The Beta Israel: Falasha in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times by Steven B. Kaplan

...balanced and good informed...a remarkable piece of scholarship geared toward demythologizing the origins of the Ethiopian Falasha.
-Foreign Affairs

Kaplan's definitive remedy could be of curiosity to scholars and students of Jewish heritage, African historical past, and comparative faith, in addition to somebody attracted to Jewish affairs and the fashionable center East.

The Midwest ebook Review

Kaplan's conceptualizations are sensible and obviously expressed...incisive and good documented... and gives crucial historical past for the method of assimilation now taking lace in Israel.
-The foreign magazine of African old Studies

Kaplan's capable interdisciplinary process is of serious price for folks attracted to faith, civilization, and technique of change.
-Religious reports Review

Kaplan's well-written, lucid presentation make[s] this crucial, useful contribution available to all degrees of readers. hugely recommended.

Choice

Insightful and thorough, a welcome contribution.Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Professor of song, Harvard University

Undoubtedly the main unique, so much scholarly, and such a lot dispassionate argument of Falasha heritage hitherto released. [T]his paintings merits ... the main cautious examine by way of all these (and particularly in Israel) who've any sensible or scholarly reference to the Beta Israel.
-- Edward UllendorffEmeritus Professor of Ethiopian experiences, college of LondonFellow of the British Academy

Given Kaplan's facility with either written and oral resources, he's in a special place to synthesize and reconcile the hot old findings of ethnographers with the written resources and differing conclusions of previous historians and linguists. His paintings is insightful and thorough, a welcome contribution.
-- Kay Shelemay, Wesleyan University

The starting place of the Black Jews of Ethiopia has lengthy been a resource of fascination and controversy. Their and destiny keeps to generate debate. The end result of virtually a decade of study, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia marks the booklet of the 1st book-length scholarly examine of the background of this precise community.
In this quantity, Steven Kaplan seeks to demythologize the historical past of the Falasha and to contemplate them within the wider context of Ethiopian historical past and tradition. This marks a transparent departure from earlier reviews that have seen them from the exterior standpoint of Jewish heritage. Drawing on a wide selection of resources together with the Beta Israel's personal literature and oral traditions, Kaplan demonstrates that they're no longer a misplaced Jewish tribe, yet quite an ethnic workforce which emerged in Ethiopia among the 14th and sixteenth century. certainly, the identify, Falasha, their spiritual hierarchy, sacred texts, and monetary specialization can all be dated to this era. one of the topics the e-book addresses are their hyperlinks with Ethiopian Christianity, the medieval legends relating their life, their wars with the Ethiopian emperors, their relegation to the prestige of a despised semi-caste, their encounters with ecu missionaries, and the impression of the nice Famine of 1888-1892.
Kaplan's definitive remedy could be of curiosity to scholars and students of Jewish heritage, African heritage, and comparative faith, in addition to a person drawn to Jewish affairs and the trendy heart East.