Hello all, welcome back to Telling Demonology. As always, I'm JJ, your host, and today I have a very special uh gift. So for those that follow our Facebook page, I had posted an update probably a few months ago about locating someone who knew a great deal about the Ethiopian Jewish diaspora from Ethiopia itself to Israel. And it's a topic that's always you know really interested me. And I on a whim asked if she would be interested in providing everyone a little bit more information, and she happily accepted, tickled me to death.
However, then the pandemic hit and everyone's schedule got you know blown to smithy as a result. However, um a few days ago, she reached out and said that her schedule was free now, and I was tickled to death, and sure enough, we were able to record the interview, and uh I want to present it to y'all in its entirety. It is one take, no extra, no cut, no nothing. Uh the information that she provided was just absolutely wonderful, and I really hope that it provides some additional background. Uh before I do get into it though, I want to uh give an explanation.
So there's a term that I used uh throughout the interview, which is called uh beta Israel, and what it means, so it's not the Greek word beta, which of course is the second letter in that alphabet, but rather it refers to the classical Ethiopic term uh bet. And bet in the most general sense means house, but it can also mean forefathers, clan, etc. So the beta Israel is the house of Israel. Um the and the question that you know was excluded from um myth about original research of you know are the Jews from Ethiopia like real Jews? I mean that is a loaded question in and of itself.
But you know, uh the the history behind that group is fascinating because you know, according to tradition, they belong to you know the lost tribe of of uh of dime. And that is just such an amazing topic in and of itself. Uh maybe at some point we can like circle back around and get to that point. But regardless, please sit back, listen to the interview. Uh I apologize if my interview skills are not up to enough. This is my first one that I have ever conducted, especially for this program.
And it was you know interesting and a lot of fun and has increased my respect for you thinkers who do this on a daily basis. So, anyway, uh enjoy and then I'll come back with a real quick note at the end. Hello everyone. So, with us today we have uh Jennifer Aboud. And yeah, we actually met under pretty interesting circumstances. Uh, she was interviewing for a software development position at the company I happened to work for, and we got to talking. Do you want to uh go into a little bit more detail there, Jennifer?
Yeah, you you can totally say it.
So, yeah, we um she was up for a position in our team, and we got to talking after the interview, which she did phenomenal on, by the way. And uh yeah, she revealed that you know one of her major topics to study in her education was about um you know Ethiopian Judaism. And I was always been extremely interested in that. So I actually wanted to have her on to ask her some questions and uh pick her brain a little bit because I mean if if it's interesting to me, hopefully it's interesting to others.
But uh, yeah, so if nothing else, this is just a fantastic exercise and you know, mental uh curiosity. But uh so uh Jennifer, can you introduce just kind of the topic at large and if there are any particular areas that you left out just for sake of time?
Yeah, so my thesis was on the American activism for the Ethiopian Jewish immigration, which ultimately happened to Israel. Um I deliberately left out the question of are the Ethiopian Jews Jews? Um it felt I mean, first of all, trying to connect them to a lost tribe, good luck with that one. And then second of all, if you were to hit make a list of criteria of what makes someone a zoo, it would exclude probably a lot of people who the establishment would call a zoo.
And I figured they call themselves zoos, they their leadership has some semblance to mainstream Judaism, and um they call themselves zoos, they're getting persecuted like zoos, they're a zoo, and moved on from that one. Um, there also was the interesting point on were the Ethiopian Zeus subject to a genocide that um I decided to mention was a debate, um, but I was not doing genocide studies, so did not feel qualified on determining what actually was there mass death a genocide. That that's a whole other debate.
Gotcha. Yeah, I can imagine. But I mean, for for those that don't know, there was a famine that happened at the uh like 18, I forget the exact year, but around 1870, 1890, something like that, and the death toll was horrendous. I mean, it was around I think the total population was around 250 to 300,000, and either half to three two quarters, I mean two-thirds of everyone passed away from that.
There there was also the genocide in the 70s and 80s that was happening in Ethiopia. That was the one I was referring to. But oh gotcha. Okay. They haven't had it good. Um the accusations of genocide during famine were pertaining to to the famine in the 1970s and 1980s.
Gotcha.
And maybe the one in the 1800s, maybe.
So can you kind of give a brief overview of what we are talking about now that we've kind of excluded the areas that we're not going to delve into?
Yeah, so I was really fascinated by Jewish immigration, and um, I got really into um so Ethia or Israel is basically half Ashkenazi Zeus and half um Sephardic Jews. And the Ashkenazi are basically a vast majority of the Jews in America.
They have the pale skin, they're from Europe or from like Eastern Europe and Germany, and Sephardic Jews technically mean from Spain, but it includes all when I mean when I say from Spain, I mean the Jews who lived in Spain until 1492, who were then kicked out of Spain, and um, but it also includes all the Jews from Arab countries and the in Israel, so half of the Jews there are from Arab countries, and there's a lot of persecution there, and um I was really wanting to write my thesis on that, but there is the problem of sources. I do not speak Arabic or Hebrew.
Um, so I basically, because of my knowledge of only English, I had to find something on the topic of Jewish immigration to Israel and discrimination that had Amer had sources in English and that happened to be Ethiopian Jews. Um, I got really fascinated on um there were two large immigrations to Israel in the in the 80s and 90s, um, one from Ethiopia, the other from the Soviet Union and then former Soviet countries, and they had two really different outcomes. And um the Soviet zoos were welcomed and had no problem immigrating as long as they had one Jewish grandparent.
Um while the Ethiopian zoos, if they were completely Jewish, had an incredibly hard time immigrating to Israel. And if anyone along in their family ended up converting and they were a descendant of that convert, then they were converting Christianity, then they were excluded from being allowed to immigrate to Israel unless it underwent a very rigorous conversion process. Um but apparently that was too big in scope and quite an accusation without enough sources in English. Um I couldn't do that.
So I hit the archival jackpot of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews donated their entire all their records to the Center for Jewish history, which was one block from my university. Um so that was a really fortunate archival find. Um, and no one at the time had gone through them.
Oh really?
I don't believe anyone had. Um no one published on it when I was going through them. I I went through them in 2013, 2014. I my thesis advisor had to basically yank me from the archives because I I loved it.
Um I can imagine I would have too.
Yeah, it was a fun time. Um like the documents were fasting. I found Mossag documents in English talking about activities they were doing in Lebanon. Um, no idea how I found why that was in this archive, but it was all declassified Israeli government documents in English, like it was exact pot fine.
Oh wow, yeah. I couldn't even imagine.
Yeah.
So can you um walk us through like a brief like um history of like what the original problem set was and some of the major milestones that went through it?
Yeah, so to give a little bit of Israeli history, because that very mucks is uh involved with this, um, Israel became a state in 1948 and they um have the law of return, which says any zoo can um immigrate to Israel and become a full citizen. Um pre-coronavirus, if I were to want to become an Israeli citizen, I could have filled out an application in America, had and become an Israeli citizen in six months, or if I would have been in the country already, I could become a citizen in about a month. Um some very liberal policies.
And in the 50s, Israel sent people to Gon to the Gondar province, which which had all these Ethiopian Jews to do some outreach. Um, but then when the Ethiopian Jews learned about this very liberal law of return, liberal in quotes, of how you could easily immigrate there, the Jews then wanted to immigrate to Israel. And when the Ethiopian Jews express expressed the desire to immigrate to Israel, then the programs were all pulled out of Gondar. Um they they wanted to help the Jews, but they didn't want the Jews to come to Israel um due to, I believe, racism.
Um and then um in the 60s, this guy, I don't want to mispronounce his name, but his last name is Berger. So I guess we can call him Mr. Berger. He um learned about the Ethiopian Jews and how they were really suffering and started to be an activist for them and raise awareness for them in America, and it became this really interesting dynamic of American Jews advocating to help Ethiopian Zeus to then immigrate to Israel because that's where the Ethiopian Zeus wanted to go, and there were laws that were on the books to require that were supposed to allow them to easily immigrate to Israel.
And the one thing I want to say with the ease of the law of return, it is a racist thing. So um the reason why it's so easy to immigrate to Israel as a zoo is so there to justify a zooist state, you need a zooist majority. So to get a Xoous majority, you want to make it easy to immigrate to Israel. Um, and that backed as racist against Palestinians, but it's also there to help zoos who are dying to not die from due to their persecution. Um but it's a double-edged sword. Right. Um, I and I don't want to gloss over the Palestinian oppression.
Well, yeah, and I I know that you know this conversation we wanted to have it earlier, but with the pandemic and everything else, it's you know been a long time coming. But it I would say it's even more apt now with all the protests that are going on and the you know the emphasis on you know equal justice no matter what color of your skin happens to be. So, you know, hopefully that adds even more relevance to this topic, just you know, beyond the initial conversation.
Yeah, and if you're fascinated by it, there are Black Lives Matter protests happening in Israel right now. Um, with there's between Ethiopian Zoo saying their lives matter, but also there's the Atrean refugees who are not Jewish but have gone to the closest democracy, which is Israel, and they need more rights in Israel, and there are black people in Israel marching the street saying black lives matter, and it's amazing, and this is happening globally in the world. Um yeah, German soccer is even protesting for Black Lives Matter now.
Exactly. I mean it's it it's heartwarming to see it, it really is. Do you know if there's any like residual and this is a little bit off topic, I apologize, but do you know if there's any residual um you know feelings of angst in between um the Ethiopian Jews and the Eritrean, you know, people themselves? Because you know, the the two countries have not been on friendly terms for quite some time.
Yeah, I'm not sure. Um I mean so the Etrean refugees started immigrating to Israel probably about 2010, I want to say, and the documents I was looking at were earlier, but um it seems like there's just a lot of solidarity there. They're both black, they they look they look pretty pretty similar, and um the persecution happens to both of them. There it there can be anti Atrian violence, and that can happen accidentally to Ethiopian Jews, so um that's not good.
Gotcha. So you had started off by laying out the the problem set and the topic in general. So after you know, the what happened to actually start the process of allowing Ethiopian Jews to be considered under the law of return?
Well, so Mr. Berger, he was quite a troublemaker, and he went around the country to synagogues and spoke about the Ethiopian Jews and made Americans very aware, and he um he was fascinating in raising awareness, but also was a bit of a troublemaker. Um he hit his infamous thing that got him to no longer be president of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews was he tried to buy an article, an advertisement in the New York Times that would have taken up a full peg saying that the Israeli government was committing genocide against Ethiopian Jews by not allowing them to immigrate.
Um but the yeah that he did not take out that advertisement and he was he resigned after um that controversy of if he should buy it, but tonks like that helped raise awareness and get the the American Jews to care about this. And um with the dynamics of Israel in America, if you can get the Israel the American Jews to feel a certain way about Israel, you can press Serbian Israeli government to do better.
Um thank goodness yeah, yeah, history often I mean we remember them fondly, our troublemakers, but in this case, you know, it was a very good thing in the end.
So yeah, and it it was I was really fascinated by the three different presidents of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews. So then the second one was a scientist. So a scientist is not going to call it a genocide without clear evidence. Um how and that man's name was Howard Lenhoff, and he he was very scientific with how he looked at things and how to fix the problem. And then he was ultimately replaced with a guy named Nate Shapiro, who was this Zewice establishment type with a background in philanthropy, who was, to be honest, really great with donors.
He I mean, if you donated two dollars, you would get a letter from Nate Shapiro, the president of the AAEJ, and he would thank you, and then that ended up in the archive for him. He kept every donor thank you letter. And I think that balance really is striking where um Berger raised the awareness. Lenhoff kind of calmed the tank, calmed it down a little bit and was a lot more scientific. And then the final president was focused on donor relations and playing nice, and he actually got the results of the mass integration to happen. But you kind of you kind of need all three though.
True. I mean, most the most effective, you know, institutions and everything else. I mean, it's usually kind of the dirty little secret that you know donor relations is so absolutely important, but that's also what helps to increase your you know influence in the entire community.
So yeah. I mean, the people who have the power to donate money have a lot of influence typically on more than more than just the organization they donate money to.
So what so after you know the Israeli government, you know, allowed the law of return to apply to the the beta Israel, then what happened after that?
Well, so they decided in the in the late seventies that it would apply to the to the Ethiopian Jews, but then there became the problem of how do we get them from Ethiopia to Israel. You needed Ethiopia did not have, I don't believe they had diplomatic relations with Israel. There wasn't a clear path. And that led to like interesting things. Like I recently learned about the Netflix movie Reg Sea Diving Resort, which was apparently a Mossad operation in Sudan, where the Ethiopian Jews would go through Sudan and then the Israelis would get them from Sudan to Israel.
And that was a very common path, but it required walking on foot through mountains from Gondar to Sudan, which was quite a trick.
Yeah, and treacherous to say the least.
Yeah. But then the big immigration happened on in 1991. They um finally airlifted almost 14,000 Jews in 36 hours to Israel. When before it was very like piecemeal through the 80s, of like maybe a couple hundred here, couple hundred there. But um in 91 they finally did brought 14,000 people over in 36 hours. Two babies were born on the flight.
Um oh my gosh. Was that and this probably is a stupid question? Was that Project Solomon or is that something else?
That was that was Operation Solomon. And the one in the 80s was was Operation Moses.
Gotcha. Okay.
Yeah. And I Operation Solomon still holds the world record um for the most amount of people on an airplane at one time. There was over a thousand people on the airplane, and that that airplane, which is the most crowded airplane in history, um, was the one that two babies were born on, which is crazy to think about.
That's amazing.
Yeah, there is no time for the women to give birth on the ground, so just have the babies born in a on the plane, on a very crowded plane.
Oh, I could not even begin to imagine. So, I mean, so uh, so after you know um Operation Solomon, I know that there was still the um uh you know the question of the converted, uh, those that were still left in Ethiopia. Uh, can you give a little background on that piece?
Yeah, so this is where it's really interesting to compare it to the Soviet Jews. So to survive in the Soviet Union with less persecution, you would just become an atheist. And you'd probably marry a a non-Jewish person, and but you would because no one in your family converted, as long as you had one Jewish grandparent, you were allowed to immigrate to Israel. Um now in Ethiopia, if you wanted to survive with less religious persecution, you would have to convert. And a lot of Ethiopians dig that. Um, but if if your family converts, then you are not entitled to immigrate to Israel um as a zoo.
But there is a loophole, you can always convert in Israel, but it is a full orthodox conversion that requires a year of studying. Um and if you if you want to go down this path as an Ethiopian zoo, you you can fly to Israel, you do the year-long conversion process, and then at the end you take a test. And if you don't pass the test, you're going back to Ethiopia. Um and that's messed up in my opinion. When the when the wrestling Jews hey is their family, they just became atheists and they have full rights in Israel for the most part. There's some problems there too.
Um but yeah, so the double standard was pretty obvious to me. And the one thing to go back to Operation Moses, the American Association for Ethiopian Jews um were able to bring the Jews from Gondar to the capital of Ethiopia, which then allowed the quick airlifting in Operation Moses.
Gotcha. Yeah, and do you know anything about because from what I was reading, and I am absolutely not an expert in any of this, um, it seemed like in the late what like uh 1900s, um, there was a Protestant division that went and tried to specialize and convert um, you know, members of the Beta Israel over to Christianity, but they couldn't do it to Protestantism because of their relationship with the Ethiop with the Ethiopian government. Um, do you know anything about that story?
No.
Okay.
I believe it.
I mean, I do know that like the end result, it was highly unsuccessful. I think they only grabbed like successfully converted like 2,000 people at that point. But yeah, it was it was kind of a a weird story in and of itself. So um that's like the majority of the questions that I had. Were there any other interesting tidbits that uh you wanted to throw out before we uh ended the conversation?
Um yeah, I wanted to give a good old shout-out to my favorite um Israeli government establishment, the um the Israeli rabbinate. Um they in the mid-70s, when there was the big debate over if the Ethiopian Jews were Jews, they felt the need to re-circumcise the Ethiopian men, um, which means like you get a little bit of blood out of a scar. Sorry to get a little graphic there. Um but really yeah. And this is a the recircumcision is a common thing. So, like, let's say you are circumcised already and then you convert to being like a reform zoo, then you need to do it again.
And then if you decide you want to be a conservative Jew, you have to do it again. If you want to be an Orthodox Jew, you have to do it again, because the other rabbis don't like a a reform concert conversion isn't accepted by a conservative or orthodox rabbi. So there was one story of like a Jew who had to convert three different times who had get circumcised every time.
Um but so they the get old Israeli rabbinate felt that the Ethiopian Jews had get re-circumcised, and um it was going to be the chief Ashkenazi rabbi, and then um an appointment was made, they were gonna go to the to the center where all the Ethiopian Jews in Israel lived, and they were going to do it, and the Ethiopian Jews were aware there's gonna be translators there, and as messed up as it is, it was going to be more culturally sensitive. Um, but the city Sephardic rabbi, who had a huge rivalry with the Cif Ashkenazi rabbi, didn't want the Ashkenazi rabbi to get that victory in his eyes.
Um and also whatever rabbi did it was going to then um get like the Ethiopian Jews to either be Sephardic or Ashkenazi. Um so there's a huge rivalry, and when the Cseh Sephardic rabbi learned that the Ashkenazi rabbi was going to do this conversion in two days, the Ksef Sephardic rabbi um sent his rabbis to the absorption center with all the where all the Ethiopian Jews were to do the circumcision ceremony. Um but there was no warning given and there were no translators, so it all went awry and all the men fled.
Um they ran off because imagine if you don't speak this language and you have these men coming demanding to circumcise you and you don't know what's happening, you're gonna run off.
Yeah. I think any man would want to run away in that kind of a situation, dear lord.
Yeah, yeah. So they ran off, and then the American Association for Ethiopian Jews had to like find all the men in Israel, get them back to the home they were living in, and like apologize and have explain what happened and tell them to wait it out until the chief Ashkenazi rabbi men came in two days. Um like there's a lot of bumbling like that, and like how who who thought that was a good idea? Who thought that was a good idea? There were no translators, they showed up. And the the thought of like what happened here? Like I don't know, but all the men ran away.
As well as they were able to get the men back to the absorption center, but I don't know how maybe they all went back on their own eventually, but yeah, they ran away.
Wow, yeah.
So there's a lot of bumbling of that nature um with this, and then eventually they decided that the Ethiopian Jews didn't need to get recircumcised, but that was like five years later.
Um you gotta love the process.
You gotta love the get old Israeli rabbinant.
I would be nice.
Um, but if you if you if anyone wants to do further reading, Howard Glenhaw wrote a book the second president of the American Association for Ethiopian Zeus. He wrote a book about his time as president, and it's really fascinating. Um, and if anyone wants to get deep into the archives, there the Center for Zeus History has them all, and you are allowed to photograph them.
Well, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and you know giving a good introduction to the topic and such you know, interesting tidbits to boot. It's been fascinating getting to talk to you like this.
No problem, it's great catching up with you.
All right, and that concludes the interview. Thank you all for listening. I hope you that you enjoyed it as much as I did. Um, she is a wonderful friend and extremely knowledgeable on the topic in hand. Hopefully, we'll be able to have her back at some point in the future if she agreed to be agreed to do that. Hope everyone has uh don't forget to demonology.com or Facebook Facebook, Facebook.comology uh or on our Discord channel. The link for that is right at the top of our demonology.com website. Thank you all again and have a good night.