22 Facts About Beta Israel

Beta Israel, known as Ethiopian Jews, are a Jewish community that developed and lived for centuries in the area of the Kingdom of Aksum and the Ethiopian Empire, which is currently divided between the modern-day Amhara and Tigray regions of Ethiopia.

Beta Israel lived in northern and northwestern Ethiopia, in more than 500 small villages which were spread over a wide territory, alongside populations that were Muslim and predominantly Christian.

Beta Israel appear to have been isolated from mainstream Jewish communities for at least a millennium.

Beta Israel made contact with other Jewish communities in the later 20th century.

Beta Israel who broke these taboos were ostracized, and had to undergo a purification process.

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Unlike other Ethiopians, the Beta Israel do not eat raw meat dishes such as kitfo or gored gored.

Beta Israel calendar is a lunar calendar of 12 months, each 29 or 30 days alternately.

Beta Israel once spoke Qwara and Kayla, both of which are Agaw languages.

Those Beta Israel residing in the State of Israel now use Modern Hebrew as a daily language.

Contemporary scholars believe that the Beta Israel emerged comparatively recently and formed a distinct ethonational group in the context of historical pressures that came to a head from the 14th to the 16th centuries.

Kebra Negast asserts that the Beta Israel are descended from a battalion of men of Judah who fled southward down the Arabian coastal lands from Judea after the breakup of the Kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms in the 10th century BCE .

Many Beta Israel believe that they are descended from the tribe of Dan.

Beta Israel cited ancient authorities in the scholarly traditions of his own people.

Some Beta Israel assert that their Danite origins go back to the time of Moses, when some Danites parted from other Jews right after the Exodus and moved south to Ethiopia.

Beta Israel reported other Jewish kingdoms around his own or in East Africa during this time.

Beta Israel's descriptions were consistent and even the originally doubtful rabbis of his time were finally persuaded.

Rest of the Beta Israel mainly belong to haplotypes linked with the E-M35 and J-M267 haplogroups, which are more commonly associated with Cushitic and Semitic-speaking populations in Northeast Africa.

The maternal ancestral profile of the Beta Israel is similar to those of highland Ethiopian populations.

Beta Israel are autosomally closer to other populations from the Horn of Africa than to any other Jewish population, including Yemenite Jews.

Early secular scholars considered the Beta Israel to be the direct descendant of Jews who lived in ancient Ethiopia, whether they were the descendants of an Israelite tribe, or converted by Jews living in Yemen, or by the Jewish community in southern Egypt at Elephantine.

Beta Israel's says that a second major wave of Sabeans crossed over to Ethiopia in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE to escape Nebuchadnezzar II.

The Beta Israel who immigrated and made Aliyah through Operation Moses and Operation Solomon were not required to undergo conversion because they were accepted as Jews under the Law of Return.