The Study of Beta Israel Scriptures in Private Holdings

About the Project 

The Study of Beta Israel Scriptures in Private Holdings in Private Holdings

Project Director: Prof. Dalit Rom-Shiloni

Research Assistants: Gadi Melaku, Nava Melaku-Solomon

An unknown number of Ethiopian manuscripts, Beta Israel sacred texts 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 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 sacred texts 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 scriptures are almost unrepresented in research.

The “Catalogue of Beta Israel 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.
 

Image: Kes' students in Ashkelon carry two Orits, photographed by: Avi Zangi, Minute by Minute.