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Jews of Kechene, Ethiopia pretend to be Christians as they secretly
practice Judaism in remote synagogues.
I have always been
fascinated by the story of the Beta Israel Jews of Ethiopia.
At the
time of the epic Operation Solomon, I was living in Russia. By the time I
made aliya, the majority of the Ethiopian Jews were already in Israel.
Here in Israel, I met many Ethiopian Jews and my interest in Beta Israel
history and traditions became even stronger.
This is how one day,
while reading a journey diary written in 1910 by the prominent European
scholar Jacob Faitlovitch, I read his account of an encounter with a group
of Falashas residing in the highlands of North Shewa region of Ethiopia,
an area between Gondar, where most Jews lived, and the capital of
Ethiopia, Addis Ababa.
It took Faitlovitch some time to win the
trust of these Falashas, to get any information from them. Finally, they
revealed to him that they had come to North Shewa from the Dembiya region
near Gondar, mostly at the time of Emperor Menelik II's rule.
In his
account, Faitlovitch discussed the difficulties they faced, which pushed
them to pretend to be Christians.
"These Falashas live in a
relationship of dependence and a lack of freedom which almost borders with
slavery and they are strictly forbidden to ever leave the boundaries of
the Shewa. Only rarely some of them succeed to move away secretly from the
Shewa and to return to their homeland, where they will live again in the
Falasha community as Jews."
Faitlovitch expected this group to
vanish in two generations, due to assimilation and persecution. More than
two generations passed since that time.
Fortunately nowadays,
access to information is much easier than at the time of Faitlovitch. With
the help of the Internet, I contacted a group of Jews in the Kechene
neighborhood of the northern part of Addis Ababa, who claim to be
descendants of Beta Israel who migrated from Gondar to North Shewa.
I went on a long journey, not only a geographically but also in time.
The first historical account of Jewish presence in Ethiopia came from
a 10th-century Jewish merchant and traveler Eldad Ha-Dani. He recounts
that when the Northern Kingdom tribes of Israel went to war against the
Southern Kingdom tribe of Judah, the Danites, who were renowned as skilled
warriors, refused to fight against their kinsmen and left Israel for
Egypt. They continued their journey until they reached the land of Cush
where they finally settled.
According to their oral history, the
Beta Israel of North Shewa settled in Kechene when Menelik II decided to
build his new palace in Entoto, north of today's Addis Ababa. Menelik II
needed them for their skills in crafts to build his palaces and produce
weapons.
For years, the Jews of Kechene continued practicing
Judaism in secret, following the instructions of the leaders who still
remained in North Shewa. However, recently a group of young people of
Kechene have decided to disclose their faith. They have opened a synagogue
right in the heart of Kechene, creating serious tensions between the youth
and the elders.
They call their synagogue Bet Selam, the House of
Peace. Thanks to modern technologies, these young Jews have learned about
the world Jewish community and modern Jewish practices. In their
synagogue, they combine pre-Talmudic practices of their forefathers that
trace back to the times of the First Temple and modern rabbinical Jewish
practices which they have learned about from the Internet and from
visitors.
Kechene is the neighborhood of craftsmen, Bal Ej in
Amharic. Men mainly work as weavers and blacksmiths and the women work as
potters.
Similar to the Beta Israel community in Gondar, Bal Ej
are slandered as buda, or evil eyed. Their neighbors believe that they are
humans at day and hyenas by night. They believe that eye contact with Bal
Ej can bring illness or even death. Suspicions remain even among those who
are educated, like civil servants and university professors. They avoid
approaching Kechene attach a clove of garlic to their arm to protect them
from the evil eye if they have to visit the neighborhood.
Even
though Bal Ej provide Addis Ababa and surrounding areas with clothes,
utensils and blacksmith products, they cannot sell their products on their
own at markets. Instead, they are forced to sell their items through
Christian merchants, which causes them to lose as much as 80 percent of
the product price. However the difficulties that people of Kechene are
going through, cannot be compared to those experienced by craftsmen from
the community who still live in towns and villages of North Shewa.
I visited Morat, a small town of North Shewa, where the Beta Israel
community first settled when they migrated from Gondar. Most of them are
blacksmiths and potters. Almost every month, a member of the community is
murdered or has property is destroyed since the Christian neighbors
believe each time a person gets sick or dies, it is because of the curse
of the "hyena people." They randomly choose a victim to avenge. Most of
the crimes committed against Bal Ej of North Shewa remain unpunished. The
police allows murderers to escape or simply fail to investigate the
crimes.
Life in this town is a life of fear since nobody knows who
will be the next victim. To reduce the danger to some degree, community
members pretend to be Christians. They go to church on Sunday, but attend
hidden synagogues on Saturday.
When I interviewed the community
members, we had to change topic whenever a stranger entered the room. To
protect their secret, I pretended to be an American visitor, since the
word Israel itself can raise eyebrows.
The biggest challenge was
garnering a visit to the synagogues. The locations kept under strict
secrecy and visitors are not welcome. It took a long time to build the
trust and confidence of elders in order to gain permission to visit a few.
The synagogues are located deep in the mountains and getting there
requires a long, tiring and sometimes dangerous trek. This strategy of
building synagogues in remote and inaccessible places has protected the
community for centuries.
The compound does not contain Jewish
symbols. This is for two reasons. The first is to stave off unwelcome
attention from hostile neighbors. The second is that most modern Jewish
symbols, such as the Star of David, are simply unknown to the members of
the community.
There are two entrances to the synagogue, one for
men and another for women. Most of the prayers are conducted in Ge’ez, the
liturgical language of Beta Israel. Surprisingly, the spoken language of
many community elders is Quarenya, a language of an area near Dembiya.
Another interesting feature of the synagogues is that they are always
located near a river because the Jews of North Shewa strictly observe the
Biblical laws of ritual purity, or niddah. To observe the laws of niddah,
a menstruating woman stays in a separate house for seven days. After the
seven days she immerses in the river and can then join the rest of the
community.
The members of the secret synagogues practice
pre-Talmudic Judaism, and therefore practice of animal sacrifice for
Passover and other occasions. I had a chance to witness the process of
sheep slaughter, which corresponds to the laws of Kashrut. It was
reminiscent of the traditions of other ancient Jewish communities, such as
Bukharian Jews of Central Asia.
Even though the community has
strong historical evidence of their connection to the Beta Israel of
Gondar as well as a remarkable resemblance to their traditions, the
community remains unknown to the most of the Jewish world.
The
chances of the Beta Israel of North Shewa gaining recognition from the
Israeli government seems slim. Currently, 6,000 Falash Mura are still
waiting to emigrate to Israel, some for 10 to 20 years at the compound
near the Israeli embassy in Addis Ababa.
To generate awareness of
this amazing community, I decided to make a documentary about this
community - their culture, traditions, music and struggle to survive and
preserve their identity. The film is called Bal Ej: The hidden Jews of
Ethiopia and it is due to be released at the beginning of 2016.
The
Beta Israel of North Shewa are as important to us as we are to them. It is
now our turn and obligation to bring the remaining Jews of Ethiopia back
to Israel and ensure that both their lives and traditions from Ethiopia
are not endangered.
For more information about the upcoming
documentary Bal Ej: the hidden Jews of Ethiopia, visit
www.ireneorleansky.com