MY FAMILY
THE BETA ISRAEL CURRICULUM

RELIGIOUS LEADERSHIP

 Teachers should then add that:

 The debate over the Beta Israel’s Jewish status included even the highest spiritual echelons of the community. The kessim (revered spiritual leaders of the Beta Israel) were not formally recognized by the state. Their status was not equal to that of a rabbi. From an “official” perspective, this meant that all ceremonies and rituals performed by kessim – including weddings among Beta Israel – were not legally recognized by the State of Israel. Thus, “in 1993, two years after Operation Solomon, Ethiopian activists demanded that the kessim (Kohanim), their spiritual leaders, be accorded the status of Rabbi. The Chief Rabbinate refused, saying the kessim were not versed in Oral Law… The protesters declaimed, “Decide: Are we… fully Jews or not? If we are full Jews, recognize our spiritual leaders.”155

 Students should now be asked to read the following words by Omri Tagamalek, a member of the Beta Israel community whose wedding was performed by a kes, and thus, is not legally recognized by the Israeli rabbinate. Tagamalek expresses with bitterness and frustration:

“I have an identity, a tradition, I have values, there are rules that we observe. Yet here, the state wishes to change what we believe and our identity. If I were to marry according to the demands of the state and the rabbanut, who claim that there is no such thing as a black Jew, then who am I? Am I just a random African? An Ethiopian who has been brought here from Ethiopia? I didn’t come here because I am an Ethiopian. Instead, I came here because I am a member of the Beta Israel, because my ancestors observed the law of Moses and Israel.”156

 Having reflected on these words, students should be asked to write a fictional diary entry from the perspective of a newly arrived Ethiopian immigrant, suddenly faced with these unexpected challenges.

  

  

155 Graenum Berger, Rescue the Ethiopian Jews! A memoir 1955-1995, 223

156 Beta Israel member Omri Tagamalek made these remarks in Episode 2 of the Israeli TV documentary entitled Yerusalem.