Beit Avraham
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Beit Avraham
Beta Abraham ( he, בֵּיתֶא אַבְרָהָם, Ge'ez: ''Bēta Abreham'', "House of Abraham")—other terms by which the community have been known include Tebiban ("possessor of secret knowledge"), Balla Ejj (Ge'ez: "Craftsmens"), Buda (Ge'ez: "evil eye") and Kayla (the Agaw language spoken by them),—is a community regarded by some as a crypto-Jewish offshoot of the Beta Israel community. The size of the community is estimated to be somewhere upwards of 150,000 in number. This community is concentrated mainly in the Northern Shewa Zone in the Amhara Region in Ethiopia. The earliest reference to the Jewish community in the historical region of Shewa comes from the 14th century missionary Zena Marqos. More Jews arrived in the region of Shewa from the regions of Fogera and Dembiya during the rule of Negasi Krestos and as a result a first wave of Jewish immigration began in the years 1692-1702. Negasi's grandson, the Meridazmach Abuye fought the forces of emperor Iyasu ...
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Jewish Languages
Jewish languages are the various Language, languages and Dialect, dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the Jewish diaspora, diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following the Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile. Jewish languages feature a syncretism of indigenous Hebrew and Judeo-Aramaic with the languages of the local non-Jewish population. Ancient history Early Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic (ENWS) materials are attested through the end of the Bronze Age—2350 to 1200 BCE. At this early state, Biblical Hebrew was not highly differentiated from the other Northwest Semitic languages (Ugaritic language, Ugaritic and Amarna letters, Amarna Canaanite), though noticeable differentiation did occur during the Iron Age (1200–540 BCE). Hebrew as a separate language developed during the latter half of the 2nd millennium BC, second millennium BCE between the Jordan River and the Med ...
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Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east and northeast, Kenya to the south, South Sudan to the west, and Sudan to the northwest. Ethiopia has a total area of . As of 2022, it is home to around 113.5 million inhabitants, making it the 13th-most populous country in the world and the 2nd-most populous in Africa after Nigeria. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometres west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African and Somali tectonic plates. Anatomically modern humans emerged from modern-day Ethiopia and set out to the Near East and elsewhere in the Middle Paleolithic period. Southwestern Ethiopia has been proposed as a possible homeland of the Afroasiatic langua ...
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Falash Mura
Falash Mura is the name given to descendants of the Beta Israel community in Ethiopia who converted to Christianity, primarily as a consequence of western proselytization during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This term also includes Beta Israel who did not adhere to any Ethiopian Jewish practices, as well as the aforementioned historical converts to Christianity. While most voluntarily converted, some were also forcibly converted against their will, or felt compelled to convert due to economic hardship and social exclusion in a majority Christian population. Many have made it to Israel but there are around 12,000 members of the Beta Israel communities in Addis Ababa and Gondar who are awaiting Aliyah, according to community records and lists compiled bSSEJ which are in the hands of Israel's Ministry of the Interior. The government of Israel claims that many of the Falash Mura converted back to Christianity once safely out of Africa, however activists claim that most Fal ...
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Buda (folklore)
Buda ( Ge’ez: ቡዳ) (or bouda), in Ethiopian and Eritrean folk religion, is the power of the evil eye and the ability to change into a hyena. Buda is generally believed by the wider society to be a power held and wielded by those in a different social group, for example among the Beta Israel or metalworkers.Wagaw, Teshome G. ''For Our Soul: Ethiopian Jews in Israel''. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1993. The belief is also present in Sudan, Tanzania, and among the Berber people in Morocco. Belief in the evil eye, or buda, is still widespread in Ethiopia.Turner, John W. "Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity: Faith and practices". A Country Study: Ethiopia'. Thomas P. Ofcansky and LaVerle Berry, eds. Washington: Library of Congress Federal Research Division, 1991. The Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews, are often characterized by others as possessing buda. Other castes such as ironworkers are often labeled as bearing the buda. In fact, the Amharic word for manual worker, ''tabi ...
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Jacques Faitlovitch
Jacques Faitlovitch (1881–1955), an Ashkenazi Jew born in Łódź, Congress Poland, studied Ethiopian languages at the Sorbonne under Joseph Halévy. He travelled to Ethiopia for the first time in 1904, with support from the French banker, Baron Edmond de Rothschild. He travelled and lived among the Ethiopian Jews, and became a champion of their cause. In 1923 he opened a Jewish school in Addis Ababa. A Zionist, he settled in Tel Aviv in the 1930s and had links with Yitzhak Ben Zvi and with the revisionist movement. Dr. Faitlovitch bequeathed his valuable library to the Tel Aviv Municipality, with the collection now located at the Sourasky Library of the Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate .... A film about Faitlovitch's life was planned by Six ...
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Begemder
Begemder ( amh, በጌምድር; also known as Gondar or Gonder, alternative name borrowed from its 20th century capital Gondar) was a province in northwest Ethiopia. Etymology A plausible source for the name ''Bega'' is that the word means "dry" in the local language, while another possible interpretation could be "sheep," where rearing of sheep is ''beg'' in Amharic. Thus, ''Begemder'' likely refers to "land that rears sheep" or "the dry area." Another etymology is that the first two syllables come from the Ge'ez language ''baggi`'' for sheep (Amharic: ''beg medir'') "Land of Sheep." Beckingham and Huntingford note that Begemder originally applied to the country east of Lake Tana, where water is scarce, and concluded, "The allusion to the lack of water suggests Amharic ''baga'', "dry season," as a possible source of the name." History The earliest recorded mention of Begemder was on the Fra Mauro map, (c.1460), where it is described as a kingdom. While Emperor Lebna Dengel ...
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Ankober
Ankober (), formerly known as Ankobar, is a town in central Ethiopia. Located in the North Shewa Zone of the Amhara Region, it's perched on the eastern escarpment of the Ethiopian Highlands at an elevation of about . It is to the east of Debre Birhan and about northeast of Addis Ababa. Ankober was formerly the capital of the Ethiopian kingdom of Shewa founded by Yekuno Amlak in the thirteenth century. Buildings that survive from the Shewa period include the Kidus Mikael Church, built by Sahle Selassie. According to Philip Briggs, all that survives of Menelik's palace, which he had built on the site of his father's palace, is "one long stone-and-mortar wall measuring some 1.5m high." Briggs comments that it is "difficult to say why this one wall should have survived virtually intact when the rest of the palace crumbled into virtual oblivion." Ankober is also known as where the endemic Ankober serin was first observed by ornithologists in 1979. History Ankober may have forme ...
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Iyasu II Of Ethiopia
Iyasu II ( Ge'ez: ኢያሱ; 21 October 1723 – 27 June 1755), throne name Alem Sagad ( Ge'ez: ዓለም ሰገድ), was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1730 to 1755, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was the son of Emperor Bakaffa and Empress Mentewab (also known by her baptismal name of Welete Giyorgis). The Empress Mentewab played a major role in Iyasu's reign, perhaps against her will. Shortly after he was proclaimed Emperor, a rival claimant assaulted the Royal Enclosure for eight days, only leaving the capital Gondar when an army of 30,000 from Gojjam appeared. Although the rebels failed to penetrate its walls, much of Gondar was left in ruins. Instead of taking the title of regent upon the succession of her underage son, Empress Mentewab had herself crowned as co-ruler, becoming the first woman to be crowned in this manner in Ethiopian history. Empress Mentewab wielded significant authority throughout the reign of her son, and well into the reign of her grandson as ...
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Qedami Qal
Kidane Kale (reigned c. 1718 - c. 1744; literal meaning: "Beginning, Word"), better known as Abuye, was a Meridazmach of Shewa, an important Amhara noble of Ethiopia. He was the son of Sebestyanos.Harold G. Marcus is less definite on this, calling him Sebestyanos' "brother or his son". Marcus, ''The Life and Times of Menelik II: Ethiopia 1844-1913'' (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1995), p. 8 Abir states that he ruled for 25 years, although noting that William Cornwallis Harris claims he ruled for 15 years, Coulbeaux for 25 (from 1725 to 1750), and Rochet d'Hericourt for 60. His wife was Woizero Tagunestiya, daughter of Mama Rufa'el, Governor of Mamameder. Abuye succeeded on the death of his father, and made his capital at Har Amba. Sebestyanos had died "by a curious accident", according to Levine. Abuye had been rebuilding some of the churches destroyed by Ahmad Gragn, one of which was in Doqaqit dedicated to St. Michael. Part of the ceremony required the tabot in the churc ...
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Negasi Krestos
Negasi Krestos was the ruling prince of Shewa (reigned c. 1682 — c. 1703), an important Amhara noble of Ethiopia. Although the official account is that his father Lesba Qal (lord of Agancha, in Menz) was a male-line great-grandson of Prince Yaqob, son of Emperor Lebna Dengel, and thus descended in male line from the Solomonic dynasty (this version, told by Serta Wold, a councilor of Sahle Selassie, has been criticized as a later fabrication of genealogy, in order to help the imperial designs of his heirs two centuries later), other versions are known of his ancestry. Abir records two other traditions collected in the 1840s: one is that his mother, Senebelt, was a woman of imperial descent and his father a rich landowner from Menz; another is that Senebelt was the daughter of one Ras Faris, "who with many other followers of Emperor Susenyos escaped into Menz." After fighting the Wollo and Yejju Oromo north of Menz, he subdued the Oromo living in the district of Yifat, which cam ...
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Dembiya
Dembiya (Amharic: ደምቢያ ''Dembīyā''; also transliterated Dembea, Dambya, Dembya, Dambiya, etc.) is a historic region of Ethiopia, intimately linked with Lake Tana. According to the account of Manuel de Almeida, Dembiya was "bounded on East by Begemder, on South by Gojjam, on West by Agaws of Achefer and Tangha. Lake Tsana, formerly called Dambaya, is in this region." Alexander Murray, in his preface to the third volume of Bruce's account, further describes it as "on the east it includes Foggora, Dara, and Alata; on the north-east Gondar, the metropolis, and the rich district beneath it; on the southwest, the district of Bed (the plain barren country) and, on the west, the lands around Waindaga and Dingleber."''Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile'', (1805 edition), vol. 3 p. 9 Dembiya was incorporated into the Begemder province (which previously only included lands to the east of Lake Tana) during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, and in 1996 became a woreda o ...
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Fogera
Fogera (Amharic: ፎገራ) is a woreda in Amhara Region, Ethiopia. Fogera is part of the Debub Gondar Zone. The district is bordered on the south by Dera, on the west by Lake Tana on the north by the Reb which separates it from Kemekem, on the northeast by Ebenat, and on the east by Farta. The administrative center for this woreda is Wereta City. Other cities in Fogera include Alem Ber city. Geography and climate The altitude of this woreda ranges from 1774 to 2415 meters above sea level. Rivers in Fogera include the Gumara and the Reb, both of which drain into Lake Tana. A survey of the land in Fogera shows that 44.2% is arable or cultivable and another 20% is irrigated, 22.9% is used for pasture, 1.8% has forest or shrubland, 3.7% is covered with water, and the remaining 7.4% is considered degraded or other. Some 490 square kilometers of land adjacent to Lake Tana is subject to regular and severe flooding. The woreda was heavily affected by the flash floods in Ethiopia t ...
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