Ono’s Beit Midrash Studies Ethiopian Jewish Liturgy

The Beit Midrash for the Study of Ethiopian Jewish Religious Texts at Ono Academic College hosted guest lecturer Shoshana Ben Dor, a veteran researcher and retired director of NACOEJ-Israel. Ben Dor discussed her work on Beta Israel heritage, including a filmed prayer meeting where Keis Avraham helped transcribe and translate prayers. She also described efforts to publish “Tanza Snebet,” a unique Shabbat-focused book written in the Ge’ez language. She noted the need for better translations of related Bete Israel liturgical manuscripts. Ben Dor highlighted her collaboration with Granam Berger starting in 1977 to bring Beta Israel Jews to Israel and her subsequent research into their liturgy, which includes three prayer collections—”Mashaf Kahanat,” “Saatat,” and “Mashaf Asterai”—a seven-Shabbat cycle of prayers, with origins tracing back to Second Temple times, preserved in a literarily rich prayer book compiled during 15th-century persecution of Ethiopian King Zera Yaakov.

 

Ethiopian Beit Midrash Studies Bete Israel Liturgy