{"id":31324,"date":"2024-01-09T15:50:26","date_gmt":"2024-01-09T15:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/?page_id=31324"},"modified":"2024-01-09T15:55:57","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T15:55:57","slug":"unit-7-outreach-i-1855-1867","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/unit-7-outreach-i-1855-1867\/","title":{"rendered":"Unit 7: OUTREACH I: 1855-1867"},"content":{"rendered":"

MY FAMILY<\/span><\/a>
\nTHE BETA ISRAEL CURRICULUM<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/a>OUTREACH I: 1855-<\/u>1867<\/u><\/h3>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Teachers should begin the unit by explaining:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>As we learned in Unit 6: Attempted Journeys<\/em>, the first members of the Beta Israel to visit Jerusalem were Daniel ben Hananiah and his son Moshe, in 1855. During this trip, they told the leading rabbis in Jerusalem about the difficulties facing Jews in Ethiopia and received an \u201cempathetic letter of solidarity.\u201d The existence of the Beta Israel had been largely unknown outside of Africa for most of history, but by the mid-nineteenth century, a handful of scholars and leaders in Europe began to learn about Ethiopian Jewry and show serious interest.77<\/sup> This was of key significance considering that support was already on the rise among Protestant Christian missionary circles,78<\/sup> who sought to convert the Beta Israel to Christianity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Against the backdrop of these efforts, Rabbi Jacob Sapir (a Jerusalem- based ethnographer and emissary) launched a \u201cmassive emotional appeal\u201d in 1863 to organize a \u201crescue delegation\u201d79<\/sup> to visit the Beta Israel in Ethiopia. Various action committees were subsequently established throughout Western Europe to aid the Beta Israel. Among the leading Jewish voices on the issue was Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer (1820-1899), spiritual leader of the Austro-Hungarian community of Eisenstadt.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFor several years a most troubling account has made the heart of every Jew tremble\u2026. It is the sad news that two hundred and fifty thousand of our believers\u2026 are exposed to the imminent danger of being swallowed up in the abyss\u2026 We must exert ourselves to prove the oneness of all Israel.\u201d81<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Teachers should then explain:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Rabbi Hildesheimer was driven by both the spiritual and physical dangers facing the Beta Israel as a religious minority in Ethiopia and believed that whatever could be done should be done to help them. In fact, Rabbi Hildesheimer concluded each of the letters that he penned to Jewish leaders at the time with the words of the sages: \u201cWhoever<\/em> saves one Jewish soul, it is as if he saved an entire world<\/em>.\u201d82<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>After sharing Rabbi Hildesheimer\u2019s story, teachers should ask their students:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What do these words mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever saves one Jewish soul, it is as if he saved an entire world\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why do you think Rabbi Hildesheimer concluded each of his letters with these words?<\/strong><\/p>\n

3<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What do you think Rabbi Hildesheimer meant by the word \u201csave,\u201d in this instance?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following discussion of this phrase, teachers should proceed to explain:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Humanitarian efforts were growing among activist circles on behalf of the Beta Israel. Funds, holy books, and religious articles were collected,83<\/sup> drawing both aid and attention. But it became clear to Jewish leaders that to really help, they must forge direct communication with the Beta Israel community. Rabbi Meir Leibush (1809-1879), an esteemed Torah commentator known by the acronym \u201cMalbim<\/em>,\u201d approached the Paris-based Alliance Israelite Universelle<\/em>84<\/sup> and recommended that Joseph Hal\u00e9vy (a renowned French Jewish scholar), \u201cbe sent\u2026 to make contact with them.\u201d85<\/sup> Hal\u00e9vy had a brilliant mind for both Torah and secular subjects, was fluent in the Ethiopian languages (among others), and he was eager to help.86<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Students should be encouraged to research Joseph Hal\u00e9vy independently to reflect on his life and work.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>77\u00a0 Examples of new supporters included Filosssenso Luzzatto (1829- 1854), the son of Rabbi Samuel David Luzzatto, who with the help of Antoine d\u2019Abbadie managed to contact one of the Beta Israel community See Menachem Waldman, The Jews of Ethiopia: The Beta Israel Community, <\/em>(Amishav, 1985) p. 51.<\/p>\n

78\u00a0 See From Sinai to Ethiopia<\/em>, 66: \u201cThe Jews who converted to Christianity are known today as \u201cFalashmura.\u201d<\/p>\n

79\u00a0 Waldman, The Jews of Ethiopia: The Beta Israel Community<\/em>, 52.<\/p>\n

80\u00a0 As published in The Jewish Chronicle <\/em>and The Hebrew Observer <\/em>on November 4, 1864.<\/p>\n

81\u00a0 See Waldman, The Jews of Ethiopia: The Beta Israel Community, <\/em> 52- 53 (with slight textual adaptation).<\/p>\n

82\u00a0 See Shalom, From Sinai to Ethiopia<\/em>, p. 67: \u201cWhoever saves one Jewish soul, it is as if he saved an entire world\u201d is a rabbinic teaching initially sourced in Mishnah Sanhedrin <\/em>4:5. The teaching is derived from the story of Cain and Abel where, upon killing Abel, Cain is rebuked for taking his brother\u2019s life \u2013 and depriving life from Abel\u2019s potential descendants for generations to More recently, this teaching has been quoted during times of war. The phrase was also engraved on a ring given to Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

83\u00a0 See Waldman, The Jews of Ethiopia: The Beta Israel Community<\/em>, 53.<\/p>\n

84\u00a0 The Alliance Israelite Universelle <\/em>was founded in 1860 by the French statesman Adolphe Cr\u00e9mieux to safeguard the human rights of Jews around the world.<\/p>\n

85\u00a0 See Waldman, The Jews of Ethiopia: The Beta Israel Community<\/em>, 53.<\/p>\n

86 Ibid.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MY FAMILY THE BETA ISRAEL CURRICULUM OUTREACH I: 1855-1867 \u00a0Teachers should begin the unit by explaining: \u00a0As we learned in Unit 6: Attempted Journeys, the first members of the Beta […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":30932,"parent":0,"menu_order":89,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-31324","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}