Ethiopian Jews

[NeverMore]

does someone here knows what does the Halacha or other Jewish sources say about whether whe Jews of Ethiopia are really regarded as Jewish, by the traditional Judaism? i mean Jewish in blood, not just feel like a Jew or other similarities to that. i personally know many Ethiopians and they are mostly great people, most of their youth volunteer to elite army units, and they very like the country (Israel, in case someone doesn't figure out why my English is so poor), altough sometimes they meet racism. the Haredim (that is the Orthodox Jews, especially the Sefards and their "Shas" party), as far as i know, dont accept them as fully Jewish, and make them have a Giur or something in that direction. does skin color and other physical features mean something in determining ones Judaism?

[Shlomo]

http://www.sdss.jhu.edu/~ethan/jFAQ.html

`The Differences Among Jewish Communities - Maternal and Paternal Contributions' Ritte, U., Neufeld, E., Broit, M., Shavit, D., and Motra, U., Journal of Molecular Evolution, 37, 435, 1993

This paper discusses Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA affinities between various Jewish communities. The data presented here are for the Y-Chromosome. The mtDNA data comes from the following paper on the list. The sample was divided into six Jewish populations: Yemenite, Ashkenazic, Near Eastern, North African, Asia Minor and the Balkans, and Ethiopian. The first five showed a strong affinity, with the Ashkenazic and Yemenite populations coming out the closest. The Ethiopian community was a distant outlier, suggesting that that community is primarily descended from local converts. The Yemenite community had the smallest number of significant differences with the other communities in pair-wise comparisons using the Y-chromosome data. The Moroccan community had the smallest mtDNA differences. There were no direct comparisons with neighboring populations, so it was not possible to come up with an exact estimate of the genetic contribution from intermarriage, but the close affinity of the various Jewish communities can be taken as showing that any such contribution must be modest.

[NeverMore]

Hmm... interesting... very interesting. but i believe that without this type of comparison of Jews and other peoples, say different kinds of muslims, this research will only show the spirit of this issue.

[kahaneloyalist]

The Baale Tosfos accepted the Ethiopians as Jews as did the Ramchal. Rav Kahane was very involved in getting the Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

[NeverMore]

but how can you explain the Sefardic discriminatory approach to them? numbers of times i heard Eli Ishay (formal leader of shas party) expresses unequality of the Judaism level of the Ethiopians and say his own. by the way, Ethiopians still keep a Jewish holiday that has been lost since the bible era, and i dont remember what it is (i can find out if you want). shouldnt it be like "bonus points"?

[kahaneloyalist]

sadly some Jews have forgotten that the color of a Jew is irrelevant only if they are Jewish.

[Shlomo]

The Baale Tosfos accepted the Ethiopians as Jews as did the Ramchal. Rav Kahane was very involved in getting the Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

WONDERFUL post! I did not know that.

[Tzvi Ben Roshel1]

color of skin is all bullsh*t, and if their are reasons of why some Jews , expecially Sefardic who dont acccept them , or do raise a question of maybe, then its nothing to do with color ( that im 100 percent sure). Many of the Sefardi Jews are dark themselves.

[Shlomo]

color of skin is all bullsh*t, and if their are reasons of why some Jews , expecially Sefardic who dont acccept them , or do raise a question of maybe, then its nothing to do with color ( that im 100 percent sure). Many of the Sefardi Jews are dark themselves.

THANK YOU! Beautifully said! So true... I've said the same thing over and over again in the old forums.

[Mishmaat]

A Jew is a Jew regardless of what their skin color is or what racial features they have.

[wonderfulgoy]

Ethiopian women do it for me.   

But now listen to this: 'The Holy One, blessed be He, did not exile Israel among the nations for any other reason than that proselytes should be added to them.'

Since Israel will become the nation of priests to minister to the whole world, there will need to be a diversity of all sorts of Jews so as to be able to minister to differing cultures, languages, etc.

That being said, the mixing of seed for any other purpose is abomination in the eyes of the L-rd.

[Carlyle]

Are you really sure that they are Jews?

Rabbis Moshe Feinstein, Elazar Shach, Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, and Shlomo Zalman Auerbach have all stated that the Jewishness of Beta Israel is seriously suspect.

DNA evidence confirms that the Ethiopian Jews are not descended from the tribe of Dan:

Gerard Lucotte and Pierre Smets in Human Biology (vol 71, December 1999, pp. 989–993) [15] studied the DNA of 38 unrelated Beta Israel males living in Israel and 104 Ethiopians living in regions located north of Addis Ababa and concluded that "the distinctiveness of the Y-chromosome haplotype distribution of Beta Israel Jews from conventional Jewish populations and their relatively greater similarity in haplotype profile to non-Jewish Ethiopians are consistent with the view that the Beta Israel people descended from ancient inhabitants of Ethiopia who converted to Judaism." [16] This study confirms the findings of an earlier study by Avshalom Zoossmann-Disken, A. Ticher, I. Hakim, Z. Goldwitch, A. Rubinstein, and Batsheva Bonné-Tamir titled "Genetic affinities of Ethiopian Jews," published in Israel Journal of Medical Sciences 27:245 (1991).[17]. A study of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes of Jewish and non-Jewish groups titled Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June, 2000 suggested that "paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population," with the exception of the Beta Israel, who were "affiliated more closely with non-Jewish Ethiopians and other North Africans." [18]. These Y-chromosome studies only speak to the paternal lineage (some ethnic groups are a product of one maternal lineage and a different paternal lineage, see Métis people (Canada)), but a study of the Mitochondrial DNA [19] (which is passed only along the maternal lineage) shows that the most common mtDNA type found among the Ethiopian Jewish sample was present elsewhere only in Somalia, furthering the view of most that Ethiopian Jews are of local (Ethiopian) origin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Jews#DNA_evidence

[Mishmaat]

According to HaRav Ovadia Yosef they are Jews. HaRav Kahane, zt"l, also stated that they are Jews.

[Shlomo]

They are Jews... ESPECIALLY those who went through the conversion process. How could one argue that?

[Carlyle]

According to HaRav Ovadia Yosef they are Jews. HaRav Kahane, zt"l, also stated that they are Jews.

I am Christian but why would they have more authority than Moshe Feinstein, Elazar Shach, Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, and Shlomo Zalman Auerbach?

[Zionist Revolutionary]

I know that Moshe Feinstein was once a leader in Agudat Israel in America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Feinstein#Biography

Agudah is a self-hating "Jewish" "Ultra-Orthodox" organization that always lobbies on behalf of Jew-haters.

I do not know of the others.

As Yacov said, the Ethiopian Jews are white.  They have white features.  However, their skin is black because they were once raped by savages.

[Carlyle]

As Yacov said, the Ethiopian Jews are white.  They have white features.  However, their skin is black because they were once raped by savages.

Isn't that like saying that mulattoes are White despite their black skin? If a White woman is raped by a black man I can't understand how the child could be White.

According to DNA evidence Ethiopian Jews are not descended from any Israelite tribe unlike e.g. the Lemba people in Africa.  How could they be Jews then?

Also, these rabbis have ruled that their Jewishness is suspect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Zalman_Auerbach
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Shalom_Eliashiv
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Zalman_Auerbach
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Feinstein

When the Ethiopians arrived to Israel they were put through a ritual conversion which suggests that they weren't really considered Jews. I doubt that this satisfied the requirements of a proper conversion to Judaism. My friend in Israel says that few people consider them real Jews.

[David Ben-Ariel]

 Indian Jewish CONVERTS are not Menashe!

And the Ethiopian CONVERTS to Judaism are not the Tribe of Dan, as the Chief Rabbinate said they were, IN PART - not even acknowledging them from the Tribe of Judah. They are descendants of Philistine converts from the biblical coastal territory of Dan most likely.

The REAL tribe of Dan is white and European. TRIBE OF DAN

[Yochanan Zev]

It is commonly understood that Western Europe is descentant from Japeth, with Byzantine Europe being associated with Esau.

[BabylonianJew]

 Indian Jewish CONVERTS are not Menashe!

And the Ethiopian CONVERTS to Judaism are not the Tribe of Dan, as the Chief Rabbinate said they were, IN PART - not even acknowledging them from the Tribe of Judah. They are descendants of Philistine converts from the biblical coastal territory of Dan most likely.

The REAL tribe of Dan is white and European. TRIBE OF DAN

British-Israel theory is the same [censored]. Europeans are not from any tribes of Israel, the closest people to be the tribes of Israel would be the Kurds and some of the Arab populations. Also the site you listed is a idiotic and bordering Christian Idenity racism. The bones and skulls of the original Hebrews showed them to be Orintealid Caucasiods. The Indian Jews the Bene Israel showed the Cohen genes.

[mord]

The site CI it's writtenby an orthodox Jew in Israel

[BabylonianJew]

The site CI it's writtenby an orthodox Jew in Israel

Its written by uncle Tom Jewish version ie Kapos unfournitaly!

[BabylonianJew]

Ethiopians are black with white facial features. Egyptian Arabs are white with black facial features.

actually people have obsreved the Copts to be more Negriod than Arabs. Egypt has two important strain the Orintealid and Saharid and meditternian combined. Alot of Egyptians i have seen go get blond/blue eyed childern whe they intermarry with Europeans. Gentic studies showed them to be only 13% Negriod genticaly. Berbers are 10% on average. Also throwback genes in Egypt are rare.

[mord]

By far the most fetching Black women are Ethiopian

[BabylonianJew]

Ethiopians are black with white facial features. Egyptian Arabs are white with black facial features.

actually people have obsreved the Copts to be more Negriod than Arabs. Egypt has two important strain the Orintealid and Saharid and meditternian combined. Alot of Egyptians i have seen go get blond/blue eyed childern whe they intermarry with Europeans. Gentic studies showed them to be only 13% Negriod genticaly. Berbers are 10% on average. Also throwback genes in Egypt are rare.

Chaim's mother is an Egyptian Jew. She has green eyes and Chaim has blue eyes. Chaim's father was a blond haired, blue eyed, Polish Jew.

Yes alot of Egyptian "Arabs" are light to, read the Barbary Slave trade it was done by Berbers, North Africans, and Egyptians were the enslaved Europeans and women mostly.