Israel Seeks to End Ancient African Jewish Custom

AP via Biloxi-Gulfport Sun Herald ^ | 1/18/12 | Daniel Estrin

[marshmallow]

ASHKELON, Israel -- Israel is closing the books on a rare millennia-old Jewish tradition.

Nearly three decades after Israel began airlifting Ethiopia's ancient Jewish community out of the Horn of Africa, Israel's rabbis are now working to phase out the community's white-turbaned clergy, the kessoch, whose unusual religious practices are at odds with the rabbinate's Orthodox Judaism.

The effort has added to the sense of discrimination felt by Israel's 120,000 Ethiopian citizens. These sentiments boiled over this month after a group of landlords in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi refused to accept Ethiopians as tenants.The move has prompted large protests, including a gathering outside parliament on Wednesday that drew more than 1,000 young immigrants and other supporters.

Kess Semai Elias, 42, said the recent reports of discrimination add to his and other Ethiopian Jewish spiritual leaders' dismay and feelings that they are not welcome.

"We are just like all the other Jews. We don't have any other religion," he said.

Descendants of the lost Israelite tribe of Dan, according to Jewish lore, Ethiopian Jews spent millennia isolated from the rest of the Jewish world. In most Jewish communities, the priesthood of the Bible was replaced by rabbis who emphasized text study and prayer. Ethiopia's Jewish kessoch continued the traditions of Biblical-era priests, sacrificing animals and collecting the first fruits of the harvest.

The two traditions diverged so much that the first trickle of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to Israel were asked to undergo a quickened conversion ceremony to appease rabbis who were dubious about their religious pedigree.

When Israeli clandestine operations rescued large groups of Ethiopian Jews from war and famine in the 1980s and early 1990s, a rabbinic consensus was reached and the newcomers did not have to convert - except for a group known as the Falash Mura.........

[POWERSBOOTHEFAN]

Anyone can convert to Judaism. I did 9 years ago.