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The immigrant knows suffering. In addition to the already present hardships that accompany life, he or she must negotiate the trials of learning a new culture and language, often without the presence of friends or loved ones. Complicating the situation for the immigrant is unspeakable trauma—both personal and communal. It is trauma from the homeland, the reason they left. It is also trauma from the journey, an unwelcome surprise. We have seen this suffering with immigration to the Americas over the past several hundred years and more recently in the immigration of Syrian refugees to political oases in Europe. In his book, “For Our Soul: Ethiopians in Israel,” Teshome Wagaw details the struggle and journey of a relatively uncharted and unadvertised migration story—that of the Ethiopian Jews and their immigration from Africa to Israel in the late 20th century.
In several hundred pages, Wagaw astutely points out the plight of this unique Jewish population, who rejoined the greater Jewish community after being disconnected for almost one thousand years. History is important to Wagaw. He thoroughly describes the course of Ethiopian Jewry beginning in the ninth century BC. Owing to unique circumstances, Ethiopia was largely isolated from the rest of the world for 10 centuries, beginning in the seventh century AD, and its Jewish community was completely forgotten. During this time, they shaped and shifted their rituals in accordance with an Ethiopian landscape while retaining their core Jewish religion. Due to war and government instability, members of this group, also known as the Beta Israel, made an arduous journey to Israel with the help of Israeli agents, starting in the 1970s. The overthrow of leader Hallie Sellasie in 1974 was a powerful catalyst for this emigration.
Even before their movement to Israel, the Beta Israel struggled to achieve recognition as Jews by the rest of the community, although they eventually achieved it. Scholars remarked that their practices re