Friday, July 15, 1983 1
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
History of the Falashas in The Lost Jews'
By ALLEN A. WARSEN
"The Lost Jews," authored
by Louis Rapoport (Stein
and Day), is the story of the
Falashas, the black Jews of
Ethiopia, Africa.
Stories about black Jews
living in the highlands of
northwest Ethiopia, the bi-
blical land of Cush, were
told by explorers, mer-
chants, travelers and
soldiers in the 17th and
18th Centuries. Since 1840,
English Protestant mis-
sionaries have tried to con-
vert these Jews to Chris-
tianity.
These stories reached the
Alliance Israelite Universe-
lle of France. In 1868 it sent
Prof. Joseph Halevy, a
well-known - Sorbonne
Orientalist, to Ethiopia to
ascertain the truth. of the
existence of black Jews. Not
only did he find black Jews
there, but he even sent a few
Falasha boys to Palestine to
study Hebrew and Judaism.
Prof. Halevy's work
was continued by Prof.
Jacques Faitolovitch,
also of the Sorbonne.
Born in Lodz, Poland in
1880, he was an obser-
vant, traditional Jew.
His first trip to Ethiopia
was financed by Baron Ed-
mond Rothchild and Chief
Rabbi Zadok Kahn of Paris:
At first, the Falashas re-
fused to believe that he was
a white Falasha. Thirty
years before, they similarly
doubted that Prof. Halevy .
was a Jew. Faitolovitch fi-
nally convinced them that
he was. Jewish.
On returning to Paris,
Faitolovitch reported to
Baron Rothchild that the
Falashas were really Jews.
They have the same aspi-
rations," he told the Baron,
"that we do, they believe
like we that they are-the fu-
ture of Israel . . . They are
an active, intelligent, moral
people, with a thirst for
learning." Faitolovitch
asked the Baron to continue
to support his endeavors on
behalf of the Falashas.
But Rothchild, like the
Alliance Israelite Uni-
verselle, refused. They
were not interested in
"primitive black Jews."
Worried lest the Chris-
tian missionaries succeed in
converting the Falashas,
F_aitolovitch appealed to
world Jewry "to help
preserve the Beta-Israel,"
as , the Falashas call them-
selves. In addition, he estab-
lished Falasha committees
in Europe and- in the U.S.
"to help offset the work of
the missionaries."
Following the establish-
ment of the state of Israel
Faitolovitch became an Is-
raeli citizen. Unfortu-
nately, he died in 1955. His
extensive library on the
Beta Israel and Ethiopia he
bequeathed to the state of
Israel. It was turned over to
Tel Aviv University and his
spacious house he left to the
Israeli Falashas to serve as
their social and cultural
center.
His
sister,
Lea
Faitolovitch Berman of Re-
hovot, said that her brother
"was totally obsessed by the
Falashas. His whole life was
consecrated to assisting
them."
Interestingly, in 1972,
the then Sephardi chief
rabbi, Ovadia Yosef, de-
clared that the Falashas
-
"were of the seed of Dan,"
whose greatest hero, ac-
cording to the Bible, was
Samson.
However, the greatest
heroine in the hiStory of the
Falashas was the victorious
Queen Yehudith, who de-
feated in the 10th Century
the Amhara armies, con-
quered a vast empire, "dealt
a devastating blow to Chris-
tianity and changed the
course of Ethiopian his-
tory." -
-
But in recent years, the
black Jews have suffered
persecution by their former
landowners and lately by
the EPRD (Ethiopian
Peoples Revolutionary
Party), who accused them of
being Zionist agents.
Significantly, since its
founding, Israel absorbed
hundreds of thousands of
Oriental Jews, mostly from
the the Arab countries,
thousands of survivors from
the concentration camps,
and thousands "who man-
aged to flee from repressive
regimes of the ' left and
right."
Jews from more than
70 countries settled in Is-
rael." They included (in
alphabetical order)
Americans, Bulgarians,
Georgians, Germans, In-
dians, Iranians, Iraqis,
Kurds, MorocCans,
Peruvians, Rhodesians,
Russians, Swedes and
Yemenites. But little, ac-
cording to the author,
was done "to bring the
tribe of primitive Falasha
Jews on `aliya,' the 'going
up' to Israel."
Yet, more recently,
throUgh the efforts of some
of the major American
Jewish organizations, such
as the Bnai Brith, the
American Jewish Congress
and especially, the Ameri-
can Jewish Committee that
placed the Falasha cause
"at the top of the agenda,"
the Israeli government de-
cided to take vigorous ac-
tion to bring the Beta-Israel
to the Land of Israel.
113(
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