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Ethiopian Jews have been immigrating to Israel in ever increasing numbers since 1979. This volume describes the phenomenon and explains the issues related to the Ethiopians' absorption by Israeli society. The authors explore the immigrant's lives as Ethiopians, the experience of other waves of immigrants to Israel, and applicability of theoretical issues deriving mass immigration in the experience of other societies. They examine the effects of immigration on the immigrants as well as on the host itself. The volume addresses a broad range of themes deriving from the very real problems inherent in this immigration. It will be of value to all those interested in Middle Eastern and immigration studies. Michael Ashkenazi is the senior instructor of anthropology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He is the author, with Alex Weingrod, of Ethiopian Immigrants in Beersheva: An Anthropological Study. Alex Weingrod is the Chilewich Professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He is the author of After the Ingathering: Studies in Israeli Ethnicity; Israel: A Study in Group Relations; and Reluctant Pioneers.
For Our Soul describes the ongoing process of adjustment and absorption that the Ethiopian Jewish immigrants experienced in Israel. Between 1977 and 1992, practically all Ethiopian Jews migrated to Israel. This mass move followed the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia and its ensuing economic and political upheavals, compounded by the brutality of the military regime and the willingness—after years of refusal—of the Israeli government to receive them as bona fide Jews entitled to immigrate to that country. As the sole Jewish community from sub-Sahara Africa in Israel, the Ethiopian Jews have met with unique difficulties. Based on fieldwork conducted over several years, For Our Soul describes the ongoing process of adjustment and absorption that the Ethiopian Jewish immigrants, also known as Falasha or Beta Israel, experienced in Israel.
This is an ethnographic study of Ethiopian Jews, or Beta Israel, a few years after their migration from rural Ethiopia to urban Israel. For the Beta Israel, the most significant issue is not, as is commonly assumed, adaptation to modern society, but rather 'belonging' in their new homeland, and the loss of control they are experiencing over their lives and those of their children. Ethiopian Jewish immigrants resist those aspects of the dominant society which they dislike: they reject normative Jewish practices and uphold Beta Israel religious and cultural ones, ideologically counteract disparaging Israeli attitudes, develop strong ethnic bonds and engage in overt forms of resistance. The difficulties of the present are also overcome by creating a perfect past and an ideal future: in what the author calls 'the homeland postponed', all Jews will be united in a colour-blind world of material plenty and purity.
For decade the Falashas - the Black Jews of Ethiopia - have fascinated scholars. Are they really Jews and in what sense? How can their origins be explained? Since the Falashas' transfer to Israel in the much publicised Israeli air lifts the fascination has continued and and new factors are now being discussed. Written by the leading scholars in the field the essays in this collection examine the history, music, art, anthropology and current situations of the Ethopian Jews. Issues examined include their integration into Middle Eastern society, contacts between the Falasha and the State of Israel how the Falasha became Jews in the first place.
"In 1977 there were about one hundred Ethiopian Jews in Israel; now there are more than one hundred thousand. Their exodus from their native land and their mass immigration to Israel is a unique historical event." "This book is the first one to recount in photographs and candid interviews the challenging and inspiring accomplishments of Ethiopian Jews struggling to become Ethiopian Israelis. Featuring more than fifty men and women - religious leaders, soldiers, lawyers, students, actors, musicians, a member of the Knesset, and more - this book reveals their personal stories. A historical narrative that traces how some Ethiopians became Jewish and how they got to Israel. Then, in their own words, they reveal how they experience Israel as a part of its most impoverished and culturally different minority." "Their dream is to become accepted and integrated without losing their own character, identity and values. They declare their devotion to their religious homeland and to overcoming the illiteracy, unemployment, crime and alienation that have plagued their community."--BOOK JACKET.
From 1984 to 1991, Israel conducted a series of dramatic rescues, bringing thousands of Ethiopian Jews to the state of Israel. Codenamed Operation Sheba, this effort involved various covert means, including large-scale airlifts and exchanges for arms, to save these Jews from intolerable conditions in Ethiopia and the Sudan. But as dramatic and uplifting as this effort was, there are still troubling questions about why it took so many years for Israel to act on behalf its African compatriots. This is the complete story behind the Israeli rescue of the Jews of Ethiopia—how tragedy was turned into triumph. These rescue operations represented the culmination of complex political maneuvering in Israel and illustrated what Israeli resolve can accomplish when Jewish lives are endangered. It was an inspiring effort—as William Safire wrote at the time, thousands of black people are being brought to a country not as slaves, but as citizens. On the other hand, there is much to deplore how long it took for the leaders of Israel to recognize and take action to save this ancient African branch of the Jewish Diaspora, known as the Falasha. The reasons are the result of the complex intersection of Israeli geostrategy, pressure from the American Jewish community, and Ethiopian domestic politics, as well as racism and debates about the Jewishness of the Falasha community.
With a special focus on Europe and the role of German, English and Italian Jewish communities in creating a new Jewish Ethiopian identity, the book investigates the formation of a new Ethiopian Jewish elite.
In the light of the Israeli government's plan to halt Ethiopian immigration, this book provides original research into the transformation of the Falashas to Ethiopian Jews during the twentieth century which made them eligible for immigration into Israel, adding a new dimension to the question of 'Who is a Jew', namely the case of the 'manufactured Jew'.
In the first full-length scholarly study of the "Black Jews" of Ethiopia, Kaplan (comparative religion and African studies, Hebrew U. of Jerusalem) considers them as an aspect of Ethiopian history, rather than of Jewish history. They are not, he says, a lost tribe of Israel, but a native ethnic group that emerged in Ethiopia between the 14th and 16th centuries. He traces their cultural development and their relations with the mainstream culture, Ethiopian emperors, native and missionary Christians, and others. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Their mutual interest in the Ethiopian Jews, as well as a series of unique circumstances, led them to join forces to produce this engrossing and handsomely illustrated volume. But this is not a book about the journey of the Ethiopian Jews; rather it is a chronicle of their experiences once they reached their destination. In Ethiopia, they were united by a shared faith and a broad network of kinship ties that served as the foundation of their rural communal society. They observed a form of religion based on the Bible that included customs such as the isolation of women during menstruation, long abandoned by Jewish communities elsewhere in the world. Suddenly transplanted, they are becoming rapidly and aggressively assimilated. Thrust from isolated villages without electricity or running water into the urban bustle of modern, postindustrial society, Ethiopian Jews have seen their family relationships radically transformed.