RABBIS’ CALL TO ACTION

In Ethiopia today there is a community that from all outward appearances seems to be a model Orthodox Jewish community. Over 1,000 children attend Jewish day schools, thousands of adults attend daily communal prayer services and classes in Jewish education. Men put on tefillin and women immerse in the mikvah. Intermarriage is a relatively unusual phenomenon. Of those that have been able to immigrate to Israel, most continue to lead traditional Jewish lives.

These are the Falash Mura today. However, it is reasonably clear that most Falash Mura did not lead recognizably Jewish lives until they left their villages for Gondar, a provincial capital in northern Ethiopia. Although the Falash Mura have always viewed themselves, and been viewed by their Christian neighbors, as belonging ethnically to the Beta Israel community, their parents, grandparents or great grandparent converted to Christianity. Their descendants now seek to return to Judaism and to rejoin the Jewish people and their relatives in Israel. (A majority of the Falash Mura in Addis Ababa have first degree relatives in Israel.)

To formulate a response to the community’s request, it is helpful to ask what Jewish law and practice says about repentant apostates. The answer is clear and unequivocal. Even when lives were not at stake, Jewish law has traditionally welcomed repentant Jews back to the fold, including those who had converted to another faith. The late Israeli Supreme court Justice Rabbi Simchah Asaf, appointed to the Court as an expert on Jewish Law, wrote an exhaustive monograph analyzing rabbinic responsa relating to Conversos, and concluded that apostates who wish to return to Judaism must be accepted; their reasons for rejoining the faith are irrelevant. A long line of rabbinic authority (e.g. Beit Yosef, Rashbash, but with the possible exception of the Meiri.) confirms that these principles also apply to the descendants of converts. There is no basis for differentiating between the Falash Mura and the tens of thousands of other Jews who have been reintegrated into the Jewish people over countless generations. Torah values are antithetical to racism. Thus, it is not surprising, in fact it was inevitable, that many major religious leaders have expressed strong support for Falash Mura who have adopted an halachic lifestyle.

At the time of Operation Solomon in May 1991, relying on the talmudic dictum, “A Jew even though he has sinned remains a Jew” (Sanhedrin 44a), both former Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef (currently spiritual leader of the Sephardic religious party Shas) and Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu urged Prime Minister Shamir to bring the Falash Mura to Israel. Their pleas were rejected and several thousand Falash Mura were left behind in Addis Ababa. Shortly thereafter, NACOEJ (The North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry) and the Joint (The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) were asked by the Israeli government to provide for the community while Israel determined the fate of the Falash Mura. In response to repeated, urgent requests from the community for religious education, NACOEJ wrote to Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, inquiring whether religious instruction was appropriate. In a 1992 letter, Chief Rabbi Eliyahu responded that “It is great mitzvah to educate and bring close the members of the community who are waiting for their aliyah from Ethiopia.”

Rabbinic support for Falash Mura who wish to return to the Jewish faith is widespread. In 1993, Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein, one of the most respected rabbis in the Religious Zionist community, was asked by the Zaban Committee, established by the Israeli government to determine policy on the Falash Mura issue, to opine on the issue. Rabbi Lichtenstein stated:

“Since the announced policy of the State of Israel, in accordance with the decision of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, is that the Beta Israel are a Jewish community, we should view the return and the aliyah of the Falash Mura as part of the process of the ingathering of exiles.”

Rabbi Lichtenstein’s views, and the similar views of Rabbi Ratzon Aroosi, an equally distinguished religious advisor to the Committee, were rejected by the primarily secular committee members. It is interesting to note that a previous interministerial committee headed by then Cabinet Secretary and now Attorney General Elyakim Rubenstein, an observant Jew, recommended bringing to Israel all Falash Mura who returned to Judaism. Subsequently, the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv Haim David HaLevy specifically held that since the descendants of Ethiopian Jews who had converted fell into the lenient halachic category of tinok ha’nishbah, a child taken in captivity, they should be brought to Israel and returned to Judaism. Most of these authorities have required ritual immersion; the Falash Mura have willingly complied. Even when Chief Rabbi Bakshi Doron, based on information (actually misinformation furnished by opponents of the community) obligated the community to undergo the full conversion required of non-Jews, there was no opposition. Practically all the Falash Mura in Israel have fulfilled the requirements of Israeli rabbinical courts and possess papers from the Interior Ministry certifying that they are Jews.

Neither the Joint (which provides only limited medical services to the destitute community) nor the State of Israel take into account these Jewish values and historical practices. Rather, they persist in treating the Falash Mura in Ethiopia as a Christian community with no claim on either Israeli citizenship or Jewish aid. The Joint’s attitude has been subject to harsh rabbinic criticism. In November 1998, a three-judge rabbinic court – that supervised the process of returning 3,000 Falash Mura to Judaism – described the community’s religious behavior in extremely favorable terms and urged people to ignore what they called the Joint’s “slanderous campaign” against the community in Israel stating, “The real problem is only that their skin is somewhat darker.” Rabbi David Shloush, Chief Rabbi of Netanya and then serving as head of the Chief Rabbinate’s Committee on the Spiritual Absorption of Ethiopian Jewry, rejected Joint’s allegations that the Falash Mura did not continue to observe religious traditions after arriving in Israel. He also stated categorically that “The Falash Mura communities in Addis Ababa and Gondar are of the seed of Israel. Their desire is to return to Judaism and keep the mitzvot. According to halachah they are Jews.” The National Religious Party also strongly supports the Falash Mura’s desire to make aliyah. The National Religious Party has twice proposed to the government that the Falash Mura remaining in Ethiopia be brought to Israel.

Spiritual leaders of the Ethiopian community (kessim) have also been active advocates for the community. As far back as 1992, 12 kessim pleaded with the Zaban Committee to bring the Falash Mura who had returned to Judaism to Israel. In a 1998 report, Chief Kes Hadane, the most prominent traditional spiritual leader of the Beta Israel, who had just spent a month in Ethiopia with the community stated: