The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia, From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews 145 The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia, From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century, by Steven Kaplan. New York: New York University Press, 1992. 231 pp. $45.00. The author ofthis history of events prior to about 1892 is chairperson of the Department of African History and Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University ofJerusalem. This research is largely based on written sources in the Ge'ez language, the ancient Semitic which linguists call "Ethiopic" and which survives in the liturgy of both the Beta Israel and Christian rituals in what used to be known as Abyssinia. One immediate problem, which Kaplan admits, is that we have no reliable sources on Jews in Ethiopia from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries. He dismisses both the Solomon-Sheba and Danite origin theories as mythic or legendary and disclaims concern with the halachic status of the Falashas. Much of Chapter 1, "Obscure Beginnings," is based on Edward Ullendorff's Ethiopia and the Bible (Oxford University Press, 1968) and The Ethiopians (1973), plus updating. Kaplan prepares the basis of his own views in Chapter 3, subtitled "The Invention of a 'tradition," which he believes happened in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries: "The Beta Israel appear to have chosen works [of religious literature] whose Christian versions already displayed a clear biblicalJewish tone" (p. 73). In consequence of military defeats, especially in the early seventeenth century (Chapter 4), the Falasha had to survive by serving royal patrons with marketable skills such as mason work and ironsmithing, and the latter craft changed their status to a despised and feared semi-caste (Chapters 5 and 6). The great famine of 1888-1892 weakened their resistance to the overtures of foreign Protestant missionaries. Kaplan's basic argument is that the Falashas are the product of events that took place in Ethiopia between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries. He had concluded this in his earlier, French-language book Les Falachas (Abbaye de Maredsous, Belgium: Edition Brepols, 1990). But while one can certainly agree with him that "the history of the Beta Israel can only be understood in the context of Ethiopian history in general" (p. 7), a more comprehensive analysis should also point out their involvement with the specifically Jewish elements of their tradition, as I attempted in my book The Story of the Falashas (New York, 1982). Nevertheless, one is impressed by Kaplan's perseverance in wading through scattered, often episodic, sources and fitting them into a frame of reference, in order to reconstruct at least a tentative history. Thus it 146 SHOFAR Winter 1994 Vol. 12, No.2 contributes to the literature of the subject for the general reader, even if one does not agree with his basic conclusion. Perhaps future archeology, especially at Aksum, will be able to reduce some of the gaps of the historical record. Simon D. Messing Professor Emeritus ofAnthropology Southern Connecticut State University Jewish Symbols in Art, by Abraham Kanof. Woodmere, NY: Gefen Publishing House, 1990. 112 pp. 115 plates. $24.95. Based on his past published work, one would expect of Abraham Kanof a solid, interesting book, and in hisJewish Symbols in Art, one gets precisely that. Intended for a broad, general audience, rather than a narrow, scholarly one, Kanofs work is well-written and accessible. Kanofs interest in this work is two-fold: to explore some of the wealth of symbols which are part ofJewish art; and to consider sources for these symbols outside (and prior to) Judaism as well as their place outside (and contemporary with) Judaism. His admirable goal is to emphasize the universality of human needs that is connoted by the commonality of religious impulses suggested by "the multicultural use of symbols to express them." The volume ofinformation and the range of illustration are useful and interesting, as is the glossary which follows the text. So, too, the organization of material offers a nice rhythm and logic. It moves from a discussion of pre-Jewish ideas that figure early into Jewish symbolism-such as that of the sun and its symbolism or of Dionysus and his attributes-to those which develop as Judaism unfolds in post-destruction dispersion-such as Messianic and Temple...