Jon Abbink The Enigma of Beta el Ethnogenesis An Anthro-Historical Study* This essay is about the problem of the relation between myths and his torical events The perennial question of how they interact will be trea ted with reference to case study of an intriguing Ethiopian ethnic group the Beta el or Falasha.1 These Ethiopian Jews have been the sub ject of flood of international scholarly and journalistic publications especially in the wake of their initially secret emigration movement from Ethiopia to Sudan to Israel Parfitt 1985 Rapoport 1986 Safran 1987 This migration of Falasha refugees which started about 1980 had first been severely criticized by the Ethiopian government But shortly before his demise even the former Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile Mariam accepted the idea of their emigration2 and slow legal exodus chan neled through the reopened Israeli embassy in Addis Ababa was orga nized Most of the remaining Ethiopian Jews ca 14000 have been flown to Israel just before the change of regime in Addis Ababa May 1991 Thus one of the most remarkable episodes of Jewish history showing
wish to express my gratitude to the following informants in Israel Qes Ishaq lyasu Qes Imharen Aj äw Ato Admas Chekole and the late Qes Birhan Biruch For helpful and encouraging comments on preliminary versions of this text am much indebted to Dr Steven Kaplan Hebrew University Jerusalem) to Pro fessor Kay Kaufman Shelemay New York University and to Dr Schneider Mission fran aise archéologie and Addis Ababa University Of course re sponsibility for the final result is mine alone In Ethiopia the group called itself Beta el the correct transcription of their Ethiopie name in ez or Amharic the meaning is House of Israel They also called themselves élotch(Israelites In this text will use the simpli fied transcription Beta el Ethiopian Christians and foreigners often called them but they usually rejected the name cf ABBINK 1984a 67 1984b In Israel they prefer to simply call themselves Ethiopians or Ethiopian although one of their self-organization has taken the name of Bet el In an interview with the Israeli English newspaper Jerusalem Post international ed. 10-17 Nov 1990) Mengistu Haile Mariam ironically accepted the old theory that Judaism may have been the belief of the Northern Ethiopians before Chris tianity was introduced to the country 4th century Shortly before his flight from the country in May 1991 the former Ethiopian leader at that time hard-pressed for support from every corner also appeared to subscribe to the earlier rejected idea of the Falashas being ethnically
Cahiers tudes africaines 120 XXX-4 1990 pp 397-449
