Boomerang4Israel brings you another set of amazing videos. These are on the remaining Jews of Ethiopia. As crazy as it sounds, the Jewish people lost touch with the Jewish community in Ethiopia more than centuries ago. They were cut of from us, from so much of what happened to us. When the Ethiopian Jewish community was rediscovered about 60 years ago, it became clear very quickly that the base of their observance is the same as ours. What they lacked was knowledge of most of what happened to Jews for the last few thousand years.
Chanukah was not known to them and so it was not observed. The Rabbis in Israel expected the same situation with Purim but when they began discussing Jewish holidays with the Rabbis of the Ethiopian community, they were shocked to find that this great holiday of joy was marked in the Ethiopian calendar as a day of great mourning. Fasting and sadness.
“Why” the Rabbis asked. And they were told of a great massacre that happened on that day. In the city of Shushan. In Persia. It seems that the first edict from the King of Shushan arrived, telling of how Jews were to be killed. The second edict never arrived and so for centuries and centuries, Ethiopian Jews have mourned for the murdered Jews of Shushan.
Only, they weren’t murdered. They were saved and so we celebrate each year, this great victory over the evil Haman…and the Ethiopian Jews celebrate with us.
It’s time, Boomerang4Israel reminds us. It is time to bring the last remnants of the Ethiopian community home to Israel.