Violence and Identity: Zegeye's Impossible Return

Muaz Gidey Alemu

Theory & Event, Volume 22, Number 1, January 2019, pp. 222-226 (Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/715054

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REVIEW FORUM
Violence and Identity: Zegeye’s Impossible Return

Muaz Gidey Alemu

Abebe Zegeye, The Impossible Return: Struggles of the Ethiopian Jews,

the Beta Israel. Trenton: The Red Sea Press, 2018, 272 pp., $34.95, ISBN
156902412X

A Brief Overview
The book is organized into seven chapters. Chapter one follows the “the quest
for Beta-Israel identity in Ethiopia”. It examines the origin of the identity of
the Beta-Israel from all possible accounts and debates the ancient roots of the
Beta-Israel based on oral history. However, due to the lack of written sources
before the 4th century, none of these accounts can provide conclusive and com-
pelling evidence to establish with absolute certainty when and how the Jewish
presence in Ethiopia began. The author, therefore, concludes that even though
the Beta-Israel cannot be considered as “a distinct, pure and authentic social
group untouched to the multidimensional dynamics in Africa and Ethiopia”,
their strong religious commitment and struggle to defend their faith supports
their claim for historical Jewishness in their own eyes. Thus, they deserve
acceptance in Israeli identity, despite being isolated from mainstream Judaism.
However, Zegeye’s wider theoretical understanding of Beta-Israel identity
concerns their constant struggle against isolation from the Christian rules of
Ethiopia, which in turn reinforced their peculiarity and perseverance against
all odds.
Chapter two continues the search for the identity of the Beta Israel by
examining the history of Judaism in Ethiopia. His thorough survey of the
interpenetration of Judaism and Ethiopian identity leads him to conclude that
there is no other country today as highly influenced by Judaism as Ethiopia.
Similarly, the identity of the Beta-Israel has undergone Ethiopianisation. Thus,
one may say, Ethiopia was Judaized as Judaism was Ethiopianized. This chapter
focused on reconstructing the Jewish identity of the Beta-Israel along with the
ancient history of Ethiopia. In doing so, the author has unearthed a grotesque
image of the extreme violence against the Beta-Israel that shaped the nature
of their identity. Zegeye concludes that the Beta Israel have a legitimate claim
to Jewishness owing to the endless persecution, violation and discrimination
they faced.
Chapter three, the shortest of all the chapters, presents a watershed point
in the history of the Beta-Israel: the relocation to Jerusalem, which involved
the dramatic smuggling out and airlifting of tens of thousands of Ethiopian
Jews from Ethiopia and Sudan. Four major operations were carried out from
1983 to 1991: Operation Brothers, Moses, Sheba and Solomon. The title of the
chapter, “Back to Jerusalem”, captures the age-old aspiration of the Beta-Israel
to return to their imagined old religious home, as was the case with the wider

Theory & Event Vol. 22, No. 1, 222–237 © 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press
 Review Forum 223

Jewish diaspora, an aspiration voiced in the prayer “We shall meet next year
in Jerusalem”. The author describes, the arrival of 14, 000 Ethiopian Jews at
Ben Gurion airport during the Operation Solomon as “a defining and mythical
moment” of union between Jewishness and Zionism despite multidimensional
differences. This was a euphoric moment among both Secular and religious
Jews. However, the cumulative effect of the three-failed exodus of the 19th cen-
tury and the immediate stress, disorders and suffering on the body and mind
of the Beta-Israel left an enduring legacy, a topic fully addressed in chapters
four and five.
Chapter four analyzes the legal, religious and socio-cultural challenges
faced by the Beta-Israel in the process of their absorption into Israeli society.
Like the tribulations the Beta-Israel endured through centuries in Ethiopia,
they faced in Israel a distressing situation of marginalization, discrimination
and dehumanization. In all aspects of their identity, they were denigrated as
backwards, inferior and unfit for the advanced Israeli way of life. Zegeye’s
account leaves the reader wondering how the Israeli state and society failed to
have empathy for the pain and suffering the Beta-Israel endured to maintain
their identity.
Chapter five addresses the Beta-Israel resistance to Israeli education. It
mainly focuses on their perseverance to preserve their identity from being
crushed and recreated in the Israeli mould, which resulted in their cultural
and social ghettoization. In all measurements of education, skill and employ-
ment they faced a system of segregation or Ketotkelot - a term designating and
justifying an Apartheid type of system of separate development.
Chapter six discusses the cumulative effect of this explicit and structural
discrimination, segregation and abuse, namely the social disintegration of the
Beta-Israel identity. It also describes the social degeneration of 26,000 Beta-Is-
raelis in Ethiopia under the effects of drought and famine. In response, Zegeye
recommends a relaxation of Israeli conception of Jewishness to fully integrate
the Ethiopian Jews into Israeli society and relocate those in Ethiopia.
The final chapter describes the critical dilemma facing the Beta-Israel, who
are caught between the devil and the blue sea. They cannot return to Ethiopia
and cannot make a meaningful existence in Israel; they are caught between
their longing for their old home and way of life in Ethiopia and their steadfast
adherence to their Jewishness, which is not recognized as such in Israel. Their
predicament is best expressed in a nostalgic song by the Beta-Israeli singer pre-
sented in the book as the last word of the author. As Zegeye argues the Israel
government needs to rethink its approach to help the Beta Israel become a pro-
ductive and contributing part of contemporary Israeli society rather than treat-
ing them as a backward and uncivilized vestige of an ancient Hebraic past.

The Impossible Return as a Chronicle of the History of Violence against the

Beta-Israel
What led this reviewer to think of the “impossible return” as a chronicle of
violence is that the frequently appearing leitmotiv in all chapters is violence in
all its forms. All seven chapters describe an immense degree of harm, persecu-
tion, war violence, discrimination, famine and destruction.
224 Theory & Event

In contemporary academic understanding, violence constitutes any form

of inhibition and limitation on the realization of human potentialities. Any sit-
uation that limits human realization and causes physical and somatic pain, suf-
fering and distress constitute a violation. So understood, violence goes beyond
the death, wounding, displacement, destruction and mayhem associated with
warfare. More broadly construed, violence includes being deprived of basic
human amenities, being discriminated against, segregation, the separation of
a society which wishes to live together, and the forced assimilation of those
aspiring to a separate way of life. The list continues with elements that affect
the emotional, spiritual, mental and physical well-being of society constituting
an indirect form of structural violence. Moreover, the value systems, ideas and
principles that justify war and structural violence, such as prejudice, stereo-
typing, dehumanization, racism, and related ideas of segregation and separate
development like ketotkelot, constitute a culture of violence. The latter is the
worst form of violence because it changes the moral colour of abuse and even
murder into an acceptable act of rescue and redemption. In sum, violence, as
used here, means any insult on basic human needs which diminish people’s
identity and the meaning they attach to it.
While applying such a capacious conception of violence to feudal Ethi-
opia may seem anachronistic, the marginalization and discrimination of the
Beta Israel both in contemporary Ethiopia and the State of Israel reflect a cul-
tural and structural violence inherited from the Pre-1974 history of Ethiopia
and the racism institutionalized in the state if Israel.
The history of the Beta-Israel in Ethiopia dating back at least in written
history to 4CE is dominated by a constant struggle and warfare against the
Christian rulers of Ethiopia. One basic theme running through the 400 years
of Beta-Israel persecution and resistance is extreme violence for no visible
economic, political and religious purpose. Cases in point include the many
massacres of the Beta-Israel under the leadership of Gushen and Gedeon II at
various periods by successive Solomonid emperors. In these periods, violence
against the Beta-Israel, and their mode of resistance and strategic control fol-
lowed a distinctive pattern. The military violence involved total uprooting of
the Jews from all means of production and repression, enslavement, and the
total destruction of Beta-Israel economic, religious and socio-cultural institu-
tions. The mode of resistance was mainly based on Amba fortifications, using
boulders catapulted from mountaintops and facing the military forces of the
Solomonid kings by a regular military and war formations.
According to Raphael Lemkin, from ancient Greek tragedies to modern
genocidal wars, the response of victims of violence to catastrophic experi-
ences reflects the nature and level of violence they went through. Accordingly,
the Beta-Israel mode of resistance in this context was resorting to the ritual
of group suicide. As though repeating what happened in the mountain cita-
del of Masada during the Jewish vs Roman wars, the Beta-Israel performed
group suicide rather than being captured by Christian kings. Historical and
conceptual parallels for this use of suicide as an escape from violence include
the ancient Greek tragedies of Euripides and the dramatic suicide of Emperor
Tewodros in Mekdela Amba. Like the Greek tragedies, the practice of suicide
as a form of resistance against oppression and marginalization is proof of
the historically accumulated violence in the communal archives of the Beta
 Review Forum 225

Israel. This also has a historical parallel in ancient Jewish struggle against the
Romans, as in the story of Masada. The Beta Israel have similar tragic stories of
mass suicide to escape enslavement. The association of Beta-Israel resistance to
extreme violence with the Ambas of Masada, Semien Mountain, and Mekidela
is a puzzle requiring further examination.
At the structural level, the Beta-Israel were demonized for their unique
blacksmith skills, which played a part in their alienation and marginaliza-
tion (giving them the derogatory name Falasha), and for their unique forms
of religious worship and rituals as falling between the animal and superhu-
man forces constituted structural violence. For instance, the Beta-Israel were
accused of employing Buda, in short, the evil power of changing a human
being into objects and animals. The religious and social values supporting the
discrimination, dehumanization and oppression of the Beta-Israel detailed
in the book constituted the worst form of cultural violence, in that it made
violence against them morally permissible. In this respect, it resembled the
European Anti-Semitism that was the basis for the extreme violence of the
Holocaust. Until the Ethiopian revolution, this major trend of violating the
Beta-Israel continued, contributing to the age-old desire of the Beta-Israel to
relocate to Israel.
The process of relocation to Israel involved yet more violence. The three-
failed exodus attempted during the 19th century culminated in the near-to-
tal destruction of the Beta-Israel, except for a few who settled in Tigray. The
20th-century relocation from the 1950s through the 1980s, and finally the mas-
sive airlifting operations discussed above were also characterized by traumatic
experiences. The first two periods required travelling through the unfriendly
territories of Sudan and Egypt to arrive in Israel, during which the Beta-Israel
Immigrants were exposed to massive death, starvation, detention and abuse.
In the 1980s alone, 4000 Beta-Israeli immigrants perished in the Sudan desert,
and during the four operations of the early 1990s, they were exposed to phys-
ical, mental and emotional trauma with lasting consequences, contributing to
the marginal integration of the Beta-Israel into Israeli society.
The post-relocation situation of the Beta-Israel in the Israeli state involved
both direct and structural violence. In the first instance, they were made to
serve in the military roles in the war against the Arabs. In the second instance,
they suffered a dehumanizing reintegration process involving various forms
of discrimination, marginalization, alienation and denigration as a “black
underclass”. They were further subjected to cultural violence in the form of
negative religious and secular attitudes.

The Beta-Israel as a Philosophical Problem?!

The steadfast adherence of the Beta Israel to their Ethiopian and Jewish
identity despite continued violation in both states makes the identity of the
Beta Israel a philosophical problem. In instrumentalist terms, adhering to an
identity irrespective of consequences defies, at least at face value, rationality.
Despite enduring continuous violence in all its possible forms since ancient
times to 20th century Ethiopia, and systematic violence in Israel, the Beta-Israel
steadfastly maintain their old Ethiopian roots and strive to be part of their new
home and a wider Jewish Identity. This leads this reviewer to raise a series
 226 Theory & Event

of questions requiring further research: How much violence and dehuman-

ization is strong enough to make the Beta-Israel lose their Ethiopian roots?
Why do they persevere to maintain it? What does it take to maintain Jewish-
ness without economic, educational and cultural resources? What sustains the
Beta-Israeli identity as an unconditional way of being in the world as a Jew,
despite such tribulations?
In light of their strong attachment with Ethiopian identity, I can put for-
ward a hypothesis. The strong bond can be considered as an indication of
the powerful meaning of the Ethiopian identity not examined beyond mystic
romanticism and political rhetoric. With further research, this proposition con-
cerning the sense of Ethiopian identity of the Beta-Israel can be tested.
On a more general and philosophical note, the Beta-Israeli perseverance
and capability to love and nourish their old roots, and their strong will to
become part of the Jewish World in their own way in the face of their expe-
rience of extreme violence attests to the indomitable spirit of a human being.
Hanna Arendt conceptualized the experience of extreme violence not explain-
able by meaningful purpose as banal. Some forms of the violence experienced
by the Beta-Israel are not comprehensible by any rational explanation. The
struggle of the Beta-Israel to remain human and even to rehumanize them-
selves by nourishing and maintaining to their old and new identities reaffirms
Arendt’s thesis that however banal and incomprehensible violence may be,
this does not demonstrate an inherent failing in the nature of human being so
much as human beings’ inherently resilient spirit.
With all its merits, The Impossible Return should have attempted to pro-
vide further answers to the questions raised above concerning the nature of
the recurrence of violence in Ethiopian history and society. Doing so would
also have a direct bearing on an understanding of contemporary violence in
Ethiopia and Israel. However, this does not undermine the overall worth of
Zegeye’s work. Therefore, I salute Prof. Abebe Zegeye for presenting us this
phenomenal odyssey of the Indomitable spirit of the Beta-Israel.

The Quest for Equality of the Beta-Israel: The Legal Perspective of

Zegeye’s Impossible Return

Mesfin Beyene Abrha

Abebe Zegeye, The Impossible Return: Struggles of the Ethiopian Jews,

the Beta Israel. Trenton: The Red Sea Press, 2018, 272 pp., $34.95, ISBN
156902412X

The Impossible Return is a multidisciplinary book comprehensively addressing

the history of the Beta-Israel, including, amongst other things, the cultural,

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