Ethiopian Jewry and new self-concepts

Salamon, Hagar

essay

Ethiopian Jewry and new self-concepts

life of judaism • Berkeley • Published In 2001 • Pages: 226-240

By: Salamon, Hagar.

Abstract
Although Jews in Israel and Jews in America often experience and shape Judaism in different ways, some issues arise that connect them. One such issue is the Jews of Ethiopia who became known to the European Jewish world in the middle of the nineteenth century. With the encouragement of American Jewish organizations, they reached Israel en masse in the 1980s and early 1990s. These Jews differed widely from other Jewish groups because their skin pigmentation is 'black,' making them different in appearance from the majority of contempoary Jews of European provenanace. Since they became known to the wider Jewish world, and particulary since their arrival in large numbers in Israel, the Jews of Ethiopia have stimulated many questions about Jewish identity, both with respect to them and to Jews all over the world. In the article that follows, Hagar Salamon probes these question, showing how they entail components of religion, race, and the relationship between Israeli and Diaspora Judaism (p. 227).

Identification

External migration

Cultural identity and pride

Ethnic stratification

HRAF PubDate

2005

Region

Middle East