MY FAMILY
THE BETA ISRAEL CURRICULUM
RESPECT
Delving further into this philosophy, teachers should then explain to their students:
The idea of seeing the inherent “goodness” in others goes much deeper than just lacking suspicion or mistrust. Rather, for the Beta Israel, it underscores the community’s core value regarding “respect.” The Beta Israel strongly emphasize the importance of showing respect toward all people – this value is especially crucial in interactions with elders in the community.57
In Ethiopian culture, one does not use the first name of an important person, and when speaking to such a person, one does not look directly at his face. If he is elderly, one should kiss his knee,58 and only then commence speaking to him.59
In fact, as Colette Berman and Yosef Miller note in their study, The Beautiful People of the Book: A Tribute to Ethiopian Jews in Israel: “Looking up to elders became so fixed a part of the social fabric that… no serious family discussions, [and] no major decisions for the community, are made until the elders have spoken.”60 And as explained by Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, “relationships between people are based on respect [and] respect is an absolute value.”61
With this idea in mind, students should be asked to consider how their approach toward respecting elders may differ from that of the Beta Israel community.
Credit: Maariv Newspaper62
57 See Unit 2: Life in Ethiopia.
58 For an example of this practice, refer to video of MK Gadi Yevarkan kissing his mother’s feet at the ceremony marking his appointment to the 21st Knesset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kt8hsCSFBc.
59 3 Shalom, From Sinai to Ethiopia, 258.
60 Colette Berman and Yosef Miller, The Beautiful People of the Book: A Tribute to Ethiopian Jews in Israel, (Millhouse Publishers, 1988), 168.
61 Shalom, From Sinai to Ethiopia, 258.
62 Photograph, Maariv Newspaper, https://www.maariv.co.il/news/politics/Article-696672.
