Today I went with Shana Miles on a five hour exploration of Addis looking for communities of Jews living in the city. Shana had gotten some clues regarding places to explore. We hired a taxi for the day for 400 bir (about $24) and first sent out looking for a community near the Israeli embassy.
After several failed attempts we ended outside a locked gate. When it was opened for us, we were told we needed to get a permit from the Israeli embassy in order to enter.
We got back in the cab and drove to the heavily fortified embassy. We were first met by a guard with a sub-machine gun who then summoned another security person who checked our identification. After many questions about our intentions we were advised to return Monday morning when the embassy opened.
Next we went in search of another community, Bet Abraham. Again, we had many false starts and finally ended up outside another gate.
This time we were greeted by a very friendly Ethiopian woman who welcomed us in and soon was speaking Hebrew with Shana.
We were told this was a messianic Jewish community. A service was underway and we were ushered to the front row where we quickly realized we had found our selves in an evangelical service. There were two menorahs on the pulpit and the two preachers were auctioning a framed drawing of the city of Jerusalem.
We slipped out of the service and took time to look at the Judaica crafts in the courtyard.
We asked our hosts if they knew of any non messianic Jewish communities. They clearly wanted us to identify them as practicing Jews. They seemed comfortable combining Judaism with Christianity but realized we were searching for something different. Two of them got in our cab and took us to an area of Addis know as Kedene.
We finally connected with two members of the local Jewish community. They took us to their synagogue. We had finally found what we were looking for.
We sat and talked with Belayneh and Abebe. They told us of the persecution their families had experienced and how until very recently, it was necessary for them to practice their religion in secret. They said the airlifts which took Jews to Israel more than nine years ago had focused on the communities near Gondor and had ignored the communities near Addis. They had conducted what sounded like an elaborate census and had identified 30,000 Jews in Addis and another 20,000 north of the city. They were anxious to connect with Jewish communities outside of Ethiopia.
We were each given a copy of their siddur or prayer book which they had translated into Amharic. We exchanged email addresses and told them we would try to stay in contact. We reluctantly said good bye.
After several failed attempts we ended outside a locked gate. When it was opened for us, we were told we needed to get a permit from the Israeli embassy in order to enter.
We got back in the cab and drove to the heavily fortified embassy. We were first met by a guard with a sub-machine gun who then summoned another security person who checked our identification. After many questions about our intentions we were advised to return Monday morning when the embassy opened.
Next we went in search of another community, Bet Abraham. Again, we had many false starts and finally ended up outside another gate.
We were told this was a messianic Jewish community. A service was underway and we were ushered to the front row where we quickly realized we had found our selves in an evangelical service. There were two menorahs on the pulpit and the two preachers were auctioning a framed drawing of the city of Jerusalem.
We slipped out of the service and took time to look at the Judaica crafts in the courtyard.
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| There were CD's of some of the ministers sermons |
We asked our hosts if they knew of any non messianic Jewish communities. They clearly wanted us to identify them as practicing Jews. They seemed comfortable combining Judaism with Christianity but realized we were searching for something different. Two of them got in our cab and took us to an area of Addis know as Kedene.
We finally connected with two members of the local Jewish community. They took us to their synagogue. We had finally found what we were looking for.
We sat and talked with Belayneh and Abebe. They told us of the persecution their families had experienced and how until very recently, it was necessary for them to practice their religion in secret. They said the airlifts which took Jews to Israel more than nine years ago had focused on the communities near Gondor and had ignored the communities near Addis. They had conducted what sounded like an elaborate census and had identified 30,000 Jews in Addis and another 20,000 north of the city. They were anxious to connect with Jewish communities outside of Ethiopia.
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| Belayneh introduced us to the oldest member of his community |
We were each given a copy of their siddur or prayer book which they had translated into Amharic. We exchanged email addresses and told them we would try to stay in contact. We reluctantly said good bye.
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