By Steven B. Kaplan
...balanced and good informed...a amazing piece of scholarship aimed toward demythologizing the origins of the Ethiopian Falasha.-Foreign AffairsKaplan's definitive therapy can be of curiosity to scholars and students of Jewish historical past, African heritage, and comparative faith, in addition to a person attracted to Jewish affairs and the fashionable center East. The Midwest e-book ReviewKaplan's conceptualizations are really appropriate and obviously expressed...incisive and good documented... and offers crucial historical past for the method of assimilation now taking lace in Israel.-The overseas magazine of African ancient experiences Kaplan's capable interdisciplinary strategy is of significant price for people attracted to faith, civilization, and technique of change.-Religious stories overview Kaplan's well-written, lucid presentation make[s] this significant, powerfuble contribution obtainable to all degrees of readers. hugely recommended.ChoiceInsightful and thorough, a welcome contribution.Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Professor of song, Harvard UniversityUndoubtedly the main unique, so much scholarly, and such a lot dispassionate argument of Falasha background hitherto released. [T]his paintings merits ... the main cautious research through all these (and particularly in Israel) who've any functional or scholarly reference to the Beta Israel.-- Edward UllendorffEmeritus Professor of Ethiopian reviews, collage of LondonFellow of the British AcademyGiven Kaplan's facility with either written and oral resources, he's in a distinct place to synthesize and reconcile the hot historic findings of ethnographers with the written resources and differing conclusions of past historians and linguists. His paintings is insightful and thorough, a welcome contribution.-- Kay Shelemay, Wesleyan college The foundation of the Black Jews of Ethiopia has lengthy been a resource of fascination and controversy. Their and destiny keeps to generate debate. The fruits of just about a decade of analysis, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia marks the ebook of the 1st book-length scholarly research of the heritage of this distinctive community.In this quantity, Steven Kaplan seeks to demythologize the background of the Falasha and to contemplate them within the wider context of Ethiopian background and tradition. This marks a transparent departure from prior stories that have seen them from the exterior standpoint of Jewish heritage. Drawing on a wide selection of assets together with the Beta Israel's personal literature and oral traditions, Kaplan demonstrates that they're now not a misplaced Jewish tribe, yet fairly an ethnic staff which emerged in Ethiopia among the 14th and sixteenth century. certainly, the identify, Falasha, their non secular hierarchy, sacred texts, and monetary specialization can all be dated to this era. one of the matters the booklet addresses are their hyperlinks with Ethiopian Christianity, the medieval legends touching on 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 therapy should be of curiosity to scholars and students of Jewish background, African heritage, and comparative faith, in addition to someone drawn to Jewish affairs and the fashionable heart East.