A Look at the Halakhic Status of Ethiopian Immigrants (Column 171)

For those who are complaining, it is clear (for some reason) that it is obvious to everyone that everyone (except for a few cranks) knows that the Ethiopians are unquestionably Jews, and that the “patronizing” attitude stems from sheer racism. None of them understands that in fact (perhaps; I haven’t checked) their Jewish status is in doubt, so you are speaking into thin air.

You wrote that this is First Temple Judaism and that the halakhah they possess is from the First Temple period, but that can only be said according to the view that accepts their Jewishness.
One who does not accept their Jewishness holds, after all, that this is a Judaism-like religion founded much later, perhaps through Christian mediation, and uses the fact that the Torah scroll in their possession is a translation of the Greek translation to raise doubts about an unbroken tradition from First Temple times. So it is hard to see why, in your view, one should reach the conclusion that: “then there is still room to recognize their Judaism in the narrow sense.” To recognize that, some common basis is needed; if membership in the Jewish people itself is disputed, then there is no room left for recognition. After all, there are many non-Jewish sects that see themselves as a continuation of Judaism (even Christianity itself sees itself that way), and presumably you would not say that there is room to recognize their narrow Judaism.

It is not certain that ethnically they are Jews. They could be Christians of Ethiopian origin who decided to become Christians without Jesus. Christians see themselves as Israel in the spirit as opposed to Israel in the flesh, and these people decided that they too are Israel in the flesh (and there have been other examples of this in Christian history that no one claims are Jewish; the best known among them are the Mormons). About this it was said: “Not everyone who wishes to assume the name may come and assume it.”

Here it branches again. The fact that ethnically they are not Jews does not mean that they are not part of the divine revelation. This is essentially the position of Rabbi Ovadia, following the Radbaz. Being Jewish has two sides – being part of Jewish ethnicity, and being one who reveals God’s name in the world. A convert, for example, is not part of Jewish ethnicity, but he does reveal God’s name in the world. According to Rabbi Ovadia, Ethiopian Jews are part of the revelation of God’s name in the world, and therefore they are Jews. And regarding this it has already been said: “The righteous decrees, and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills.”

I won’t get into the technical side of conversion. It seems to me that this is the position of the Chief Rabbinate. I will only note that in the Land of Israel it seems that the halakhah has been accepted in accordance with Rabbi Ovadia, since both the Sephardim and the Religious Zionists accepted his rulings (and of course the secular too). And according to what the rabbi once wrote when I asked him about the Ethiopians, the rabbi too accepts his rulings.

The claim that Ethiopian “Judaism,” which supposedly went into exile to Ethiopia during the First Temple period, is identical with today’s Beta Israel is highly doubtful in the scholarship, so the question is whether the immigrants from Ethiopia were ever Jews at any point in time at all (even if they saw themselves that way in recent centuries).

Sorry for bringing the discussion down to practice, but the question interests me:
Let us assume that your son comes home with an Ethiopian woman and wants to marry her (or your daughter with an Ethiopian man). What would you do, assuming you have a say in the matter? Would you ask the Ethiopian to undergo conversion out of stringency before the marriage?

With God’s help, 11 Tishrei 5779

Rabbi Moshe Havlin clarified that the requirement to present proof of Jewish status from the local rabbinate applies not only to immigrants from Ethiopia, but also to immigrants from the “Commonwealth of Nations” (the former USSR), from America, and the like; and as is known, in those places there are cases requiring not only a “conversion out of stringency” but a full conversion because of doubt.

Indeed, in the view of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, one relies entirely on the words of the Radbaz that Ethiopian Jewry are from the tribe of Dan (apparently the Radbaz relied on the testimony of Eldad the Danite, who arrived during the Geonic period in Babylonia, Spain, and North Africa and described the distinctive slaughtering customs of his land). Likewise, according to Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, and Rabbi Avraham Shapira, the primary halakhic ruling follows the Radbaz regarding the community as a whole, but they are concerned about the minority possibility of gentiles who mixed in over the generations, and therefore require an “immersion out of stringency” for marriage; and it would seem that according to them there is no need to be concerned about this regarding “food cooked by gentiles,” which is only a rabbinic concern.

However, it is well known that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the Tzitz Eliezer, and other important Torah authorities viewed Ethiopian Jews as doubtful Jews and required conversion because of doubt. Even Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog, though he was very fond of them and encouraged drawing them close to Torah and bringing them to the Land, required as a matter of doubt even symbolic drawing of covenantal blood, and this was also the practice of the Chief Rabbis until 1985.

A factory that supplies mehadrin catering services, among other things to the IDF, is supposed to provide food that even Haredi soldiers who are concerned about the views of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and the Tzitz Eliezer can eat – so despite the unpleasantness, there is no escaping the requirement for proof of Jewish status (which in any case they were or will be required to produce when marrying).

If the army wants the services of Haredim – it must provide them with food that satisfies the halakhic authorities accepted by them.

With blessing, Shatz Levinger

As for the preservation of “halakhah from the days of the First Temple” among Ethiopian Jews: the matter is not clear. After all, even the holy tongue was forgotten by them, and certainly in First Temple days they did not speak Amharic or Ge’ez, and not a few commandments explicit in the Torah were absent, such as sounding the shofar, the four species, tzitzit and tefillin, and the prohibition of private altars. It is no wonder that major bodies of Torah law and details of halakhah were forgotten during the harsh persecutions the community endured at the hands of Christians.

Moreover, the prevalent tradition among the elders of the community (according to the testimony of the Jewish Agency envoys R. Moshe Bar-Yehuda, in his article “The Falashas” on the Da’at website, and R. Meir Cohen, in his article “From the Customs of Ethiopian Jews,” in the collection Yalkut Minhagim Shel Edot Yisrael) is that they arrived in Ethiopia from Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemaic dynasty. And this fits well with the fact that the text of the “Orit” in their possession is translated from the Septuagint version.

The Beta Israel community, the immigrants from Ethiopia, are worthy of admiration for preserving their Judaism despite their separation from the rest of the nation and the harsh persecutions they suffered in their land. We will learn from them self-sacrifice and good character traits, and they will learn from the other Jewish communities what was forgotten by them during the periods of separation and persecution.

It occurred to me that perhaps one could be lenient whichever way, even according to those who are concerned about their very Jewishness. For the Ashkenazim, after all, rely on the view of the Rema that it is enough for the supervisor to light the fire; and the Sephardim, who require a Jew to place the pot, rely on the Radbaz that they are from the tribe of Dan.

With blessing, Zvi Badan Halevi

And what is your opinion about the fact that he requires proof of Jewishness for the sake of the rabbinic law of food cooked by gentiles, for which a presumption would ostensibly suffice?

On the one hand, I agree that the weaker side is not always right, and also that discriminatory treatment often has rational reasons; but still, usually the arguments in favor of the discriminatory treatment come from the stronger side, and it is hard to identify with them. For example, a sentence like, “Arab citizens of Israel need to understand that even if most of them are innocent and nonviolent citizens, there is no avoiding checking them, because the risk of terror attacks comes from among them and almost only from there,” is true, but still difficult.
Do you have an example of a case where you are on the weaker, discriminated-against side, and you explain that it is logical and just?

I think this is far from Rabbi Ovadia’s line of thought. He is speaking in halakhic terms, not about revealing God in the world. Maimonides wrote that Muslims and Christians also participate in revealing God in the world. If you use that as a criterion for Jewishness, you will go very far indeed. A gentile needs to convert in order to be considered a Jew; it is not enough that he reveals God’s name in the world.
I also do not accept halakhah merely because someone somewhere does, but that is a different discussion.
As for the matter itself, I do not remember what I wrote to you, but I have not examined the issue, and I do not think I can rely blindly on Rabbi Ovadia. I do not have my own position on the matter.

As stated, I have not examined the issue on its merits. But if I adopt a position not like Rabbi Ovadia’s, then insofar as it depends on me, definitely yes (though I am not sure anyone would listen to me).

I am not claiming that the halakhah was preserved among them exactly as it originally was. Not even among us was it. It developed there along a parallel track to ours, just as it developed אצלנו (including forgettings, expansions, interpretations, and so on).

With God’s help, 11 Tishrei 5779

To Y.D. – greetings,

The scenario in which Christians decide to free themselves from Christianity and attach themselves to the Bible has happened here and there. The prominent example is the “Subbotniks” in Russia, who discovered Judaism from the Bible and kept it with self-sacrifice – but that this should last through hundreds of years of persecution and not be proudly preserved in the community’s tradition, explaining how they discovered the truth and separated from the “false religion” – that is not common.

Genetically, there is closeness between Beta Israel in Ethiopia and Yemenite Jews. In Yemen there were Jews who had lived there since the destruction of the First Temple, and perhaps even before that. Under their influence, the Himyarite royal house adopted Judaism and fought the Christian Byzantine Empire, until Yemen was conquered by the Christian Ethiopians. With the takeover of Islam in Yemen, researchers surmise that most of the Himyarite converts and fellow-travelers adopted the ruling religion, which also offered them the core values of Judaism without suffering and humiliation; and those who stubbornly remained in their Judaism were the original Jews, who remained a “stiff-necked people” in their tradition. (See the book by Prof. Yosef Yuval Tobi, The Jews of Yemen in the Shadow of Islam – From Its Beginning to Our Times, Jerusalem 2018.)

It is possible that a similar process occurred in Ethiopia several generations earlier. Jews who arrived there, apparently from Hellenistic Egypt, brought the message of Judaism to the peoples of Ethiopia and became a dominant factor there. Until Christianity arrived, providing them with a more convenient monotheistic faith, and once again the original Jews remained “a people that shall dwell alone.”

Judaism was during the exile a very “costly commodity,” and maintaining it with self-sacrifice for more than fifteen hundred years gives very strong indication of descent from “the boldest of the nations – Israel.”

With blessing, Shatz Levinger

Support for my conjecture that the origin of the Christians in Ethiopia lies in converts and fellow-travelers to Judaism may be found in the fact that even today Christians in Ethiopia keep the Sabbath day and some of the dietary laws.

Just as halakhah does not create the reality of ownership but presupposes its existence and on that basis regulates the attitude toward it, so too regarding Jews: halakhah does not create their reality but presupposes that they exist, and on that basis determines the attitude toward them. Therefore the question arises: what is that existence? It is not only ethnic, since Judaism allows conversion through acceptance of commandments. It is not only religious, because a person born to a Jewish mother is a Jew even if he does not believe and does not observe commandments. So one must define a common denominator that goes beyond those two possibilities. I therefore hold that a Jew is someone connected to the historical revelation of God in the world. There is a history of that revelation – the people of Israel – and whoever is connected to it, whether ethnically or by way of conversion, is a Jew. Usually the connection worked like a network. Each point knew the next point – the Indians knew the Iraqis and the Yemenites, the Iraqis and Yemenites knew the people of the Land of Israel, the people of the Land of Israel knew the Ashkenazim, and so on. Sometimes points were disconnected from the network and disappeared, as happened to the Chinese Jews in the eighteenth century. When Rabbi Ovadia encountered Ethiopians who claimed they were Jews, they were not connected to any point in the historical network. In order to connect them to the network, he needed the testimony about Eldad the Danite that appears in the Radbaz. The connection to the network turns them into part of the story of the network’s revelation, and therefore into Jews.

From a technical halakhic standpoint, one witness is believed in matters of prohibition. The Radbaz testified that Eldad the Danite was a Jew. Eldad the Danite testified that the other Ethiopian Jews are Jewish, and therefore they are Jews (though it still seems to me preferable that they convert, because the whole thing is very dubious).

Islam and Christianity are falsifications, and like every falsification, their end is to be exposed.

To Shatz Levinger,
I was told that in Tsarist Russia, the only way to be non-Orthodox Christian was to declare yourself a Jew.

Regarding Ethiopian Jews, I do not have the faintest idea. I only wanted to show that one can give an alternative interpretation.

Still somewhat difficult from here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%93-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%92%D7%96%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%91%D7%99-%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%A7%D7%9F-%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8-1/#comment-15244

What presumption is there here?

As I understand it, Orthodox Judaism does not view the Torah as a social-cultural development, but as the word of God given to Moses at Sinai as the Oral Torah and passed down from generation to generation. Only by virtue of that does halakhah have an important and binding status. (From the tone of the rabbi’s words it sounds as though there is a human development here, which is important only because “we accepted it upon ourselves.” As I recall, the overwhelming majority of rabbis would strongly object to such a formulation, which sounds a bit Reform (forgive the curse)).
According to this, the very existence of Ethiopian Judaism poses a difficulty for Orthodoxy: here is a society that succeeded in preserving its tradition, yet has not the slightest trace of the Oral Torah as we know it from the Mishnah and the Gemara.
Is this not a kind of historical proof that the Orthodox conception of the Oral Torah as having passed in one piece from God to Moses at Mount Sinai is mistaken?
And if it is indeed mistaken, it is completely understandable why people complain about hurting Ethiopian feelings. Why, in the name of a mistaken and irrelevant conception, should human beings be harmed?

A side comment – the days of the First Temple are not “before the development of the Oral Torah,” according to the belief that the interpretation of the Torah too was given at Sinai and many halakhot were known in First Temple times – that is, there was an interpretive tradition that is the essence of the Oral Torah. Rather, it was before the development of the Oral Torah *as it exists among us*, because the Sanhedrin has the authority to derive halakhot from the verses in every generation and they could change the ruling (at least according to Maimonides’ understanding). In addition, it is likely that indeed some of the halakhot were forgotten among them. Also regarding the claim itself, I understood that they too have the Scroll of Esther, and if so it necessarily is not a matter of separation from the main stream of Judaism in First Temple times (but rather later, if at all, as others here note at length).

They also preserved things that we do not recognize and that are not written, such as in the laws of menstruation and childbirth. So both groups preserve things that are not explicit in Scripture, and at least one of the groups added or forgot halakhot that did not exist at the time of the split (assuming there was one) – and therefore our Judaism claims that we are the originals, and they forgot a bit and added a bit, while we added a bit (or a lot).

How the mighty have fallen. You are expressing a statalist conception according to which some authority (the Rabbinate/the state) can recognize their Judaism or not. Forget it. Whoever does not want to recognize them should not recognize them, and why do you care about the procedures of the state and the Rabbinate?
Of course, the state is entitled to dictate to Rabbinate employees what procedures to follow (or they can look for another job), but that itself is the problem in mixing religion and state, and the reason why, in my opinion, there is a serious problem in relying on Rabbinate kashrut certification.

With God’s help, 12 Tishrei 5779

Do traditions of Ethiopian Jews create a ‘difficulty’ for the traditions passed down from generation to generation throughout Israel?

After all, even the Hebrew language was forgotten by them, as were many commandments explicit in the Torah, such as shofar, the four species, tzitzit and tefillin, levirate marriage and halitzah, and more. What they remembered, they observed meticulously and devotedly; but what was forgotten – was forgotten.

According to their own tradition, their origin is from Jewish soldiers who participated in a revolt against one of the Ptolemaic kings and were forced to flee for their lives and escaped to Ethiopia; thus Moshe Bar-Yehuda reports (who was an emissary of the Department for Torah Culture in Ethiopia in 1958) in his article “The Falashas” on the Da’at website. He noted there that they were apparently forced to marry local women.

So what do you expect from refugees who were cut off for more than 2,000 years from the rest of the people of Israel? The little they knew from “their father’s house” they preserved. But intermingling with the local population, and later persecutions by that same population, which had meanwhile become zealously Christian, did not add to their ability to preserve the tradition in their hands.

In discussions on the “Lavi on the Net” forum (managed by Dr. Yossi Ziv), one young man from their community boasted that the qessim preserved from memory ten generations back! So the qessim preserved traditions from the eighteenth century, while the rest of the people did not understand a word of the “Orit,” which was written in Ge’ez; whereas every child in all the Jewish communities who learned Bible and Mishnah knows to say what the Sages discussed more than two thousand years ago and what prophets said 3,000 years ago.

We do not come with complaints against the בני ‘ביתא ישראל’ who were cut off against their will from the living tradition of their people; after all, that was the curse of exile. And thank God it is over.

Happy are we that the בני community of ‘ביתא ישראל’ are returning and reconnecting to the heritage of their people, studying the Written and Oral Torah, and already outstanding Torah scholars are arising among them who illuminate the world with their Torah.

With blessing, Shatz Levinger (grandfather of Eliya, Tamar, Moshe, and David, children of R. Erez Aitegbo

Moshe G, clearly even according to the Gemara many halakhot developed anew, whether we are speaking of decrees and enactments, or of halakhot based on newly derived interpretation of the text. Still, if the situation were as we were taught in school and yeshiva, that the core of the Oral Torah was passed to Moses at Sinai, we would expect to see that there would be a bit more identical material whose source is not found in the Written Torah. To claim that there may have been such things and they were all forgotten is somewhat forced.
Of course, the existence or nonexistence of preserved halakhot is not conclusive proof in either direction. Still, it raises thoughts.

Paragraph 4, line 3:
… what the Sages discussed…

There is an assumption here that they preserved the halakhah that was practiced in First Temple times. I do not know the Ethiopians well enough, but is the claim that in fact they had an unbroken tradition of Torah study, transmitting it to subsequent generations, halakhic ruling, etc.?
Are you claiming that in fact they do preserve all the halakhah that was practiced in First Temple times (obviously with forgettings and developments, etc.) without having abandoned significant parts of it?
It seems to me that you are assuming, as a basic premise, a claim that is not agreed upon.

With all due respect, that definition is not worth much. You return to the standard halakhic definition and force it into your template. Christianity and Islam, which satisfy your definition, are rejected because it is a “forgery.” Ad hoc definitions always work, of course, and therefore help us with nothing. The definition is one born to a Jewish mother or one who converted according to halakhah (ethnic or essential). But that is the definition of belonging, which is a fact. The definition of Jewish culture is halakhah and nothing else. And indeed, one who does not observe halakhah is a gentile born to a Jewish mother.

Yes, I too did not understand this matter of presumption.

Beyond the commandments that were entirely forgotten among Beta Israel, and the enactments and fences of Hazal that were unknown to them – at the ‘de’oraita’ level there is great correspondence between their tradition and the tradition of Hazal.

Unlike the Sadducees, who counted the Omer weeks from the Sabbath within Passover, Beta Israel counted the seven weeks from the festival day, interpreting “the morrow after the Sabbath” as “the morrow after the festival,” except that they counted from the second festival day, the seventh day of Passover, whereas according to the tradition of Hazal we count from the first festival day.

Their calendar too is lunar, unlike the calendar of the “Book of Jubilees,” which is based on a count of weeks. Although the “Book of Jubilees” was in their possession, they did not practice according to it, because it did not match the ancient tradition.

In slaughter, they recognized only a forward or backward stroke, which is valid even according to the tradition of Hazal if the knife is long enough for two necks. Immersion was done in a river or spring, which were available in Ethiopia, and these too are valid according to the tradition of Hazal. Mikvaot were not common in Ethiopia because there was no need for them in a land abundant in springs and streams, and therefore the laws of immersion in a mikveh were forgotten by them.

Therefore there was not great difficulty, when they came to the Land, in accepting the commandments and enactments practiced in all the Jewish communities, and thus the council of qessim decided (according to the testimony of Qes Samai Elias, in Dr. Yossi Ziv’s “Lavi on the Net” forum) that they would adopt all the halakhot practiced in the other Jewish communities except for a few details: not to circumcise on Shabbat; to eat something symbolic on Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat; and to make vows on Shabbat itself (out of stringency regarding “do not delay,” which overrides the prohibition of muktzeh, which by all opinions is rabbinic).

The qessim tried to create a situation in which they would hold the stringencies of both traditions – “the stringencies of the place from which they came and the stringencies of the place to which they went” – and this sometimes created situations of “a stringency that leads to leniency.” The stringency that slaughter be done with only one forward or backward stroke led to the error of pressing; and the insistence on immersing specifically in a river or sea, which are flowing waters, led to the error of preferring a shower to a mikveh. Home-grown mistakes that they had never imagined in Ethiopia.

There are situations in which the gain from stringency comes out in its loss!

With blessing, Shatz Levinger

An interesting custom in which the women of Beta Israel united with the women of Eastern European Hasidim is short haircuts for women before immersion, out of concern for interposition in the hair. This custom is still attested by Bar-Yehuda, who was in Ethiopia in 1958, whereas Meir Cohen, who was there in 1976, testifies that the custom had spread among the women to braid their hair like the non-Jewish women.

An interesting curiosity is the eighteenth of Elul, marked by Beta Israel as the birthday of the Patriarchs, and Chabad Hasidim also mark it as the birthday of the Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Shneur Zalman. Perhaps early Chabad emissaries reached Ethiopia 🙂

An interesting parallel is the custom of marking the eve of Rosh Chodesh as a day of repentance and atonement. Thus select individuals in Beta Israel would fast every eve of Rosh Chodesh (and on the eve of Rosh Chodesh Kislev the masses joined them, since that day was the 50th day from Yom Kippur). Astonishingly, this custom began to spread in the other Jewish communities under the inspiration of the kabbalists of Safed, and among Ashkenazim was called “Minor Yom Kippur,” and among Sephardim “Mishmarah.” Since in the sixteenth century encounters between Ethiopian Jews and the Jews of Egypt and the Land of Israel increased, it is not far-fetched to suppose that this custom in fact spread to all Israel from Ethiopia.

Why do you need examples? If it’s difficult, let them take a pill. Whether it is difficult or easy has nothing to do with truth, and certainly not with racism.
By the way, I do have an example: recognition of the Israeli legal system, which is purely secular, even though there is a significant religious and Haredi minority here. I understand that I am a minority, and therefore it is clear to me that this is how the system should look. That is also why I think the prohibition of going to gentile courts is not relevant nowadays in relation to the Israeli legal system.

Amichai, you identify the claim that the Oral Torah developed by human beings over the generations with the claim that it is a mistaken, nonbinding matter. The two are not close to one another. It is indeed a human development (for the most part), and nevertheless it is binding, and not necessarily mistaken (though there is no doubt that it contains quite a few mistakes, as is the way of human beings). The Torah was not given to us explicated, and I assume that the Holy One, blessed be He, also understood that we would interpret it, and on that basis gave it to us. If you like, that is “you shall not turn aside.”
And if someone objects to that formulation, good for him.

Meni, who said anything about the Rabbinate? I am speaking about recognition by the religious public and its rabbis of the immigrants from Ethiopia. Reports of my downfall were premature.

I already explained above that I do not assume that. My claim is that a tradition developed among them which, like traditions generally, changes and is forgotten and renewed and expanded, exactly like our tradition. But that is their tradition.

The custom of Ethiopian Jews was to turn toward Jerusalem when reciting blessings. A similar custom is praised by Rabbi Abraham ben Maimonides, to turn one’s face toward Jerusalem even during “seated prayers.”

Another custom in which there is a parallel is the practice of being concerned about the kashrut of turkeys. As the Shelah ruled, the sages of Beta Israel also forbade turkey, because they saw it as predatory and were concerned about its kashrut.

For the idea underlying the Sigd day, which is the 50th day after Yom Kippur, that on this day one renews the covenant with the Holy One, blessed be He, after that covenant was violated by sin – I found parallels in the writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (I quoted some of the sources in my comments on Dr. Yossi Ziv’s article, “The Festival of Covenant Renewal,” on the Shabbat Supplement – Makor Rishon website).

And last but not least, a custom I heard was practiced by Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, of blessed memory: not to bend his head toward the food, but to raise it in his hand to his mouth. And so I saw with the grandfather of my son-in-law, may God prolong his days in goodness and his years pleasantly, that when he sat to eat he was upright as a ruler and raised the food to his mouth, and did not bend his head toward the food even by a hair’s breadth.

In short: it is hard to build “alternative halakhic foundations” from Beta Israel traditions, but one can take from them an abundance of good traits and fine customs founded on conceptual depth. Their piyyutim too, and their liturgical and musical traditions in prayer and Torah reading, deserve to be translated into Hebrew and integrated into the Jewish prayer world of all the communities.

However, for good let Moshe Bar-Yehuda be remembered (who was sent to Ethiopia in 1958 with the blessing of the Chief Rabbis, Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog and Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim), who after the great immigration to the Land took pains to gather the musical-liturgical traditions of Beta Israel. One may hope that these things will be made accessible to the broader public and leave their proper mark on the prayers of all the Jewish communities.

With blessing, Shatz Levinger'

Dr. Beracha Zisser addressed the genetic closeness between Yemenite Jews and Ethiopia in research conducted במסגרת the bone marrow registry of Ezer Mizion. On the cultural closeness, see the article by Dikla Danino and Prof. Zohar Amar, “Between Ethiopian and Yemenite Medicine” (available online).

With blessing, Shatz Levinger

The question is whether every culture is defined as a tradition. Judaism presents a documented tradition of uninterrupted Torah study, of halakhic ruling by great Torah scholars.
We also know how to explain every verse in the Torah (not sure we interpret correctly, but in any case our bond to the Bible is firm), and we have extensive literature (the Talmuds).
The Judaism of the Ethiopians looks more like a culture than a tradition (and again, perhaps I write out of ignorance), as something that quite clearly became seriously distorted – true, it also מסתבר that our halakhah today is different from what it once was – but there is a difference between natural development created by study and reasoning and enactments (and also relatively minor forgetting), and forgetting many essential commandments and perhaps assimilating into the surrounding environment.

You wrote that apparently at one time Jewishness was determined by the father. Does this claim have any support, or is it just a conjecture? And why would they have changed it to determination by the mother?

This is a dispute in the Gemara. Certainly there were places and times that ruled differently from how we rule today.

But there is a difference between a community that knows the history of the development of halakhah, except that they rule differently and their halakhah developed differently, and a community that does not know the history at all, where there was no continuity of Torah study and halakhic ruling, and which does not know how to explain how and why their halakhah developed.

I do not know when it is culture and when it is tradition. They kept halakhah as they understood it, and therefore from their point of view this is the halakhah. Clearly the source was the halakhah from which they came (before they went into exile), and that is how it continued among them. I do not know how to draw such a line.

One example among many: http://www.daat.ac.il/mishpat-ivri/skirot/72-2.htm

Have a good week.

Two questions:

You wrote: “The question is what this means regarding food prepared by them. From my point of view, should such food not receive kashrut certification? I don’t think so. So long as this is a community that acts lawfully according to its own approach, there is no reason to impose sanctions on it. Expanding the prohibition of food cooked by gentiles due to marriage ties even to such a case (for after all, one may not marry them) is, in my opinion, an unnecessary and unreasonable expansion.”

I did not understand the argument. Is the prohibition of “bishulei akum” a “sanction”? Since when? Why not understand that insofar as there is concern about marriage with a gentile, there is a prohibition of “bishulei akum,” and assuming the Ethiopians are not Jews, that prohibition applies to them?

As an aside, as is known, the Rishonim disagreed about the reason for the prohibition of “bishulei akum,” and according to the view of the Or Zarua and those with him, who prohibited it because “lest he feed him impure things,” the prohibition also applies to secular Jews. According to this, even assuming the Ethiopians are Jews, must one not discuss whether one can rely on them not to feed us what is forbidden to us and permitted to them? Correct?

You wrote: “Regarding their conversion, I have some hesitation. It is not clear to me whether within the framework of conversion they must accept our halakhah or accept halakhah, even according to their own interpretation. I tend to think that accepting the commandments according to their interpretation could turn them into fully valid Jews even according to our view.”

Would a Norwegian gentile (for the sake of argument) who comes to convert in a Haredi or Ethiopian court and asks to accept the Ethiopian halakhah also be considered by us a Jew, according to your view? And if not, why not?

My claim was that they are Jews according to their own view even if we are forbidden to marry them. In such a situation I am uncertain whether the prohibition of food cooked by gentiles applies. Just as there is no prohibition for a priest to eat food cooked by a divorced woman. And even according to the view that there is a concern lest they feed us forbidden foods, if these are people who are careful about halakhah according to their own view, there is not necessarily a concern that they will feed us what is forbidden according to our view (just as a Sephardi does not fear that an Ashkenazi will feed him foods forbidden according to his own view).

That Norwegian would be a Jew in the narrow sense in which they themselves are Jews.

The question whether Ethiopians are Jews or not is a historical question: are they in fact descendants of Jews, and did they preserve themselves from intermarriage?
Why is this a halakhic question?

Yoav, it is a halakhic question for two reasons:

A: In a case where the reality is unclear, we need halakhah in order to determine a position (according to the laws of testimony, presumption, and the like).

B. Insofar as they are descendants of Jews only partially, that is, they are descendants of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers, we need halakhah in order to determine a position.

I think that דווקא the example of a different halakhic ruling regarding the determination of Jewish lineage shows the absurdity of the tolerant approach you presented. For if they rule that a Jew is the child of a Jewish father even if the mother is not, then as far as I am concerned they are complete gentiles with all that entails. And with all the good will to let them rule according to their own view, I am prevented from marrying their daughters. And it is clear that the children born of the levirate cases who came from the house of Shammai were separated by the house of Hillel according to the Rashi you cited.
That is to say, if we assume there is a substantive halakhic and conceptual change among the members of the Ethiopian community, we are halakhically barred from them.
And this relates to the second logical point you raised, because Maimonides in his introduction to the Mishneh Torah explains that my obligation to the Babylonian Talmud is only because the majority of Israel accepted it upon themselves, and if so, from my point of view this obligates the Ethiopians to the same extent.

God is in the small details. If, as you say, he is a gentile born to a Jewish mother, then his betrothal is not betrothal, his divorce document is not a divorce, he does not perform halitzah, if he had relations with an unmarried woman he did not make her a zonah, if he had relations with a forbidden relative the child is not a mamzer, and so on. Since his betrothal does take effect, his divorce is a divorce, he performs halitzah for his brother’s wife, if he had relations with an unmarried woman he did not make her a zonah, and if he had relations with a forbidden relative the child is a mamzer, it is proven not as you say. I agree that from the standpoint of distancing laws he has a side of a gentile (ordinary wine, etc.), but by Torah law and not by rabbinic decree he is not a gentile but a Jew. And since that is so, the claim that observance of halakhah defines him as a Jew is self-refuting.

As for Christianity and Islam (and also the Karaites), if we follow the Gemara in Yoma, then revelation of God’s name is not just anything, but revelation of God’s name that causes awe among outsiders. The Gemara gives us here an operative definition for examining who reveals God’s name in the world. However, technically it is hard for us to put this proposal to the test, and so it does not stand up to Popper’s criterion of falsifiability. Still, one can propose testing it by way of negation in relation to the Holocaust, according to Shalom Rosenberg’s interpretation of the Holocaust as a parable of the biblical story of Job. According to this interpretation, whoever Satan marks as his enemy is the chosen one. In this context, those whom the Nazis marked as their enemy were not Christians or Muslims, nor were they Karaites following Firkovich. The ones the Nazis marked as their enemy were specifically the Jews, and that was precisely because the Jews revealed God’s name in the world and therefore brought morality into the world. If there is one point of agreement between Hitler and the rabbi, it is that binding morality requires God, but the conclusion Hitler drew was the opposite. In order to eliminate morality, one must eliminate God, and in order to eliminate God, one must eliminate the Jews. Hitler did not think that Christianity revealed God’s name, nor Islam (with some of whose people he had friendly ties). Those who reveal God’s name in the world are the Jews, and therefore the Jews must be destroyed. At the decisive moment when Satan pointed out who his enemy was, it became clear that the Jews were his enemy. One might object that the Nazis were not consistent with halakhah in defining who is a Jew, and included also those Jewish through the father and not only through the mother. Well, it is hard to claim they were great scholars, but the argument itself is quite consistent: the Jews revealed God’s name in the world, and the Jews must be removed.

Uri,
You are repeating my words, but for some reason ending on a questioning note. I did not understand.

The majority obligates the minority only when they sat and deliberated together (the halakhic authorities also wrote this in Choshen Mishpat sec. 25 regarding majority in a court). Therefore acceptance by the majority does not obligate the minority that was not present with them in session and did not accept the decision together with them. If we were to count and discover that Ashkenazim outnumber Sephardim, would the Sephardim have to accept Ashkenazi rulings?!

Y.D.,
I do not understand what is unclear about what I wrote: a cultural gentile born to a Jewish mother. Halakhically he is a Jew, but his culture is that of a gentile. What does that have to do with his betrothal?
I already wrote to you that aside from the fact that these pilpulim are mere homiletics, they are written ad hoc and therefore are not worth much as a definition.

To R. Michael, שלום.
1. You distinguished in your words between the question of Jewishness and the question of marriage. Regarding their Jewishness, your answer was:
‘With respect to the first question, it seems one can recognize them as Jews, since they observe the halakhah as it was accepted by them, like any community whose halakhic customs differ. The fact that we rule differently does not obligate them. They were not partners in the halakhic development of the Oral Torah and therefore are not bound by it. It is like two communities that follow different rulings, and clearly one will not invalidate the other. True, here the distance is greater, since they do not act according to views that were rejected from halakhah, but in a way not at all recognized as a halakhic view among us. Still, if one takes the historical process into account, there is no essential difference between the situations. They act according to the tradition that took shape among them, exactly like us. But this does not necessarily mean that I (if I agree with Rabbi Havlin) would marry them, for according to my view they are gentiles.’
I read this paragraph several times and did not understand.
In the last sentence you say you would not marry them because they are gentiles according to your view, so for what matter are they Jews according to the beginning of the paragraph where you assume they are Jews? For the purpose of the Law of Return? If so, what relevance does the parallel halakhic tradition they have bear to the question of who is a Jew for the Law of Return?
2. You present the Ethiopian halakhic tradition as a legitimate tradition within the halakhic framework, just as Beit Shammai are legitimate within our halakhic framework.
Even you would agree that the Reform are not (unlike the Conservatives) a legitimate halakhic tradition, for the reason that we have no ability to discuss with them within our own discussion framework. The Gemara or the Mishnah are not binding authorities for them, so we have no ability to conduct a halakhic discussion with them; they are outside the framework.
When Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel debated one another, they debated within a shared framework of discussion, and therefore even though they reached different conclusions, they remained one people.
What shared framework of discussion do we have with the Ethiopian qessim?
Do you have any idea how they deliberate among themselves on halakhic questions?

Aharon, I did not mean to say that this is not a question for halakhic decisors; rather, that there is no connection between the question of Ethiopian Jewishness and the question whether they preserved halakhah. If they are descendants of Jews – they are Jews even if they were secular all those years.
The subject of the column is a community that preserved halakhah from First Temple times and developed it differently from the way halakhah developed in Second Temple times. But with the Ethiopian community, the doubt is whether they are indeed descendants of Jews and indeed preserved themselves from assimilation.
As for what you wrote, that they are descendants of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers – the rabbi writes in the column that this is not the case with the Ethiopian community.

If ethnically they are not Jews, then clearly the discussion does not exist. I am speaking on the assumption that they are indeed originally descendants of Jews, but there is concern about admixture, among other reasons because they followed a different halakhah and also for the usual reasons. I am not familiar with the evidence on either side, and therefore I cannot express a position on this question.

The difference between me and the rabbi is that the rabbi is analytic – anyone who has a halakhic framework of one kind or another, like Conservatives, Ethiopians, Orthodox (why not Muslims?), is acceptable to the rabbi. By contrast, I have a synthetic truth – the divine revelation embodied in Orthodox halakhah. Therefore Conservatives are not acceptable, nor is Ethiopian halakhah.

Since the rabbi is analytic, the only way to resolve disputes goes through the coerciveness of the majority, as the rabbi presents in the current post. By contrast, I believe in dispute. Since we are dealing with truth, one can argue about it and present arguments for and against. I do not tell Ethiopians what to do in a coercive way, but allow a marketplace of opinions.

1. We split the matter. From my point of view there is a prohibition of marriage, but as such they can be regarded as a Jewish sect. The difference between them and every other sect is that with them the laws of joining and determining Jewish status are also different. Therefore with them the very definition of Jewishness is not necessarily identical. That is, the question of admixture among them is probably also based on the fact that their halakhah is different (how they converted and how they determined Jewishness), and therefore the fact that from my point of view they have the status of gentiles for purposes of marriage with them is also part of the implications of that same different tradition. Certainly for purposes of the Law of Return they should be seen as Jews even according to this narrow definition, but that is a legal question that is less important to me here.
2. Reform are not a halakhic sect, and therefore the discussion does not exist (not merely is it impossible). What exactly am I supposed to discuss? Whether to play an organ in concert in honor of Christmas in the key of G or F? With regard to the Ethiopians, the discussion exists and there are those who conduct it, so factually there is something to discuss. But even with the Ethiopians I do not mean that one must debate with them in order to change our tradition (though that too is certainly possible), but rather how to live together within a halakhic framework. To arrive at some compromise and accommodation. As I wrote, regarding conversion (if one assumes Rabbi Havlin’s position) I see no way out except conversion according to halakhah.
I do not know the details of their halakhah beyond what one of their rabbis told me.

*embodied in Orthodox halakhah and in the historical people of Israel

I do not completely agree with the analysis. Indeed your approach is more synthetic, but it is not correct that my approach is analytic. In any case, good luck with the discussion. 🙂

To Shatz Levinger –

Thank you for the fascinating survey of the customs of Ethiopian Jews!!!

By the way, the connection between world Jewry and Beta Israel was renewed בעקבות a public call by Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer to save them, which led to the famous mission of Professor Joseph Halévy, supported by the Malbim and Rabbi Nathan Adler. When Joseph Halévy first met the elders of the Falashas, they were astonished to hear that there were white Falashas, had difficulty believing his words, and he had to prove his Jewishness. At the end of his journey, the elders asked him, in the name of the whole community, to convey greetings of peace from brothers to their co-religionists in Europe, and expressed their strong desire to establish ties with European Jewry. When Halévy returned to Paris with the conclusion that the Falashas were Jews, with a young Falasha named Daniel, with a rare collection of manuscripts including prayers composed by the scribe Zerubbabel ben Jacob, and with recommendations to draw them close and help them, his words were rejected by the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and for 40 years every attempt at another mission was thwarted.

An upside-down world 🙂

“Demanding that they convert is still the most reasonable and logical way out”
Reasonable in theory, but not practical, and indeed not really a solution. I did not understand what this adds to the discussion.

It adds justification for the approach that is unwilling to compromise with them and allow them to be involved with food (according to the view of those who prohibit). If they do not want to do what the situation requires, they should not come with claims of discrimination and racism.

I apologize for the mistake. Maimonides writes regarding the obligation to the Babylonian Talmud, “all Israel accepted it upon themselves” (and indeed one must examine whether this is contradicted by members of unknown communities, or whether Maimonides means all Israel belonging to the tradition).
In any case, it is clear that the meaning is not that the majority obligates, but that this is the way of halakhah as given to human beings, that reality, and not necessarily absolute truth, defines its absolute legal force. And as a consequence for the Ethiopian community, they too are bound by this in my view, and if the hand of the court had power they would have had to be compelled to keep the commandments as our tradition obligates.
It should also be added that there is no place at all for comparing the dispute of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel to the difference between us and communities that did not accept the tradition. The proper comparison is to the dispute between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, where it has to do neither with pluralism nor with tolerance. For so long as the ruling is within the traditional framework, it has genuine standing even according to those who disagree, because even if I disagree, I understand what you are arguing. Not so with communities without tradition, which have no place at all in halakhah, and the matter is clear.
What is not clear to me is only what is included within the halakhic framework and what is not. After it was established as halakhah that the child of a Jew and a gentile woman is a gentile, is there still anything to discuss about that?

I see that everything is clear to you as day except… everything. It is worth noticing that the question of what is included in the halakhic framework is the very question under discussion here.

In the comment “The requirement is not only for them,” paragraph 7, line 3:
… and the matter fits well…