tirely independent development TO. 8-7590 An extensive history of the under social and economic con- Falashas still remains to be writ- ed—from the ''lost tribes," who ditions so different and climates had been exiled to Media and As- ten. syria in 772 B. C. Both these so diametrically opposed could Even the little historical in- claims however, meet with the have led to the evolution of two GREETINGS formation available, however, difficulty that Falasha religious sets of laws so similar to each cannot but convince us of the tradition shows certain features other. splendid martial past that lies which were non-existent before The Falashas are monogamous Louis Margolis, Pres. behind the Jews of Abyssinia. the return from the Babylonian and strictly observe the Sabbath 5560 CHENE ST. Tradition will have it that.they exile (539 B.C.), although the as well as most of the traditional WA. 1-9756 are the descendants of the union possibility cannot be disregarded Jewish holidays with the excep- between King Solomon and the that these particular features tion of Rosh Hashonah (New GREETINGS Queen of Sheba and that they might be due to later contact, Year). During the Passover festival provided Abyssinia with a long possibly through the Elephantine they eat a kind of unleavened mythical line of kings. It is an Jewish community. bread and their practices of established fact that, at the time Electric Appliances — Repairing Although the religious ritual of ritual slaughter of animals are when Abyssinia's past emerges Electric Heating Units — Lionel Trains the Falashas is different in many stricter even than those of oc- 427 RANDOLPH from myth and passes into WO 1-5553 history, i.e., in the 9th century, respects from Jewish ritual any- cidental Jewry, but they freely we find the Falashas ruling the where else, the essence of their mix milk-products and meat in religion is purely Jewish, and their dishes. country. neither anthropologists nor Jew- Falashas never eat raw meat Until the 13th century they ish travellers have ever held any which is the staple diet of the maintain their predominant posi- doubts in this respect. surrounding tribes. Their secular tion. At the end of the 13th The Bible of the Falashas con- calender is based on the sun century the Falashas begin to de- sists of the Pentateuch, the whilst in religious matters they cline and from then on theirs is a Psalms and certain Apocryphal history of tribal wars and religi- Books, which were discarded ous persecutions, a history full of when the Old Testament was outstanding bravery and heroism. compiled in its present shape. The The existence of a number of later parts of the Old Testament Abyssinian tribes who, though were not accepted by them as part of their religious tradition even after they had become known through the medium of Christianity. Author l e.s. . . ■• •■■ •10/Oxaml.m.• WALTER HERZ r..... ••111 HYDRO MFG. CO. CENTURY PORTRAIT STUDIOS INDEPENDENT BISCUIT CO. ' Margolis Furniture Company, Inc. Hiram Marks Electrical Co. Happy New Year! g reetings . g reetings BEAVER REALTY CO. BRADY WASTE MATERIAL CO. Naturally, like their brethren in nor th ern countries, the Falashas were faced with the 1:1 LERNER - LINDEN CONSTRUCTION CO. 1533 Mack Ave Temple 1-0771 9940 Rosela% n WE. 3-5178 GREETINGS FOR THE. NEW YEAR 1960 E. JEFFERSON TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AND CUSTOMERS Happy New Year to All WO. 2-0758 GREET,' NGS DETROIT RENDERING COMPANY 2500 22nd Street TA. 5-1711 Max Deutelbaum and Sidney Fox —of— WARRINGTON SERVICE Your Standard Oil Dealers 4120 W. 7 Mile Rd. Corner Warrington ....414 UN. 1-9733 DICK CONNELL CHEVROLET, Inc. 12240 Jos. Canipau TAY. 1-0600 " .."4"."4..9%°"*".144•4"••°%.°94 ■ Ww.‘wrinww•I'V 1