Oral traditions Many of the Beta Israel's accounts of their origins state that they are the descendants of a portion of the
Tribe of Dan, which was led by the sons of
Moses and migrated to Ethiopia in
very ancient times, perhaps during
The Exodus. Alternative timelines include the later crises in Judea, e.g. the split of the northern Kingdom of Israel from the southern Kingdom of Judah after the death of
King Solomon or the
Babylonian Exile. Other Beta Israel take as their basis the Christian account of
Menelik's return to Ethiopia. Menelik is considered the first
Solomonic Emperor of Ethiopia, and is traditionally believed to be the son of
King Solomon of ancient
Israel and Makeda, ancient
Queen of Sheba (in modern
Ethiopia). Although the available traditions all correspond to recent interpretations, they seem to reflect ancient convictions. According to Jon Abbink, three different versions are to be distinguished among the traditions that were recorded by the priests of the community.
Tribe of Dan One of Beta Israel's origin stories is that they descend from a group of
Danites that immigrated to Ethiopia through Egypt, after the split of the
Kingdom of Israel. To prove the antiquity and authenticity of their claims, the Beta Israel cite the 9th-century CE testimony of
Eldad ha-Dani (the Danite). Some Beta Israel assert that their Danite origins go back to the time of Moses when some Danites parted from other Jews right after the Exodus and moved south to Ethiopia. Eldad the Danite speaks of at least three waves of Jewish immigration into his region, creating other Jewish tribes and kingdoms, the earliest of which was referred to as the "tribe of Moses". Later Ethiopian Jews, who appeared in the Mediterranean world and persuaded rabbinic authorities there that they were of Jewish descent, also referred to the Mosaic and Danite origins of Ethiopian Jewry. Other sources tell of many Jews who were brought as prisoners of war from ancient Israel by
Ptolemy I and settled on the border of his kingdom with
Nubia (
Sudan). Another tradition asserts that the Jews arrived either via the old
Qwara province in northwestern Ethiopia, or via the
Atbara River, where the
Nile tributaries flow into Sudan. Some accounts specify the route taken by their forefathers on their way upriver to the south from Egypt.
Rabbinic views of the
Chief Rabbinate of Israel to save the Jews of Ethiopia, 1921, signed by
Abraham Isaac Kook and
Jacob Meir When the 9th-century Jewish traveler
Eldad ha-Dani claimed that he was descended from the tribe of Dan, he claimed that other Jewish kingdoms also existed around his homeland or they existed in
East Africa during that time. His writings probably represent the first mention of the Beta Israel in Rabbinic literature. Despite the skepticism of some critics, the voracity of his claims has generally been accepted by contemporary scholars. His descriptions were consistent and even the originally doubtful rabbis of his time were finally persuaded. Eldad's testimony was not the only medieval testimony about the existence of Jewish communities far to the south of Egypt.
Obadiah ben Abraham Bartenura wrote in a letter from Jerusalem in 1488: Rabbi
David ibn Zimra of Egypt (1479–1573) also held the Ethiopian Jewish community to be similar in many ways to the Karaites, writing: ...Lo! The matter is well-known that there are perpetual wars between the
kings of Kush, which has three kingdoms; part of which belonging to the
Ishmaelites, and part of which to the Christians, and part of which to the Israelites from the
tribe of Dan. In all likelihood, they are from the sect of
Sadok and
Boethus, who are [now] called
Karaites, since they know only a few of the
biblical commandments, but are unfamiliar with the
Oral Law, nor do they light the
Sabbath candle. War ceases not from amongst them, and every day they take captives from one another... In the same
responsum, he concludes that if the Ethiopian Jewish community wished to return to rabbinic Judaism, they would be received and welcomed into the fold, just as the Karaites who returned to the teachings of the
Rabbanites in the time of Rabbi
Abraham ben Maimonides. They believe that these people established a Jewish kingdom that lasted for hundreds of years. With the rise of
Christianity and later
Islam, schisms arose and three kingdoms competed. Eventually, the Christian and Muslim Ethiopian kingdoms reduced the Jewish kingdom to a small impoverished section. The earliest authority to rule this way was the 16th-century scholar David ibn Zimra (Radbaz), who explained in a
responsum concerning the status of a Beta Israel slave: In 1973,
Ovadia Yosef, the
Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel, ruled that, based on the writings of David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra and other accounts, the Beta Israel were Jews and should be brought to Israel. Two years later this opinion was confirmed by a number of other authorities who made similar rulings, including the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel
Shlomo Goren. In 1977, the law was passed granting the right of return. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the Beta Israel were required to undergo a modified
conversion ceremony which required them to immerse themselves in a
mikveh (a ritual bath), a declaration in which they stated their acceptance of Rabbinic law, and, for men, a
hatafat dam brit (a symbolic recircumcision). Later,
Avraham Shapira waived the
hatafat dam brit, based on his belief that the performance of it was unnecessary because they were already circumcised. Some notable
poskim (religious law authorities) from
non-Zionist Ashkenazi circles (including include Rabbi
Elazar Shach, Rabbi
Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, Rabbi
Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, and Rabbi
Moshe Feinstein) placed a
safek (legal doubt) over the
Jewish peoplehood of Beta Israel as a protective measure to remove any doubt; they saw Beta Israel as undoubtedly Jewish after they
immersed themselves. Similar doubts were raised within the same circles towards the
Bene Israel and to Russian immigrants to Israel during the
1990s Post-Soviet aliyah. More recently,
Shlomo Amar has ruled that descendants of Ethiopian Jews who were
forced to convert to Christianity are "unquestionably Jews in every respect". With the consent of Ovadia Yosef, Amar ruled that it is forbidden to question the Jewishness of this community, pejoratively called
Falash Mura in reference to their having converted.
Ethiopian national history According to one account, the Beta Israel originated in the
Kingdom of Israel and they were the contemporaries, rather than the descendants of
King Solomon and
Menelik I. The history of Ethiopia which is described in the
Kebra Nagast states that the Ethiopians are the descendants of
Israelites who migrated to
Ethiopia under the kleadership of
Menelik I, the alleged son of King
Solomon and the
Queen of Sheba (or Makeda, in the legend) per and . The legend relates that Menelik returned to his father in Jerusalem as an adult, and he later resettled in Ethiopia, taking with him the
Ark of the Covenant. The
Bible does not state that the Queen of Sheba either married or had any sexual relations with King Solomon (but some Biblical scholars identify her with the "black and beautiful" in the
Song of Songs 1:5). Rather, the narrative records that she was impressed with Solomon's wealth and wisdom, and they exchanged royal gifts, and then she returned to rule her people in
Kush. However, the "royal gifts" are interpreted by some as sexual contact. The loss of the Ark is not mentioned in the Bible.
Hezekiah later makes reference to the Ark in
2 Kings 19:15. The
Kebra Negast asserts that the Beta Israel are descended from a battalion of men who fled from
Judea and migrated southward down the Arabian coastal lands after the
Kingdom of Israel split into two kingdoms in the 10th century BCE (while King
Rehoboam reigned over Judah). The
Kebra Nagast and some traditional Ethiopian histories have stated that
Gudit (or "Yudit", Judith; another name which she was given was "Esato", Esther), a 10th-century usurping queen, was Jewish; however, some scholars believe that it is unlikely that this was the case. It is more likely, they say, that she was a pagan southerner or a usurping Christian Aksumite Queen. However, she clearly supported Jews, since she founded the
Zagwe dynasty, who governed from around 937 to 1270 CE. According to the
Kebra Nagast, Jewish, Christian and pagan kings ruled in harmony at that time. Furthermore, the Zagwe dynasty claimed legitimacy (according to the
Kebra Nagast) by saying it was descended from Moses and his Ethiopian wife. Most of the Beta Israel consider the
Kebra Negast a legend. As its name ("Glory of Kings", meaning the Christian Aksumite kings) implies, it was written in the 14th century in order to delegitimize the Zagwe dynasty, promote a rival "Solomonic" claim to authentic Jewish Ethiopian antecedents, and justify the Christian overthrow of the Zagwe by the "Solomonic" Aksumite dynasty, whose rulers are glorified in the text. The writing of this polemic shows that criticisms of the Aksumite claims of authenticity were current in the 14th century, two centuries after they came to power. Many Beta Israelis believe that they are descended from the tribe of Dan, and most reject the "Solomonic" and "Queen of Sheba" legends of the Aksumites.
Genetics Several DNA studies of the Beta Israel have been conducted.
Paternal lineages According to Cruciani et al. (2002),
haplogroup A is the most common paternal lineage among Ethiopian Jews. The clade is carried by around 41% of Beta Israel males and are primarily associated with
Nilo-Saharan and
Khoisan-speaking populations. However, the A branches carried by Ethiopians Jews are principally of the A-Y23865 variety, which formed about 10,000 years ago and is localized to the
Ethiopian highlands and the
Arabian peninsula. The difference with some Khoisan is 54,000 years, and with others 125,000 years. Around 18% of Ethiopian Jews are bearers of
E-P2 (xM35, xM2); in Ethiopia, most of such lineages belong to
E-M329, which has been found in
ancient DNA isolated from a 4,500 year old Ethiopian fossil. Such haplotypes are frequent in
Southwestern Ethiopia, especially among
Omotic-speaking populations. The rest of the Beta Israel mainly belong to haplotypes linked with the
E-M35 and
J-M267 haplogroups, which are more commonly associated with
Ethiosemitic and
Cushitic-speaking populations in Northeast Africa. Further analysis show that the
E-M35 carried by Ethiopian Jews is primarily indigenous to the
Horn of Africa rather than being of
Levantine origin. Altogether, this suggests that Ethiopian Jews have diverse patrilineages indicative of indigenous
Northeast African, not Middle Eastern, origin.
Maternal lineages A 2011
mitochondrial DNA study focused on maternal ancestry sampling 41 Beta Israel found them to carry 51.2%
macro-haplogroup L typically found in Africa. The remainder consisted of Eurasian-origin lineages such as 22%
R0, 19.5%
M1, 5%
W, and 2.5%
U. However, no identical haplotypes were shared between the Yemenite and Ethiopian Jewish populations, suggesting very little
gene flow between the populations and potentially distinct maternal population histories. A 2010 study by Behar et al. on the genome-wide structure of Jews observed that "Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) and Indian Jews (Bene Israel and Cochini) cluster with neighbouring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite a clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant. These results cast light on the variegated genetic architecture of the Middle East, and trace the origins of most Jewish Diaspora communities to the Levant." According to the study of Behar et al. Ethiopian Jews are clustered with the
Ethiosemitic-speaking Amhara and Tigrayans rather than the Oromos.
Scholarly views Early views Early secular scholars considered the Beta Israel to be the direct descendants of Jews who lived in ancient Ethiopia, whether they were the descendants of an Israelite tribe, or converted by Jews living in
Yemen, or by the Jewish community in southern Egypt at
Elephantine. In 1829, Marcus Louis wrote that the ancestors of the Beta Israel related to the Asmach, which were also called Sembritae ("foreigners"), an Egyptian regiment numbering 240,000 soldiers and mentioned by Greek geographers and historians. The Asmach emigrated or were exiled from
Elephantine to Kush in the time of
Psamtik I or
Psamtik II and settled in
Sennar and
Abyssinia. It is possible that
Shebna's party from Rabbinic accounts was part of the Asmach. In the 1930s, Jones and Monroe argued that the chief Semitic languages of Ethiopia may suggest an antiquity of Judaism in Ethiopia: "There still remains the curious circumstance that a number of Abyssinian words connected with religion, such as the words for
Hell,
idol,
Easter,
purification, and
alms, are of
Hebrew origin. These words must have been derived directly from a Jewish source, for the Abyssinian Church knows the scriptures only in a Ge'ez version made from the
Septuagint."
Richard Pankhurst summarized the various theories offered about their origins, as of 1950. He said that the first members of this community were: According to Pankhurst, traditional Ethiopian scholars have said "We were Jews before we were Christians". He said that more recent hypotheses were more compelling—especially those of the Ethiopian scholars Dr Taddesse Tamrat and Dr Getachew Haile—and instead emphasized the conversion of Christians to the Beta Israel faith, suggesting the Beta Israel were culturally and ethnically an Ethiopian sect. According to Menachem Waldman, a major wave of emigration from the
Kingdom of Judah to Kush and Abyssinia dates to the
Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in the beginning of the seventh century BCE.
Rabbinic accounts of the siege assert that only about 110,000
Judeans remained in Jerusalem under King
Hezekiah's command, whereas about 130,000 Judeans led by
Shebna had joined
Sennacherib's campaign against
Tirhakah, king of Kush. Sennacherib's campaign failed and Shebna's army was lost "at the mountains of darkness", suggestively identified with the
Simien Mountains. In 1987,
Steven Kaplan wrote: Richard Pankhurst summarized the state of knowledge on the subject in 1992 as follows: "The early origins of the Falashas are shrouded in mystery, and, for lack of documentation, will probably remain so for ever."
Recent views By 1994, modern scholars of
Ethiopian history and Ethiopian Jews generally supported one of two conflicting hypotheses for the origin of the Beta Israel, as outlined by
Steven Kaplan: • An ancient Jewish origin, together with conservation of some ancient Jewish traditions by the Ethiopian Church. Kaplan identifies Simon D. Messing, David Shlush, Michael Corinaldi, Menachem Waldman,
Menachem Elon and David Kessler as supporters of this hypothesis. Some Ethiopian Jewish practices disagree with rabbinic practice but do match the practices of late
Second Temple sects, suggesting that Ethiopian Jews may possess a tradition from ancient Jewish groups whose beliefs have become extinct elsewhere. ==History==