Code by Fab
The Falashas of Ethiopia He will keep.
"...Some Jewish legal authorities have asserted that the Bete Israel are the descendants of the tribe of Dan, one of the Ten Lost Tribes. This is supported by the medieval traveller Eldad ha-Dani. In their view, these people established a Jewish kingdom that lasted for hundreds of years. With the rise of Christianity and later Islam, schisms arose and three kingdoms competed. Eventually, the Christian and Muslim Ethiopian kingdoms reduced the Jewish kingdom to a small impoverished section. The earliest authority to rule this way was the Radbaz (Rabbi David ben Zimra, 1479 - 1573). Radbaz explains in a responsum concerning the status of a Bete Israel slave:
- But those Jews who come from the land of Cush are without doubt from the tribe of Dan, and since they did not have in their midst sages who were masters of the tradition, they clung to the simple meaning of the Scriptures. If they had been taught, however, they would not be irreverent towards the words of our sages, so their status is comparable to a Jewish infant taken captive by non-Jews - and even if you say that the matter is in doubt, it is a commandment to redeem them..."
It was fulfilled in 1984 and 1991 it seems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Moses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Solomon
For a more general article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel
