To All The Ethiopian Jews Around The World…I Celebrate Your Existence

Recently a very scholarly Jewish friend of mine was surprised to hear from me that there are in existence a whole community of black Ethiopian Jews that live about a block down the street from him in Southern California.

He was resisting the fact that black Jews existed, but did not want to acknowledge that they existed at all, and lived close to him.

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=ethiopian+jews&iid=1811483″ src=”e/f/9/6/Remaining_Ethiopian_Jews_bc1e.jpg?adImageId=8238811&imageId=1811483″ width=”234″ height=”156″ /]My son is Jewish, and he is black, and it disturbs me to know that his white Jewish friends do not consider him, or his mother, who are both black, to be a full Jewish person.

If you consider the full history of the Jewish faith, and the fact that Israel is in Northern Africa,…it is hard for me to believe that there could be that much pervasive ignorance in this religion, as it is in the Christian religion.I say Northern Africa, because I still know a ‘continent’ to be a vast continuous land mass separated by an Ocean, and not the political trickery that has been promoted to us for so long…BY DEFINITION, THERE ARE REALLY ONLY 4 CONTINENTS-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent

Here is a quote from a website by black Jews…There is no firm estimate on how many American Jews are black, but several sociologists have placed the figure at about 50,000. As Rabbi Levy writes on his Web site, “We exist both within our own congregations and in predominately white congregations. Some of us have converted to Judaism, others are products of intermarriages, and yet others have been in this way of life for generations. The amount of diversity within our group is as varied as the colors in a rainbow.”

http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=26506

All things considered, it simply sounds like a racist agenda to me, when ANY religion can exclude the minority population from their ”full” status.

I am proud of my son and his mom being practicing Jews, and I look forward to a time when our Jewish friends stop asking them why they are wearing the star of David.[picapp align=”right” wrap=”true” link=”term=ethiopian+jews&iid=1430129″ src=”9/7/c/2/Remaining_Ethiopian_Jews_df16.jpg?adImageId=8238858&imageId=1430129″ width=”234″ height=”156″ /]

The answer is the same reason that they are wearing it,…and their reaction and motivation for their question has nothing to do with Judaism, but everything to do with racism,and ignorance.

I encourage all people to study the true history of your religion, so we can weed out any racial bias that may construct a pecking order based on race within all religions, or at least acknowledge that the religion is multi-cultural and diverse. Would it be that earth shattering to find out that black jews have existed for centuries, and to wonder why they have been shunned for so long by their own faith….

Why is that?…please enlighten me.

Happy Hannakuh to all who practice the Jewish faith, just like my own son.

Let me know what you think….

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=ethiopian+jews&iid=1430132″ src=”0/0/9/5/Remaining_Ethiopian_Jews_3bdd.jpg?adImageId=8238849&imageId=1430132″ width=”234″ height=”156″ /]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/ejhist.html

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=ethiopian+jews&iid=1534304″ src=”5/6/f/c/Olmert__Visits_0607.jpg?adImageId=8238944&imageId=1534304″ width=”380″ height=”253″ /]