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Steven Kaplan (born October 5, 1953 in New York, United States) is a professor of African studies and comparative religion at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is one of the modern scholars on the origins of the Beta Israel, [1] or Ethiopian Jews. He was the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Hebrew University from 2004-2006.
He graduated from Brandeis University (BA, MA), Harvard Divinity School (MTS), and Hebrew University (PhD). [2]
Gudit is the Classical Ethiopic name for a personage also known as Yodit in Tigrinya, and Amharic, but also Isato in Amharic, and Ga'wa in Ţilţal. The person behind these various alternative names is portrayed as a powerful female ruler, probably identical to Māsobā Wārq, the daughter of the last Aksumite king, Dil Na'ad, mentioned in an early Arabic source. She is said to have been responsible for laying waste the Kingdom of Aksum and its countryside, and the destruction of its churches and monuments in the 10th century AD. If she is the same as the Tirda' Gābāz in other Ethiopian sources, she is also said to have attempted to exterminate the members of the ruling dynasty. The deeds attributed to her are recorded in oral tradition and in a variety of historical narratives.
Operation Moses was the covert evacuation of Ethiopian Jews from Sudan during a civil war that caused a famine in 1984. Originally called Gur Aryeh Yehuda by Israelis, the United Jewish Appeal changed the name to "Operation Moses".
African Jewish communities include:
The Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews, are a Jewish diaspora group that lived for thousands of years in the territory of the Kingdom of Aksum and its successor the Ethiopian Empire, which is currently divided between the Amhara Region and Tigray Region in modern-day Ethiopia. After the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, most of the Beta Israel immigrated there or were evacuated through several initiatives by the Israeli government.
Falash Mura is the name given to descendants of the Beta Israel community in Ethiopia who converted to Christianity, primarily as a consequence of Western proselytization during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This term also includes Beta Israel who did not adhere to any Ethiopian Jewish practices, as well as the aforementioned historical converts to Christianity. While most voluntarily converted, some were also forcibly converted against their will, or felt compelled to convert due to economic hardship and social exclusion in a majority Christian population.
Kayla is one of the names of the Beta Israel community among their traditional neighbours, after which the Kayla language is named. Yona Bogale claimed that the name stems from the Tigrinya word for artisans, and on the broader sense excommunicated people. Speakers of Agaw languages, such as Qemant citizens, told researchers that Kayla means "one who has not crossed the stream" or "he or they that have not crossed". This refers to the observance of Shabbat rules among Ethiopian Jews, necessitating the avoidance of activities prohibited on Shabbat.
Sigd, also Mehlella or Amata Saww, is one of the unique holidays of the Beta Israel community, and is celebrated on the 29th of the Hebrew month of Marcheshvan. Since 2008, it has been an official Israeli state holiday.
Kahen or Kohane is a religious role in Beta Israel. Their duty is to maintain and preserve the Haymanot (faith) among the people. This has become more difficult by the people's encounter with the modernity of Israel, where most of the Ethiopian Jewish people now live.
Beta Abraham —other terms by which the community have been known include Tebiban, Balla Ejj, Buda and Kayla ,—is a community regarded by some as a crypto-Jewish offshoot of the Beta Israel community. The size of the community is estimated to be somewhere upwards of 150,000 in number.
Yona Bogale was an Ethiopian Jewish educator and public figure, who served as the director of the Beta Israel education network in Ethiopia and worked vigorously for the immigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. He led the efforts to improve the living conditions of the Beta Israel in Ethiopia by expanding education, providing medical facilities, increasing agricultural production and promoting religious freedom. His persistence in the face of opposition enabled many thousands of his people to fulfill their lifelong dream of Aliyah, or return to the homeland of Israel.
Aliyah from Ethiopia is the immigration of the Beta Israel people to Israel. Early forms of Zionism have existed in Ethiopia since the mid 19th-century, as shown in the 1848 letters from the Beta Israel to Jews in Europe praying for the unification of Jews. A year after the first letter was sent, Daniel Ben Hananiah and his son were sent by the Kahen to Jerusalem and made contact with the Jewish leaders there.
The history of the Jews in Ethiopia dates back millennia. The largest Jewish group in Ethiopia is the Beta Israel. Offshoots of the Beta Israel include the Beta Abraham and the Falash Mura, Ethiopian Jews who were converted to Christianity, some of whom have reverted to Judaism. Addis Ababa is home to a small community of Adeni Jews. Chabad also maintains a presence in Addis Ababa.
Israeli Jews or Jewish Israelis comprise Israel's largest ethnic and religious community. The core of their demographic consists of those with a Jewish identity and their descendants, including ethnic Jews and religious Jews alike. Approximately 99% of the global Israeli Jewish population resides in Israel; yerida is uncommon and is offset exponentially by aliyah, but those who do emigrate from the country typically relocate to the Western world. As such, the Israeli diaspora is closely tied to the broader Jewish diaspora.
Raphael Hadane, was the Liqa Kahenat of Beta Israel in Israel.
Tudor Parfitt is a British historian, writer, broadcaster, traveller and adventurer. He specialises in the study of Jewish communities and Judaising communities around the world, particularly in Africa, Asia and the Americas and the development of issues about the construction of race.
Haggai Erlich is professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and an academic adviser at the Open University of Israel where he is the head of Middle Eastern History studies. He is the Landau Prize recipient for 2010 in African Studies.
The Kingdom of Simien, sometimes referred to as the Kingdom of Beta Israel, refers to a Jewish kingdom said to have been located in the northwestern part of the Ethiopian Empire. The existence of such a kingdom somewhere in the Horn of Africa was first mentioned by the traveller Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century CE.
Ethiopian Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants from the Beta Israel communities in Ethiopia who now reside in Israel. To a lesser, but notable, extent, the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel is also composed of Falash Mura, a community of Beta Israel which had converted to Christianity over the course of the past two centuries, but were permitted to immigrate to Israel upon returning to Israelite religion—this time largely to Rabbinic Judaism.
Haymanot is the branch of Judaism which is practiced by the Beta Israel, also known as Ethiopian Jews.
Shalva Weil is Senior Researcher at The Seymour Fox School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Life Member at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, UK. In 2017, she was GIAN Distinguished Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi. She has researched Indian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Baghdadi Jews, the Ten Lost Tribes and Femicide.
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