Ethiopia, then and now
By Anna Morgan, The National Post
15 July 2005 — Over the past 20 years, Israel has taken in thousands of Ethiopians: Africans who claim a Jewish heritage that began 3,000 years ago. This modern exodus is not yet complete. About 20,000 Falash Mora, Ethiopians whose Jewish parents and grandparents converted to Christianity, are currently preparing to leave for Israel. Although the process has been tumultuous, with some Ethiopian Jews already in Israel supporting their mass emigration and others opposing it, the Israeli government has decided that for humanitarian reasons it will bring in all remaining Falash Mora by the end of 2007.
Like the original settlers of Israel, many Ethiopians have risked their lives to come to the Jewish state. In 1984, while starvation was spreading throughout Ethiopia and millions were dying, a small number of Jewish Ethiopians — known as the Falasha, or Beyta Yisrael as they prefer to be called — were making their way overland through Sudan. Over a course of several months, 12,000 Jews set out on a journey toward what they believed was their home. Only 8,000 made it. The rest succumbed to illness, starvation and murder.
It was over 20 years ago that I wandered into the Ethiopian Church in Jerusalem and became interested in the connections between Ethiopia and Israel. The incredible history of two ancient kingdoms — both known for their tremendous achievements — intrigued me.
My interest led me many years later to the Israel Association of Ethiopian Jewry, where I met Shula Mola, one of the Beyta Yisrael. The story she told me formed the basis of my recent work of historical fiction, Daughters of the Ark.
The book begins in ancient times, when King Solomon ruled over the Israelites and Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, governed over the Ethiopian Axumite kingdom. However, the second and third parts of the novel take place in modern times.
As I wrote the book and travelled back and forth to Ethiopia, I couldn’t help but wonder how a place with such a rich cultural heritage had become so poor –how a country that had once attracted immigrants was now a place that so many people were so anxious to leave.
Legends abound as to how Jews arrived in Ethiopia in the first place. Some look to an Ethiopian cultural narrative called the Kebra Negast for answers. That epic tale attributes the Jewish presence in Ethiopia to Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, who made a trip from Axum, the centre of ancient Ethiopia’s great civilization, to Jerusalem, the capital of the Israelite Kingdom in 961 BCE.
Makeda wanted to meet King Solomon, whose legendary wisdom had reached as far as Ethiopia, to discuss issues of governance, and she set out on her journey with treasures for the Temple that Solomon had just completed to house the Ark of the Covenant.
Folklore asserts that Makeda got along famously with Solomon. According to legend, the Queen and King spent days and nights together discussing the future of their two great nations. When it came time to depart, the monarchs separated with great sadness and King Solomon gave the queen a ring as a sign of his affection.
In fact, once Makeda arrived in Axum several weeks later, she discovered that the Israelite monarch had given her more than just a ring; she was pregnant with his child. The baby was named Dawit, after Solomon’s father, David.
When Dawit grew older, he visited Jerusalem, taking with him the ring that Solomon had given Makeda as proof of his identity. Upon Dawit’s arrival, his father rejoiced and insisted that his son stay and learn the ways of his people. Dawit remained in Jerusalem for several years to study with the Temple priests until he eventually grew restless for his home in Ethiopia. When he left the Kingdom of Israel, he was accompanied by a caravan of priests and their families — together with, some say, the Ark of the Covenant itself, which many Ethiopians believe remains hidden within a church in the northern hills of their country.
Ethiopian lore describes how Dawit changed his name to Menelik upon returning to Axum and became the first in a long line of rulers who traced their heritage to the legendary union between King Solomon and Queen Makeda, passing the Solomonic ring down through the generations. Many also believe that the priests who accompanied Menelik, and their descendants, maintained their Judaic traditions even after the rest of Ethiopia adopted Christianity early in the 4th century.
Academics typically dispute these theories. According to Steven Kaplan, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s foremost authority on the subject, modern Ethiopian Jewry probably arrived in the Horn of Africa in the Middle Ages, when Jewish traders plied commercial routes through Yemen and across the Red Sea to Africa, often taking Ethiopian wives as they settled in their new homes.
But however Jews came to Ethiopia, the generations that followed watched as a once-great African power slid into poverty. How did an ancient kingdom and wealthy powerhouse throughout the Middle Ages, and the only African country to never be truly colonized by Europeans, become a byword for starvation?
Following on the country’s imperial tradition, Ethiopia’s last emperor, Haile Selassie, governed a large kingdom. But when he was finally overthrown by Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1975, the country found itself governed by a Marxist-style government called the Derg. In order to transform Ethiopia’s feudal-style land ownership structure, the government began implementing harsh land reform policies. In Surrender or Starve, journalist Robert D. Kaplan describes how the Derg modelled their policies on resettlement programs used by Stalin in the Ukraine in the 1930s. Not surprisingly, many hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians died.
Much has changed in Ethiopia since then. The current government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who led the movement that finally overthrew Mengistu in the early 1990s, has attempted to encourage investment. Road construction and other infrastructure projects have been undertaken. Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, is the current headquarters of the African Union Commission, and Ethiopia is a key member of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Drought. Despite continuing political tension with Eritrea, after a protracted war in the 1990s, Ethiopia now prides itself on relatively peaceful relations with its neighbours.
But like virtually every nation in sub-Saharan Africa, the country is deeply affected by the AIDS crisis. On its western border, Ethiopia faces pressure to take in refugees fleeing the various conflicts in Sudan. There is also stress on its eastern front to absorb those who have fled more than a decade of violence and instability in Somalia. In a testament to the inexhaustible suffering and chaos of Africa, Ethiopia has managed to become a net importer of refugees despite its own destitution.
As with its neighbours, delivering Ethiopia from its grinding poverty will require better education and health services — as well as short-term aid to relieve the current crisis. Water supplies need to be managed and regulated so that potable water is easily accessible to all parts of the country. The country also requires the usual laundry list of civil-society institutions: a free press, a fair legal system and an end to corruption.
In the ancient world, King Solomon left his mark on the Middle East with the construction of the Jewish Temple. Axumite rulers, meanwhile, marked their control of the Horn of Africa with over 120 stelae, giant obelisks engraved in Ge’ez, the classical language of the Ethiopian empire. In 1937, during a brief Italian occupation, Mussolini ordered that one of the largest of those stelae, at 25 metres high, be dismantled and taken to Rome. Last month, the obelisk was returned, allowing Ethiopia to re-erect it and reclaim this testament to one of the great civilizations of the past. Let us hope that it will also become the symbol of a better future.
[email protected]; Anna Morgan is the author of Daughters of the Ark, a novel set in Ethiopia.