The History of Ethiopian Jewry

About the Project 

The Shifting Dynamics between the Betä Ǝsraʾel and Solomonic Authorities and Society from the Era of the Princes to the Twentieth Century

Dr. Bar Kribus

The project seeks to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics between the Betä Ǝsraʾel and Solomonic (Christian Ethiopian) authorities and society, from the political decentralization of the Solomonic Kingdom at the onset of the Zämänä Mäsafǝnt (1769–1855) to the twentieth century. Past studies addressing these dynamics have tended to focus on the Gondär area, which served as the seat of the Solomonic monarchy (seventeenth–nineteenth c.), due to its accessibility and the abundance of sources on this region. However, the Betä Ǝsraʾel inhabited an extensive area which was extremely diverse in terms of climate, population, economy, and religious and political dynamics, ranging from the frontier with Islamic Sudan, to the Solomonic heartlands, to the Səmen Mountains, where the Betä Ǝsraʾel were a substantial portion of the population and had maintained their sovereignty until the seventeenth century. Regional variations in Betä Ǝsraʾel life and dynamics with broader society were significant, and a comprehensive understanding of Betä Ǝsraʾel history in Solomonic Ethiopia must take these variations into account.

This project will focus on regions and contexts which have not yet been addressed in detail in scholarship. All available relevant written sources will be examined, including travel accounts and reports produced by Western travelers, missionaries, activists and scholars who interacted with the Betä Ǝsraʾel, as well as Solomonic chronicles and administrative documents. Interviews will be conducted both with members of the Betä Ǝsraʾel community originally from these different regions and with their former neighbors in Ethiopia. Based on the sources examined, a detailed analysis of the dynamics between the Betä Ǝsraʾel, Solomonic authorities and Solomonic society more broadly will be conducted, initially on a regional level. Then, a comparison will be conducted between different regions and times, and between the official policy of Solomonic monarchs and the situation de facto in different regions, enabling the identification both of common features and of characteristics unique to specific contexts.
 

Catalogue of Beta Israel Holy Scriptures in Private Holdings

Prof. Dalit Rom-Shiloni

An unknown number of Ethiopian manuscripts, Beta Israel holy scriptures, are currently located in Israel in private hands. By rough estimate, it is plausible to assume that there are hundreds of manuscripts, situated in houses of worship across the country or in private homes of Qessotch (priests) or their descendants, serving as “living books” within their communities. These holy scriptures, written in Ge‘ez, are a rare commodity to their owners; simultaneously, they are inaccessible to anyone other than the Qes or his family members, and entirely beyond the reach of researchers in Israel and worldwide.

Within the framework of the “Orit Guardians” project in the Department of Biblical Studies, we established “The Digital Archive of the Beta Israel Scriptures” in cooperation with the National Library of Israel and the Center for Ethiopian Jewry Heritage. The role of the digital database is, on the one hand, to ensure that the manuscripts remain with their owners and, on the other hand, that complete digital copies of the manuscripts appear on a special page on the National Library’s website (and the Heritage Center’s website). This way, any interested party in Israel and globally will be able to access the photographs of the manuscripts—and the entire material will be open for research. As it sounds, this represents no less than a revolution in the field of Ethiopic Bible Studies. Relatively few Beta Israel holy scriptures have found their way to libraries and archives (such a rare collection is the Faitlovitch Collection, held by at the Sourasky Library, containing approximately forty manuscripts); consequently, Beta Israel holy scriptures are almost unrepresented in research.

The “Catalogue of Beta Israel Holy Scriptures in Private Holdings” project is structured to prepare a book in English and a book in Hebrew that will provide an overview of each of the manuscripts that have been discovered (and those yet to be discovered) and photographed for the digital database. The overviews will refer to the history of each manuscript and their transmission processes (as far as can be traced). A full breakdown of each manuscript’s components will be provided, referencing elements such as: material, colorful emphases, decorations, marginal notes and additions, references and comparisons to other manuscripts, both Jewish and Christian.

The overviews will be written by two research assistants, advanced students of the “Orit Guardians,” with academic support from the Principal Investigator and experts in cataloguing and codicology from Germany: Dr. Sophia Dege-Muller, Ted Erhart (from the University of Hamburg), and Prof. Loren Stuckenbruck (from the University of Munich).

As part of the project, we will hold two researcher workshops visiting some of Beta Israel’s senior Qessotch to discover and photograph additional scriptures; and a concluding conference in the third year of the project.