An Ethiopian legend says that the Bible’s King Solomon had a bastard son with the Queen of Sheba. That after the sexual act that united the two of them, the Queen of Sheba returned to her kingdom in what is now Ethiopia and there gave birth to the man who would give birth to the Solomonic dynasty, a dynasty that ruled the African country for seven centuries. (1270-1974).
The creature’s name was Menelik. And when he was twenty years old, his mother sent him to Jerusalem to meet his father, who was said to have looked like two drops of water.
Menelik spent two years training in the methods of government with his wise father, but committed an unforgivable act upon his return to Ethiopia: under the cover of night, aided by a handful of Jewish traitors, stole the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple and replaced it with a copy.
Ethiopians still consider the Ark of the Covenant to be safe in the northern town of Axum, although other versions say it is in the monastery of Saint Cherqos on Lake Tana. . The legend now differs.
Some say that 12,000 Hebrews born from the twelve tribes of Israel accompanied Menelik to Ethiopia, eager to seek opportunities in a new land. Others say that there were only about twenty Hebrew soldiers who accompanied the young prince to guarantee his safety on the way home, but that they loved Ethiopia so much that they stayed there and married local women.
Why are there Jews in Ethiopia?
It is in any case the most popular national legend which explains why there were Jews in Ethiopia long before the memory of the ancients.
Some say the Jewish settlers came from earlier communities that came from Yemen in the Middle Ages.
Other scholars have claimed that the Tribe of Dan, one of the lost tribes of Israel, settled here after the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC. C., even if the only certainty is that There is no absolute consensus explaining the presence of Jews in the Horn of Africa..
During the following centuries, coinciding with the official conversion of Ethiopia to Christianity, the Jewish subjects of the territory opposed the change of religion and formed new communities more or less independent depending on the moments of their history, such as Beta Israel, the greatest of which The famous Queen Judith (semi-legendary figure in Ethiopian tradition) is said to have spent several decades of the 10th century ravaging the Amhara region, destroying Christian temples and murdering all who crossed her path.
In this way, some of the confrontations that took place throughout history between the Jewish communities and the ruling class and that affected every moment are brought together. In the years when there were no fights, which were the majority, Jewish communities in Ethiopia live in harmony with the rest of their fellow citizenstraditionally devoting itself to crafts and, to a lesser extent, commerce.
Since the creation of the new State of Israel in 1947, something has changed within the Ethiopian Jewish community. News came of a land that would be theirs and where they could meet the cousins they left millennia ago.
They asked permission from their emperor, Haile Selassie (died in 1974), to emigrate there, but the monarch refused and the first Ethiopians settled in Israel did so irregularly, with tourist visas and camouflaged as exchange students.
Relations between the two entities intensified under the Ethiopian communist government (1984–1991), which took place at the same time as the Ethiopian Civil War (1974–1991); The communists adopted a position openly contrary to all religious beliefs and The conflict was accompanied by severe famineswhich caused great concern in Tel Aviv.
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Ethiopian mass migration
Finally, during these years, Israel carried out a series of covert rescue operations that brought hundreds of Ethiopian Jews to their promised land, with growing numbers of this community of “black Jews” s settling in Israel. Operations Moses and Solomon were also responsible for bringing Jews living in Sudan, although to a lesser extent.
The communist regime eventually collapsed and It was then that relations between Israel and Ethiopia took a quantitative leap..
It is true that there are practically no Jews left in Ethiopia and that the remains of their presence are reflected in rubble where we can still see the Star of David shrouded in the African bush, but this massive migration of Ethiopians towards Israel laid the foundations for a two-way relationship that still remains strong today. In fact, Israel’s ambassador to Ethiopia since 2021 is Aleligne Admasu, a Jew of Ethiopian origin.
The remains of the Ethiopian Jewish community in the city of Gondar.
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Ethiopia
Israeli military instructors paraded in this African country from the 1990s to the 2010s. In 2011, Israeli drone manufacturer BlueBird Aereo Systems signed an agreement with the Ethiopian government to supply it with Boomerang-type electric drones and Spylite; Ethiopia has since purchased an unspecified number of Israeli-made Aerostar dronesas well as different types of rifles, armored vehicles, explosives and air defense systems.
Israel has also helped Ethiopia in several conflicts by providing it with military equipment, notably during the Eritrean War (1961-1991) and the recent Tigray War (2020-2022).
It should also come as no surprise, after knowing this interesting relationship between states, that Ethiopia abstained in the vote at the United Nations to request a ceasefire in Gaza… just as it abstained when she voted in 2020 to call on Israel not to develop nuclear weapons. program… just as he abstained or voted in favor of virtually every resolution that affected Israel at the United Nations.
In addition, Israel views Ethiopia as a valuable ally in its historic struggle against Muslim-majority nations.. We must not forget that Ethiopia, of Christian tradition despite a generous Muslim population in its southern regions, fought for centuries against Muslim incursions from what is today Yemen and Sudan, but it also faced the Ottoman Empire hand in hand. military and Mussolini’s fascism in the 1930s.
Even today, it fights the sporadic incursions of the jihadist group Al-Shabaab, when the terrorists cross the Somali border.
Racism against “black” Jews
However, the experiences of Ethiopian Jews in Israel have not always been a bed of roses. First, the Israeli state did not apply the Law of Return to Ethiopian Jews until 1975, although it was enacted in 1950. Additionally, Ethiopians who arrived in Israel in subsequent years were forced to convert formally to Judaism, just to be sure of their reality. were.
Since then, racist attitudes have continued. Children of Ethiopian descent who have been banned from studying in some educational centers, an official refusal by the Israeli health system to accept blood donations from blacks “due to the high incidence of infection with the HIV”, daily attitudes of racial discrimination at the institutional and private level. … In fact, we will have to wait until 2013 for The Israeli army has not implemented a program to combat racial discrimination in its ranks and this would facilitate the integration of black subjects into them.
The most disturbing news was a terrible rumor that Israeli women of Ethiopian origin were being treated with contraceptives against their will. Rumor that the Israeli government confirmed in 2013: that Ethiopian women were being injected with contraceptive serums.
It was claimed that this was done to reduce the birth rate of black Israelis, the government organized an investigative team to get to the bottom of the matter and… nothing more was learned, nor any clear answer on this subject. Currently, Approximately 130,000 Ethiopian-born or Israeli-born Jews of Ethiopian ancestry reside in Israel..
“We can’t go to his story”
In an effort to understand the Israeli position toward Ethiopian Jews, EL ESPAÑOL visited the Jewish Center in the capital, Addis Ababa, to speak with a woman named Dora (Israeli, white, from of European origin) who works at the center. . She explained that Israel’s distrust in welcoming Ethiopians as Jews is believed to be because “Ethiopia has no history that we can look to.” There is no written record as to why there were Jews in Ethiopia and the versions vary depending on who you ask.”
Likewise, he expressed that other Jewish communities in the region, such as that which exists in Eritrea (formerly part of Ethiopia), consider groups like Beta Israel not truly Jewish: “Even their Torah is not the same as that of the rest of the Jewish communities, and that says something”. Many Israelis, he said, considered in the last century that Ethiopians converted to Judaism out of convenience, simply to facilitate their emigration from Ethiopia.
But Dora does not hesitate to point out that the Jewish community remaining in the African country is well received by the local population and that relations, despite the fact that the majority of the population is Christian, are good.
The connection between Menelik and King Solomon (which Dora does not believe to be true) is a fundamental part of Ethiopian history and, as such, many nationals wish to be buried in Jerusalem for nationalist and religious reasons.
Ethiopians in the IDF
Referring to the war in Gaza, Dora highlights the impression that large numbers of Ethiopians, including Christians, were reaching out to the Jewish community to find out how they could fight alongside the IDF: “They came and still come and ask me how they can enlist. even though they are not Israeli, and they tell me they want to fight alongside us.
This would, in conclusion, be the relationship that exists between Ethiopians and Jews and which explains the presence of black soldiers in the Israeli army. A story which dates back, according to tradition, to the 9th century BC. C, when Solomon was still on earth and the Arab League, the United Nations and the United States could not even be considered the embryo of an idea. An ancient history marked by migrations and violence. Until today.
