What has Jerusalem to do with Islam?

To Pray In Jerusalem
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197404/to.pray.in.jerusalem.htm
July/August 1974

Earlier this year King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, a devout Muslim, protector of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, and the leading proponent of Islamic unity, made a significant remark that was widely quoted in the world press. “My greatest wish before I die,” said the 70-year-old King, “is to pray in Jerusalem.”

Muslims everywhere immediately understood and sympathized with King Faisal’s wish, but to Westerners unfamiliar with the Middle East the King’s statement came as something of a surprise. Undoubtedly, many persons today know that Muslims consider Mecca and Medina, both in Saudi Arabia, as Holy Cities and that the Ka’bah, in Mecca’s Sacred Mosque, is the point toward which, five times each day, the world’s 600 million Muslims face in prayer. But Jerusalem? From both the Bible’s Old and New Testaments Westerners know Jerusalem’s deep associations with Judaism and Christianity. But what has Jerusalem to do with Islam?

The answer is: a great deal. Jerusalem is as holy a city to Muslims—and for many of the same reasons—as it is to Jews and Christians, and it also figures importantly in religious traditions particular to Islam. There are also for Muslims some 1,300 years of historical ties.

The historical ties are not completely unknown in the West. Even those with a limited exposure to Middle East history probably know that in the year 637—13 centuries ago—crusading Muslims from Arabia besieged Jerusalem, accepted the surrender of its Byzantine overlords and ruled there almost continually until the Christian Crusaders from Europe came in 1099. They probably recall too that less than a century later Saladin, the gallant Muslim leader famous for his encounters with Richard the Lion Hearted, recaptured Jerusalem from the Europeans and that the subsequent Arab dynasties and later the Ottoman Turks, who controlled the Holy City up to World War I, were Muslim.

What has escaped the casual reader, however, is that Islam’s religious ties with the Holy City are equally long and much deeper. How many Western pundits now puzzling over King Faisal’s statement realize that the large rock atop Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, where tradition says Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son, is also holy to Muslims because they believe it is the place from which Muhammad began his ascent to Heaven? Or that Arabs too believe they are descended from Abraham, prophet and father of the Jews, that they too revere him as a prophet and that he is mentioned in the Holy Koran as being a Muslim? And how many realize that John the Baptist and Jesus are also both accepted and revered by Muslims as prophets?

This lack of understanding, widespread and of long duration, is due in part to the historic hostility of Western nations toward Islam, a hostility probably originally engendered by Islam’s attempts in distant centuries to conquer Europe. As one result, Western religious history rarely mentions that Muslims, Christians and Jews share many nearly identical beliefs—such as the oneness of God, the need for total submission to His will and the clash of good and evil—and that in Islam, the last of the three great monotheistic religions, many of the individuals, events and places sacred to Jews and Christians are equally sacred to Muslims.

The Prophet Muhammad, to whom God revealed His truths, grew up in Mecca, then a center of pagan idolatry although both Judaism and Christianity, being Semitic religions, were known in Arabia. Muhammad was a ready instrument when God, in the year 610, spoke to him through the Archangel Gabriel—himself familiar to many Christians—and entrusted to Muhammad His final revelations, a confirmation of the Abrahamic line of revelations, the message of Islam.

This aspect of Muslim belief is crucial to any understanding of a Muslim presence in Jerusalem. For Muhammad, from the beginning, emphasized that he was only the last in a long line of prophets through whom God has spoken to mankind, and that he was only completing and fulfilling God’s often-revealed message. Thus he taught reverence for the prophets of the Old and New Testaments and respect for Jews and Christians as fellow monotheists and “People of the Book.” In the Holy Koran, which is God’s word as He revealed it to Muhammad, Biblical figures such as Adam, Noah, David and Solomon, and prophets such as Elijah, Moses, John the Baptist and Jesus, with his mother Mary, all have their place. To put it another way, their ties to Jerusalem are also Islam’s ties.

Above all, Muhammad stressed reverence toward Abraham, father of the Jews and Arabs.

According to Muslim belief, Arabs are descendants of Abraham through his son Ishmael, as Jews are descendants of Abraham through Isaac. Indeed, Abraham, according to the Koran, was a Muslim himself. When, on God’s command, Abraham took his son to a rocky summit and prepared unflinchingly to sacrifice him to the one God, it could be considered, as the first example of complete submission to God’s will—the essence of Muslim belief—a starting point of Islam. As Sura 16, verse 120 of the Koran says, “Abraham was indeed a model, devoutly obedient to God, true in faith, and he joined not gods with God.”

Later, as God continued to reveal the message of Islam to Muhammad, the ties to Jerusalem became more direct. One night God, through the Archangel Gabriel, summoned Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem on a Nocturnal Journey (Isra’). According to Muslim belief, Muhammad was carried aloft on the back of a winged mare named al-Buraq to Mount Moriah and the Holy Rock. From its summit he ascended (Mi’raj) through the stages of Heaven, meeting and praying with the previous prophets including Abraham, Moses and Jesus. In the Seventh Heaven Muhammad appeared before the throne of God, Who spoke to him. The Prophet then returned to the Holy Rock and, mounting al-Buraq, was back in Mecca by dawn.

As the embarkation point for this journey to God, Jerusalem thus became even more established as a Holy City. As Sura 17, verse 1 of the Koran says, “Glory be to Him, who carried His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque (Mecca) to the Farthest Mosque (Jerusalem), the precincts of which We have blessed, that We might show him some of Our signs …” Indeed, for a short time early in their history Muslims prayed toward Jerusalem, and it is called in Arabic Ula al-Qihlatain, ”First of the two Qiblas,” —”directions”—the second being Mecca. It is also called al-Quds ash-Sharif, ”the Holy and Noble City,” or simply, al-Quds, ”the Holy.” In addition to the Koranic blessing, there is a Hadith, or saying attributed to the Prophet, that Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are equally deserving of pilgrimage.

For all those reasons, it was inevitable that the Muslims would want to implement their spiritual rights to Jerusalem. In 637 they did. By that time, the empires of Persia and Byzantium, successor to Rome, were deadlocked after years of exhausting struggle to control what is now the Middle East. And although Muhammad had died, the faith of his followers was such that they had routed the Byzantine forces from every major city between the Tigris and the Mediterranean except Jerusalem. Now, in 637, they approached the city, pitched their tents on the Mount of Olives and prepared to take it.

Inside the walls of Jerusalem, then called by its Roman name, Aelia Capitolina, the Byzantines, nearly defenseless, debated whether to surrender or fight—as they had 20 years before when the Persians were at the gates, resulting in ruthless and indiscriminate slaughter. Those arguing for surrender pointed out that when Damascus fell to the Muslim armies two years before, there had been no slaughter. Furthermore the terms of surrender had been extremely lenient, with Christians being allowed to continue praying in their churches upon the payment of a poll tax which guaranteed for them as well as Muslim citizens, the “Security of Islam.”

As news of this had leaked into besieged Jerusalem, the Greek Patriarch, Sophronius, sent word out that he would surrender the city without a struggle, but only to the Caliph Omar personally. Omar, then in Damascus, agreed and in one of the great scenes of Muslim history entered Jerusalem alone, except for a servant. Because his clothes were torn and dusty from the ride from Damascus, and because his manner to his servant was so courteous, the Byzantines, arrayed in pompous splendor to meet him, assumed the servant was Omar and greeted him effusively—to the quiet amusement of the Caliph. Thus did Islam come to Jerusalem.

Omar’s behavior on that occasion was symbolic of his later approach to the Christians and to Jerusalem. Once his identity was clarified, Omar asked Sophronius to show him the city’s holy places, and Sophronius led him first to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. As it was prayer time the Patriarch invited the Caliph to pray there with him. Omar declined, saying that to do so might later encourage his followers to convert the church into a mosque. Instead he prayed outside a little to the south, a place commemorated today by a 10th-century mosque called the Mosque of Omar and built in a small garden across the courtyard from the entrance of the Holy Sepulchre. (Aramco World, March-April, 1965).

As the Caliph Omar was especially eager to see the site of the Prophet’s ascendance to Heaven, the Patriarch led him to an ancient, crumbling platform on the eastern edge of the city. Seeing that it was piled with the debris of the Persian destruction and more recent accumulations of municipal refuge, Omar personally began the task of clearing the rocky summit so that the site could be reconsecrated. This area today is in the center of a 34-acre compound in the southeast corner of the Old City called al-Haram ash-Sharif, ”the Noble Sanctuary.” The whole area in Omar’s time was known as al-Aqsa, ”the Furthermost,” a reference to Muhammad’s ultimate journey. The Caliph ordered that a simple wooden mosque be built on the southwestern corner of the platform near the great wall where, tradition held, the Prophet had tethered his mare al-Buraq.

Traveling with the Muslim army was a man named Bilal, who had been the Prophet’s own muezzin, or prayer caller. On the first Friday after the discovery of the sacred rock, Omar went to the enclosure to worship and there Bilal himself, for the first time since Muhammad’s death six years previously, called the faithful to prayer. Al-Quds, Holy Jerusalem, was in Muslim hands.

Omar’s covenant with the Byzantines of Jerusalem followed the pattern of Damascus. With the payment of the poll tax and the acceptance of the “Security of Islam,” Christians were given self-government under their ecclesiastical leaders and Christian pilgrimages from the West were permitted. This is part of the text of Omar’s treaty:

“In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. This is the covenant which Omar Ibn al-Khattab, the servant of Allah, the Commander of the Faithful, grants to the people of Aelia, the Holy House. He grants them security of their lives, their possessions, their churches and crosses . . . they shall have freedom of religion and none shall be molested unless they rise up in a body. . . They shall pay a tax instead of military service . . . and those who leave the city shall be safeguarded until they reach their destination. . .”

As John Gray, an English historian, puts it, Omar’s decree was “less of a treaty imposed by a conqueror than a guarantee by a victorious faith confident in its inherent strength and conscious of its responsibilities.”

In the years that followed, Omar’s successors set to work on what is possibly Islam’s most beautiful shrine: the Dome of the Rock, so called because it encloses the rock from which Muhammad ascended. Built during the reign of the Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, it was finished in 691, and is one of Islam’s oldest existing monuments. Despite extensive modifications and repairs throughout the centuries it is today essentially the same: a magnificent structure with a great golden dome that, until the present government began to build high-rise apartment houses on surrounding hilltops, dominated the city’s skyline.

Close by the Dome of the Rock is the also famous Aqsa Mosque. Built near the site of Omar’s wooden mosque in 715, al-Aqsa has a special place in Muslim affections, because by unspoken tradition it is more a house of prayer than a monument. Five thousand worshipers can pray inside. Remarkably, these two edifices, the main symbols of the Muslim presence in Jerusalem, have survived all the difficult centuries that followed.

The pattern of religious tolerance established in Jerusalem by Omar and maintained by the Umayyad caliphs became uncertain under their Abbasid successors, deteriorated further under the Fatimids and vanished in 1099, when the Crusaders captured the Holy City (Aramco World, May-June, 1970). Not only did the European conquerors massacre all but a handful of Jerusalem’s Muslim defenders, but also burned the small Jewish community in its synagogue and slaughtered great numbers of Arab and Orthodox Christians. The Crusaders also converted the Muslim shrines to churches. A gold cross was raised on top of the Dome of the Rock, which the Crusaders then named the Templum Domini. Another was placed on the dome of al-Aqsa Mosque, which was named the Templum Solomonis and became the headquarters of the militant religious order, the Knights Templar.

But if defeated, the Muslims were not conquered. In 1187 under the great Saladin, they decisively defeated the Crusaders at Hattin near Galilee and, on October 2, the anniversary of the Prophet’s Nocturnal Journey, rode back into Jerusalem. Then, fulfilling the vow of his predecessor Nur ad-Din, who had dedicated a magnificent cedarwood minbar, or pulpit, made in Aleppo to the capture of the city, Saladin installed the pulpit in al-Aqsa Mosque. Though isolated coastal outposts remained in Christian control up to 1291, al-Quds, the Holy, was again part of the Muslim empire.

Under Saladin, whose chivalry was a legend even among his enemies, the tolerance of Omar was restored. His merciful occupation of the city was in glaring contrast to the policies of the Crusader conquest. He spared all lives, offered the “Security of Islam” to those who sought it and, although removing the crosses and altars from the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa, left all other Christian shrines intact.

During the Ayyubid dynasty, which came next, it became traditional that at times the various sultans would clean al-Aqsa with their own hands before dispensing alms. The sultans of the Mameluke dynasty, which came to power in the 13th century, assumed the title “Servants and Guardians” of the holy places in Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. They were notable not only for the substantial restorations and redecorations they carried out in both of Jerusalem’s two major shrines, but also for the steps they took to provide for their future. The Mamelukes purchased substantial properties in Jerusalem, especially in the Magharibah quarter just west of the Noble Sanctuary, and through the establishment ofwaqfs, or perpetual sacred trusts (Aramco World, Nov.-Dec, 1973), dedicated their income to finance the upkeep of the holy places and establish, maintain and operate Muslim schools, religious institutes, pilgrim hospices and kitchens for the poor. Those institutions, plus the homes and neighborhood mosques of the devout who settled close to the two great mosques, made up an intimate, if humble, part of the Muslim presence for five centuries.

Today this presence, if weakened, is still obvious, particularly in al-Haram ash-Sharif, ”the Noble Sanctuary.” On or near this site, to be sure, there occurred some of the great events of Biblical history. It was here that tradition says King Solomon built the Temple. It was here, Christians believe, that the boy Jesus was found by Mary and Joseph preaching to the elders and that he later chased the money changers from the Temple. But it should be remembered that it is a central site for Muslims too, being the holy spot from which Muhammad ascended to Heaven to pray with former prophets and appear before the throne of God.

Within the Dome of the Rock, in a small cave beneath the rocky summit of Mount Moriah are Muslim shrines to Abraham and Elijah. Here, tradition says, is the site of the Last Judgment. Beneath it is the Well of Souls, where spirits await the Day of Judgment in prayer and apprehension. And scattered about the Sanctuary are other shrines which, with quiet eloquence, remind Western visitors of how many more of their own traditions are shared by Muslims: the Dome of Moses, the Dome of Solomon, the Dome of Gabriel—all built by Muslim caliphs through the centuries. In the far corner is a small dome to mark the spot where, Muslim tradition says, Mary and the infant Jesus rested before starting down to Egypt. Across the valley on the Mount of Olives, a small mosque commemorates the site ofhis ascension to Heaven. Around the edge of the platform are a series of graceful arches, the mawazeen, from which, according to tradition, the balance scales will be hung on the Day of Judgment. Toward the south is the silver dome of al-Aqsa, “the Furthermost,” the blessed mosque, now being patiently restored after it was severely damaged by arson in 1969, in which every devout Muslim hopes to pray.

And in the center, towering above all, is the Dome of the Rock, Islam’s holy shrine built on a rocky mountain top above which Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad worshiped together and where, before he dies, an aging King hopes some day to pray.

William Tracy is Assistant Editor of Aramco World.

This article appeared on pages 24-31 of the July/August 1974 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.

NGO works to empower Ethiopian Israeli community

 

By FRANCES KRAFT, Staff Reporter Thursday, 23 April 2009 http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16720&Itemid=86 Yuvi Tashome   TORONTO — Yuvi Tashome can’t say with absolute certainty that the organization she co-founded to help the Ethiopian community is solely responsible, but she has been told that four years ago Magen David Adom used to receive two calls a day to send ambulances to Gedera because of violence, including stabbings – and today that number is down to zero.  “We were amazed,” Tashome told The CJN in a Passover interview, when she was here at the invitation of the New Israel Fund of Canada (NIFC), which funds her organization, to speak to 125 people at a “liberation seder” at Beth Tzedec Congregation (co-sponsored by NIFC) about her journey to Israel and the work she does today. The 32-year-old director of Friends by Nature – a non-governmental organization she started with eight people – left Ethiopia at age 6 and immigrated to Israel with her family as part of Operation Moses after walking through the Sudanese desert. Friends by Nature is committed to long-term work that empowers Ethiopian youth at risk and their families in Gedera, which has an Ethiopian Jewish population of 1,700. “We wanted to do deep work with the Ethiopian community,” said Tashome, who has a degree in education and Israeli studies from Ashkelon College, a satellite of Bar-Ilan University. “We knew something was wrong with the way the [existing] programs were helping them. We thought that one of the problems was that everything is a project for one, two or three years, and then it’s over.” As well, she added, programs she was familiar with had originated outside the Ethiopian community and had no Ethiopians in managerial positions. Before co-founding the new group four years ago, Tashome ran a program that facilitated hikes for young people from grades 7 through 12, and opened dialogue about Ethiopia and Israel. “It was good, but not good enough,” she said. Among the issues facing the Ethiopian Israeli community are poor school attendance, drug and alcohol abuse, and run-ins with police among youth, who make up more than half the Ethiopian population in Gedera. Tashome believes a major problem is that many Ethiopian Israeli young people “haven’t found themselves” as Ethiopians or Israelis. “They don’t belong anywhere.” Those born in Israel “don’t know anything about their parents being powerful. They only know the weakness of their parents.” Tashome’s story is different. Her mother, who was widowed in Ethiopia and remarried another Ethiopian in Israel, “did a lot of things that were the exception,” Tashome said. She ran an NGO for children in Ashkelon, told Ethiopian stories to kindergarten students as a volunteer, and is now studying for a degree. As a child growing up in Ashkelon and other cities, Tashome did her homework at programs that were run for Ethiopian youth. “Nothing really happened in the house, and the message of that was that your family is not good enough,” she said. But when youngsters feel comfortable bringing their friends home, it keeps them off the streets, she explained. One of the programs she runs now is called Homework at Home. “It’s a funny name, because homework is supposed to be at home,” Tashome said. “Other programs take them out of the house.” Ethiopian youngsters may find it difficult to do homework at home because of the number of siblings in the house, lack of quiet, and lack of a computer and proper table, Tashome said. As part of the program, teachers visit the home on a weekly basis to work with small groups of children. “After a while you see the mother and father have their motivation. They turn off the TV, take the [younger] kids to another room.” Some families, after time in the program, have decided to buy computers or change the lighting to make it more conducive to doing homework. Friends by Nature has also run hiking programs for young people and their parents. “During the trip, [young people] see that the parents know so much about things that grow in Israel and what you can do with them. It’s the first time they know that their parents know something that is relevant to Israeli life.” Often it is a springboard for further parent-child discussion, she explained. As well, Friends by Nature has a volunteer program for young adults who have finished their army service. Participants identify needs in the community, plan and implement solutions, and are also taken to tour Israeli universities with an eye to their own future plans. They become role models for younger Ethiopians, Tashome said. “It’s about empowerment.” The changes Tashome’s group is working toward seem to help Ethiopian youth integrate better into the larger Israeli society, she notes. “We noticed that if you know more about your Ethiopian culture, Ethiopian masoret [tradition], and have experience of your parents with knowledge and power, then… that gives the kids self-confidence to have friends who are not Ethiopian.” For Tashome – whose husband, a seventh-generation Israeli, is also a co-founder of Friends by Nature – her work has become even more personally motivated in the last few years. As the mother of a three-year-old, who is expecting her second child in September, Tashome said, “What we’re trying to do is to live in the neighbourhood for a lifetime, raising our kids there. The motivation is very personal. It’s for my kids, so I’m working hard.”

Lalibela Rock-Hewn Churches

Great mini-documentary on the history and significance of Lalibela

While churches sought to rise to the sky in Europe, in Africa they were being carved out of the earth. In the highlands of Ethiopia during twelfth century, a man called Lalibela rose to power, was crowned King, and went on to establish a Christian empire spanning the highlands and stretching to the sea. His ambition was to build a religious state and a spiritual center to rival Jerusalem. He claimed to have been shown – in a vision – the most holy of churches in Heaven. He ordered tools be made to carve temples out of the rock like those he had seen.

Craftsmen toiled in the stony mountains for over twenty-four years to create these unique rock churches. Some of Lalibela’s motivation to build these unusual structures stemmed from a desire to claim legitimacy. He belonged to a dynasty that had seized the throne and the churches helped him gain acceptance. His efforts paid off: today he is revered as a saint and his shrine attracts a continuous flow of pilgrims. While all religions at one time or another have constructed shrines and physical symbols to serve an ideological purpose, striking awe into to the layman and establishing the clergy’s direct connection to the power of God, Lalibela clearly lacked legitimacy and used these temples to insure his leadership.
http://cgi.turnerlearning.com/cnn/millennium/ep2/ep2_sg3.html

 

‘It’s not easy being an Ethiopian Jew in America’

Haaretz correspondent Natasha Mozgovaya speaks to Ethiopians about maintaining identity in New York.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1077094.html

When Avishai Mekonen, 35, an Israeli photographer who has lived for the past seven years in New York City, lectured before American high-school students in Savannah, GA, one of them asked him to roll up his sleeve. 

“Where is the number?” the student asked. Mekonen didn’t get it at first. 

“I thought Jews are Holocausts survivors. Aren’t you a Holocaust survivor?” explained the teenager. With experiences of this kind, admits Mekonen, it’s not always easy to be the Ethiopian Jew in America. As if it is anywhere else. 

In his new exhibition, “Seven Generations”, he wishes to return to his community the pride of its authentic tradition. Then irony in his quest for shards of his traditional identity is that his work is being displayed in New York, and not in Israel.

It is customary for Ethiopians, before getting married, to have the community elders account for seven generations of each family, in order to ensure that no accidental cases of incest can occur. This tradition also became one of the foundations of the elders’ authority. One who is able to count seven generations back would receive the respect of the community. Those who can count 14 generations are perceived as geniuses. 

“Once an Israeli cab driver who took me to an Ethiopian funeral cursed and said: ‘Those Ethiopians! Only one died, yet hundreds are coming!’” recalls Mekonen. “But in our tradition, you must invite all your extended relatives, 7 generations back, both to the weddings and to funerals. It’s like one big family.”

Some of the youngsters he interviewed for the film accompanying the exhibition have no idea what all of this means, or they don’t really care. When Mekonen married his wife Shari, a Jewish American filmmaker, he didn’t really need the elders’ services to count generations of his bride’s family. His parents, who flew all the way from Israel to the U.S. for the wedding, were quite shocked to see the small number of guests. “This is the whole family?” his mother asked, a bit disappointed.

We eat hummus in a small Manhattan restaurant as Mekonen tells me that many years ago he had this idea to make a documentary about the painful generation gap of the Ethiopian community, but dawdled, and his move to the U.S. to join his wife further complicated the matter. 

“But one day it struck me, when I met a young Ethiopian in Israel who is able to count generations. This tradition will just disappear, and nothing will be left of it.” 

He says that Israeli bureaucrats unknowingly contributed to the destruction of the custom: when Mekonen made Aliya to Israel in 1984, instead of taking on his father’s family name, according to tradition, he was instead registered under his great-grandfather’s name, along with the rest of his family. Born Agegnehu (“gift” in Amharic), he became Avraham upon his arrival. Later, he changed his name to Avishai, to return some semblance of his original name. 

“But I’m still Mekonen, and the elders get confused when they try to count generations – it doesn’t seem logical to them, this jump from my great-grandfather to me. Mekonen is supposed to belong to another generation.”

The entire family in Israel was recruited to work on the project. His father made phone calls to community elders, arranging meetings; his mother baked injera, the traditional bread, to honor the hosts; the younger brother was appointed to contact Israeli-Ethiopian hip-hop bands and rebellious teenage girls with tattoos.

“The parents’ generation understood the importance of this project, dressed nicely and fully cooperated. The youngsters neglected it until I talked to them, when they admitted that because of their detachment from tradition they have had serious identity problems. They said they feel “empty and humiliated” when some policeman tells them: “You are Ethiopian, you understand nothing.” 

The tears within the Ethiopian community seem so distant from the noisy lobby at the Jewish Community Center building in Manhattan, where his exhibition is presented. In the afternoon, African-American nannies bring children for activities at the Center. 30-year old Jolly is taking care of two active Jewish toddlers, and she seems quite surprised when she sees the pictures: “I never thought there were black Jews!” 

Some of the Ethiopians sought comfort in Harlem, so they wouldn’t be forced to deal with the perceptions that “Jews are white”. But Mekonen says “it’s complicated”. In his documentary-in-progress, “400 Miles to freedom”, he explores his personal story and identity, and through this exploration he meets a variety of diverse Jews both in Israel and in America, including Rabbi Capers Funnye, a leader of the African American Jewish community and second cousin of First Lady Michelle Obama, who shares his own historical roots and path to Judaism. He says that although Ethiopians, unlike African-Americans, weren’t enslaved and detached from their history, he feels that the conversations with the community present a strong opportunity to learn about the history of slavery in the U.S.

“There are obvious advantages to being part of a big and influential community,” he admits. “The first time I saw a giant poster featuring a black model, I was stunned and excited that here people actually think that black sells. I wanted it to happen in Israel too. Then in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina where the blacks were neglected, I said, ‘thank God I’m Israeli.’ But when Obama won the election and all our neighbors ran down the street yelling and dancing and singing – I shouted something in Hebrew as well, something like: ‘The good guys won!’ It was perhaps the first time that I felt I belong to this fest, and I said I’m so grateful to be here to witness this historical moment.” 

Like almost every Israeli living in New York and hoping “to return one day”, Mekonen dreams of going back to Israel and buying a house in Rosh Pina. He recalls with nostalgia his service in the Israel Defense Forces’ combat engineering unit, the day he was wounded in Hebron by a Molotov cocktail and his time in Lebanon. 

“I was a Zionist,” he says. “After I finished my studies I made some documentaries, and one of the films was screened on Channel 1. Even so, I hated headlines like ‘The first Ethiopian filmmaker’ – it made me feel as though they don’t expect anything more from me – you’ve already done your duty, you’re free to go. But I felt that my career had just begun.” 

“And then I suddenly found myself organizing the shelves of an N.Y. supermarket, and I didn’t even have a name – I was a ‘garbage boy’. I didn’t come ‘to conquer America’. Frankly, I was horrified at the thought of a second immigration, after we walked from Ethiopia to Sudan. 

“I had all kinds of weird phobias, like that being a black Jew might even get me killed over here. Every day I cursed the American food – it seemed so tasteless. For two months, I ate only hot dogs – it was the only thing I could name in English. When I was working at the moving company, like so many other Israelis, one sofa slipped out of my hands and rolled down the stairs, so I had to quit. 

“I thought I would have to give up art. I would bring my CV to production companies, but who has heard of Tel-Hai college? Who knows what Channel 1 is here? They were a bit curious about the black guy coming from Israel, but they always finished with: ‘We’ll call you back,’ and you know exactly what that means. The only thing that kept me strong was that I put a small table in the corner, and started writing scripts.”

Eventually, Mekonen started to exhibit his work, got some grants for his projects and was able to go back to filmmaking. But he still feels like a guest in America. 

“From the Jewish community I sometimes hear: ‘Did you come with Operation Moshe? I donated to it!’ The thing is my mother lives it every day. Each morning she says: ‘Thank God, thanks to America’. But I start telling people that we were not only sitting there and waiting for someone to rescue us. We walked for months, and thousands died on the way. But they don’t get it, and some even become angry because it doesn’t fit their stereotypes of the naive Africans that are supposed to be grateful until their last day. It’s pretty difficult for me to see sometimes the fundraising campaigns for the Ethiopian community in Israel, they look so miserable. I want people to see my culture as a rich and happy one. But then probably no one would donate money, and it really helps many people.”

In Israel he misses many things that the native Israelis would rather escape.

“I adore those moments, when you come off the plane and the cab driver starts to haggle over each shekel, things like that,” he laughs. “And of course, I ask myself where I would be today if I had stayed there.” 

He doubts that his 4-year-old son Ariel will speak Amharic. “But I want him at least to know Hebrew.” At this moment, he would be glad if his exhibition will finally reach Israel. “I want the elders to see it. They deserve it.”

Slightly more than a thousand Ethiopian Jews have settled in North America since the beginning of the 1990s, and about 500 live in New York City. The Israeli Consulate, which used to ignore the trend, nowadays prefers to keep in touch with the Israelis living in the city. 

The new New Yorkers themselves hate when one defines it as a “phenomenon”. They are fed up with questions about the racism in Israel and America, and they reject any question that smells of arrogance and an effort to distinguish them from any other young Israelis who head to seek themselves “in the big world.”

Bizu Rikki Mulu, one of the Ethiopian-Israeli-American community veterans, founded an organization aimed at facilitating absorption of the newcomers. She called it Chassida Shmella (“Shmella” means stork in Amharic, she took it from the song people in her village would sing while seeing the migrating birds: “Stork, stork, how is our Holy Land?”). She thinks that the stream of the newcomers will increase now that Obama is president.

“You have here in N.Y.C. maybe one hundred thousand Yemenite Jews, maybe half a million Russian Jews, and now we have the Ethiopian Jews,” she says. “It’s a normal thing. It is better to keep them attached to the community, instead of saying: ‘We’ve spent so much money to bring them to Israel, they should go back there. If someone succeeds, it’s a success for all of us.’” 

Mulu, native of a small village in Gondar, came to Israel in 1978 with a group of 150 Jews as part of Operation Begin. She arrived in New York for the first time in 1991, and although she managed to get a green card, she warns that for most young Ethiopians, the absorption is not so simple. 

“It looks easy from Israel, but then they come here and work illegally in all kinds of odd jobs, and no one really cares about them,” she says. “A few fared better, some have their own businesses, and one woman works at the local hospital because her profession facilitates the immigration process. And there are plenty of guys who didn’t really succeed, but they don’t want to go back home with empty hands. I think it’s quite healthy to be able to say: ‘I failed and I’m going to try to make it at home.’ Not everyone is like Obama. In many places in America still, the blacks are here and the whites are there. Only in the 60s, segregation was abolished formally. The young Ethiopians coming here don’t think about these things.”

Chassida Shmella organizes cultural and educational events, but most of the newcomers ask for material assistance. “They ask directly: ‘What can you do for me?’ At first, they are less interested in preserving their religious and cultural identity. But most of them come from religious families, and here there are no parents to prepare the Shabbat meal. They are trying to find their place. At first, people at synagogue might stare at them, but eventually they get used to it, and the rabbi is excited. Only upon coming here I discovered how much the American Jews did for the Ethiopian Jews. But there are also a lot of prejudices and stereotypes. Many still want to see us as the guys dressed in white coming off the plane, because that’s how they remember this Aliyah.” 

“The Ethiopian Jews sobered later,” declares one fresh arrival. “In Israel, dog eats dog. Here you have plenty of problems as well, but I personally prefer to be stabbed in the back by a gentile, and not my own brother Jew. Here the Ethiopians tend to succeed more, because people don’t look at your origin and family name, they look at what you have to offer them. With God’s help, we’ll get back to Israel empowered, economically and mentally, to Jerusalem and not to the state-sponsored trailers.”

The monastic community of Ethiopia

By Robert Van de Weyer
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/news/2009/03/the-monastic-community-of-ethiopia/

 

The following is a description of the life of the Ethiopian monastic community (nefru gedam), based on visits to 18 major monasteries and lengthy interviews with the monks. It is remarkable that from one end of Ethiopia to the other the life of the monasteries is essentially the same, varying only in degrees of strictness. It is possible therefore to typify that life.

Fortunately monasticism also spread southwards to the Land of Sheba. Ethiopians coming to be ordained by the Coptic Patriarch would often stop at the desert monasteries on their way to Alexandria, and on their return imitated what they had seen. Over the centuries the monks of Ethiopia have jealously guarded the primitive traditions, and they claim that even today their monastic communities are identical to those of the early desert fathers.

 

The Monastic Village

Like the first convents of Egypt the monasteries of Ethiopia are built like ordinary villages, using the same materials as the poor people. In Eritrea and Tigre it is rough, dry stone, and in the southern provinces mud and eucalyptus. Most have between 50 and a 100 monks, usually with about half as many boys studying in the monastery school. Each monk has his own hut, perhaps eight or 10 feet square, in which he has a skin to sleep on, a drinking gourd, a bowl for food and a prayer book. An older monk may have a few luxuries such as a metal bed and a torch. The students, on the other hand, have no privacy, three or four sharing one hut, and are allowed no extra possessions. There is a common kitchen where the food is cooked over an open fire, a granary and an assembly hall. Dominating the whole is the church, and this alone is built in expensive materials, such as cut stone and mortar or, in modern times, brick and concrete. Next to it is the sacristy where the vestments and sacred objects are kept.

The monasteries are mostly situated on mountains or cliffs since many of the founders were hermits living in mountain caves, and the original communities grew up around them. Debre Libanos of Ham, for example, is on a narrow ledge in a sheer rock face where Abba Libanos used to meditate in the fifth century; monks and visitors climb down to it by the hand and foot holes which Libanos’s disciples are said to have cut into the cliff. Debre Damo and Debre Salam are both reached by rope up a perpendicular wail of rock, and legends abound on how their founders made the first ascent. Some monasteries are at the bottom of a steep valley or ravine, such as Gunda-Gundet which takes five hours to reach from where it is first visible from above. Few are easily accessible.

 

Prayers

The center of the monks’ life is prayer. The monks rise on most mornings at around four o’clock and assemble in the church to chant the morning office (Sa’atat) which last about two hours. On Sundays and major feast days they start the office at midnight and then perform the Mass (Kiddase), finishing at dawn. Unlike the large secular churches few monasteries have trained singers and the monks do not dance as the secular priests do. Some of the more ascetical monasteries do not even chant the office and the Mass, but prefer simply to say them. In mid-afternoon the monks gather once again, usually in the assembly hall, for a short office of about 15 minutes. Apart from these common prayers the monk is expected to pray frequently in private. Each monk is free to choose his own method of private prayer, though certain ways are common. Many retire to their huts every one or two hours and say the Lord’s Prayer and the Canticle of St. Mary. Others repeat ” Jesus Christ, please save me ” or ” Through Blessed Mary, have mercy on me ” 41 times. Most monks also spend long hours at night in silent contemplation.

 

Livelihood

The monasteries all own sufficient land for the monks, needs. Although manual work is not considered essential in the monk’s life, as it is in the contemplative communities of Europe, the stricter monasteries such as Debre Libanos of Ham and Waldebba regard it as important that the members plough the land themselves. At harvest time all able-bodied monks and students are working in the fields, and only the old and lame remain behind. However in most monasteries a proportion of the land is rented to peasant farmers in return for a share of the crop. At Abba Gerema, where almost all the land is rented out, the monks explain that at the foundation of their monastery in the sixth century the Emperor dispossessed all the peasants living nearby to give their land to the monks; since the peasants then starved the monks in their mercy gave back the land in return for a third of the crop, an arrangement persisting to this day. The domestic work – cooking, cleaning, carrying water and the like – is mostly done by the students. Nevertheless some monks want a daily occupation and volunteer to do some particular chore: at Sequar, for example, two venerable monks have been the wood­cutters for the past half century and, as one of them said, death alone will make him lay down his axe.

Almost all monasteries trade with the local people, and every week on market-day a group of monks go to the nearest town with mules carrying produce from the monastery lands. In exchange they buy soap and candles and any other small luxuries. Some monasteries purposely grow fruit and vegetables which they never eat themselves to sell at the market; at one community they even grow cha’at, a drug forbidden to Christians, for the local Muslim population, and they have become so proficient that their cha’at is reckoned the best in the province. Most monasteries, however, simply sell their surplus grain. Apart from the obligations of prayer and work, the monk is free to use his time as he thinks fit. The monks spend many of their leisure hours chatting with each other, and it is not uncommon to hear a heated discussion coming from one of the huts. On Sundays and feast days many visit nearby villages, and they are invited into the peasants’ homes to drink barley beer (talla). Some go regularly to teach in the village schools: even today most children are educated by the clergy, and monks are usually preferred as teachers to secular priests. For spiritual guidance also people prefer to come to a monk since he can listen to their problems with detachment. Once a year on the feast of the founder the village people are invited to the monastery, and the monks entertain them with bread and beer.

 

Eating

In contrast to the Western monastery where the monks always eat in common, in Ethiopia they eat separately. After mid-afternoon prayers in the assembly hall the daily food is brought from the kitchens by students and distributed. The monks take it to their huts and eat it as and when they please. The food is generally bread and boiled beans, with a cup of barley beer or, for sick monks, a cup of milk. In stricter monasteries the bread and beans are served on alternate days. A few monasteries, such as Assabot and Zuquala, allow the monks to grow their own vegetables near their huts which they can cook themselves to supplement the diet. The monks keep all the normal fasts of the Church, and add many private fasts of their own. On major festivals the monks have stewed meat, and on these occasions they eat together in the assembly hall. The students receive the same food as the monks, though occasionally an older monk or one undergoing a private fast may give some of his food to a favourite boy.

 

Old Age and Death

As in every other part of the world, be it Buddhist, Christian or whatever, Ethiopian monks have a reputation for longevity. Yet in most monasteries no special provision is made for the decrepit and helpless old monk; his food is brought to him each day in his hut where he lies waiting for death. A few monasteries, however, have an infirmary. At Dalshiha, for instance, they have a long hut with bamboo beds on either side: the old monks chat to each other, those still able to see read the prayers and psalms for those who cannot, and students are always on hand to serve them. In Debre Libanos of Shoa old monks are taken to a nunnery two kilometres away where the nuns look after them. The normal funeral service for a monk is the same as for an ordinary lay person. A few monasteries, however, such as Abrentant profess such contempt for the human body that the monk is buried without ceremony.

 

Abbe Minet

The Chief Monk Each monastery is entirely independent in administration, both of other monasteries and of the local bishop. The head of the monastery in all temporal matters is the Abbe Minet. He does not directly order the monks as the abbot in the West does, but he appoints three senior officers to govern each area of the community’s life (see next section). In most monasteries the Abbe Minet makes these appointments alone, but in some he calls a meeting of all the monks to hear their views. For example at Enda Abuna Booroch after the harvest the monks meet to review the work of the previous year, and if necessary to advise on the replacement of senior officers. Sometimes an officer asks to be dismissed, and it is not uncommon for a newly-appointed officer to have disappeared by next morning.

The main job of the Abbe Minet is not in the monastery at all, but is as ambassador to the outside world. He usually has a house in the nearest large town where he spends most of his time, dealing with disputes over monastic lands – in a country where the monasteries are major landowners the Abbe Minet can be no stranger to the law courts – and employing men to ensure that the tenants pay a fair share of the crop. He also has much influence in local church affairs. In Eritrea, for instance, the bishop calls a council one or two times a year of the Abbe Minets of the 18 major monasteries to discuss major decisions of policy in the diocese.

The Abbe Minet is elected by the monks of his monastery for life or until he desires to leave the post. On the whole he is an untypical monk since he is chosen for his worldly wisdom, and many are quite young, some apparently in their early thirties. There is no special ceremony for the installation of a new Abbe Minet, but prayers for his guidance are added to the morning office, and at midday there is a feast in his honour. Occasionally an Abbe Minet is promoted to the episcopate, but more often he retires to pass his declining years as an ordinary monk.

 

Senior Officers

The Abbe Minet’s deputy is the Afe Memhir, and he has charge of the monastery when the Abbe Minet is away. The Afe Memhir keeps the general discipline of the community, and he has the authority to judge and to punish. Students who fight or who are insolent or disobedient, the Afr Memhir orders to be beaten, appointing a junior monk to administer the punishment. This happens quite frequently, and no shame attaches to the offending student. Monks, on the other hand, he rarely needs to punish, and it is considered a terrible disgrace. For such offences as persistent disobedience or physical violence the Afe Memhir sentences the monk to be put in the stocks: the offender’s legs are put through two holes in a rough log, his feet are tied together, and he sits on a flat stone. For extreme crimes, particularly any kind of sexual immorality, the monk is expelled.

As far as the ordinary monks and students are concerned, the most important officer is the Magabi. He governs the whole livelihood of the community and assigns each person to his task. He decides when the seed should be sown and the grain harvested, and he ensures that the food is distributed fairly each afternoon. He does not have his own hut, but generally sleeps in the granary to guard against thieves. Above the granary door at Enda Bona hangs a fading sign, supposedly inscribed 700 years ago by the monastery’s founder, which reads: ” No one may enter without the Magabi’s permission.” The Magabi’s job is so hard that, although only young and able-bodied men are chosen, after two or throe years he usually retires and a replacement is found. The church and sacristy tire maintained by the Gabaz. Apart from students who clean the buildings, the Gabaz has under his direct charge an Ackabeit who guards the sacristy, sleeping there at night, and a bell-ringer who calls the monks to prayers. In large monasteries, such as Debre Bizen and Debre Libanos of Shoa, the Abbe Minet also appoints two or three older monks as advisers. They have no authority of their own, but they often accompany the Abbe Minet to meetings in town, and help to keep him informed of events within the monastery. Most monasteries, however, are sufficiently small and intimate to make such advisers unnecessary.

 

Komas – The Spiritual Father

The spiritual head of the monastery is the Komas. He is appointed by the bishop as his representative, and is often an older monk known for his exceptional sanctity. He does not guide the individual monk’s inner life, as the Spiritual Director in the West does, but he gives advice when it is asked for, arbitrating in any conflicts in the community. As one monk described it: ” While the Afe Memhir punishes by the rod, the Komas punishes by prayer.” Large monasteries may have more than one Komas, and new bishops are appointed from the Komases.

 

The School

The monastery school is intended to prepare the students for ordination, either as secular priests or as monks, and its syllabus is the same as that of the normal seminary attached to a large church. The type of student, however, is quite different. The pupils of the normal seminary are mostly the sons of priests, and boys who have no relatives in the priesthood are often refused entry or charged a large fee. The monastery schools, on the other hand, are bound by tradition to welcome all comers. No fee is charged and the students are given free food and lodging, since the menial work they do is considered sufficient payment. Thus most of the monastery students are from peasant families. In many cases they come from villages hundreds of miles away to avoid parental opposition, since by entering the monastery they are depriving their families of their labour.

Two or three of the most learned monks are appointed by the Abbe Minet as teachers. During the day when they have finished their chores the students are taught to read Geez and to memorize large portions of the religious books. Their raucous voices reciting in unison what they have just learnt frequently breaks the calm of the monastery. After dark they learn the liturgical chants. The school has no classroom, but generally there is a small courtyard where the students squat on the ground while the teacher sits on a low stool in their midst.

Over half the students drop out after one or two years and return to their villages. After about three years the promising student is sent to the local bishop to be ordained deacon which allows him to assist at the Mass. After several more years when they consider him fit the senior monks give the student a test of his reading ability and his knowledge of the holy books. A failed student can re-take the test indefinitely, and almost everyone passes eventually. The majority then want to become secular priests, and so they go to serve as deacons in a village church for a year or two before being ordained into the priesthood by the local bishop. A minority decide to become monks.

 

Profession

Most of those who profess as monks are graduates from the monastery school. The rest are widowers with no family ties; of these most are laymen with little or no education, though a few are secular priests or lay scholars. The intending monk firstly has a long interview with the Abbe Minet. The Abbe Minet does all he can to discourage him from his vocation, explaining the rigours of the monastery compared to life in the world. At the end of the interview the Abbe Minet asks: “Are you prepared to serve God as a monk, according to the ancient traditions governing the monk’s conduct?” The candidate simply replies: ” Yes, I am.”

The ceremony of profession is held a few weeks later in the church, usually on a feast day. Traditionally the candidate is wrapped in palm leaves, the funeral dress of the poor, and the monks sing the funeral requiem to signify his death to the world. He then rises up and the Komas places on his head a cotton cap (kob) which he must always wear in future as the sign of his profession, and gives him a new name. For the next 40 days the new monk often chooses to confine himself to his hut, in imitation of Christ in the wilderness, to prepare for his future life.

About a year after profession the young monk who previously graduated from the monastery school goes to the local bishop to be ordained priest. The uneducated widower, however, is considered unfit for ordination.

 

Scholarship

The monks do not have a reputation for scholarship, and few receive a higher education. Rather it is the lay scholars (debteras) who devote themselves to study. The monks, however, have traditionally patronised the lay scholars, inviting distinguished teachers and their students to live at the monasteries and giving them food and lodging. With the general decline in recent decades in the higher learning of the Church this patronage is becoming less common, though still in the large monasteries such as Debre Libanos of Shoa lay teachers and students live side by side with the monks.

Many monasteries, however, retain great numbers of manuscripts which were mostly donated by kings and noblemen in the past for the use of the lay scholars. Some libraries, such as those at Waldebba and Gunda-Gundet, remain justly famous for their collections of rare works. The manuscripts are generally kept in the sacristy, and though so few monks can appreciate them, they are greatly treasured.

 

Leaving the Monastery

The majority of monks spend their whole lives in the community where they professed. Nevertheless a monk is free to leave his community at any time, and he will be welcomed at any monastery in the country. The small number of monks who desire a higher education leave in search of a suitable teacher unless there is already one in their monastery. Generally they do not return, but either settle permanently where they find a teacher, or become perpetual wandering scholars moving from one teacher to another. A few leave to seek a more or less strict life than that of their present community. At Abrentant, for example, which is reputed to be one of the most ascetical monasteries in the country, hundreds of monks come each year to try the life, though few stay. Abba Gerema, on the other hand, where the monks do no manual work has a number of monks from other monasteries who have come to enjoy a more leisured life. A sick monk may move to a monastery with a healthier climate, as did one of the present teachers at Enda Sellassie in Adua who came to escape the heat of Hallelu, his original monastery. Occasionally a monk leaves because of a bitter feud with another monk.

 

Hermits

Though it has long since disappeared in the West, the eremitical life is still widespread in Ethiopia. The cenobitical monks and indeed the ordinary people regard the hermitage as Man’s highest abode on earth, and often monks seem fearful at the possibility of God calling them to it. In almost every monastery there are a number of monks – perhaps one tenth of the total-who confine themselves to their cells. They are described as ” the monks who never see the sun.” They have no responsibilities within the community and do not attend the daily common prayers. Food is brought to their huts each day by a single monk permanently designated to the task, and the hermit only emerges for the Mass in church on Sundays and feast days. Usually their cells are within the monastery compound, though sometimes they are a short distance away: at Debre Damo, for instance, hermits can be seen in apparently inaccessible caves in the sheer cliff beneath the monastery. Other monks or lay people can visit them (if they can reach their cell), and even today many of the rulers of Ethiopia, including the Emperor himself, frequently seek the advice of these hermits on both spiritual and temporal matters.

Besides these monastic hermits, there are countless holy men (ba’atawi) living in remote forests and caves throughout Ethiopia. These men have totally rejected human contact, and if they ever visit a church they “come by night, crawling through the undergrowth so as not to be seen.” as an admiring priest described it. They live only on the wild fruits and herbs which Nature provides. A few of these holy men are ordained monks who have left their communities, but mostly they are lay people – as another monk put it, ” God has called them to holiness from nothing, as Christ called Peter and Paul.”

 

Conclusion

 

The Benedictine monastery of Europe, in the words of the founder, is” a school of perfection”: the monk’s daily life is a continuous lesson within a rigidly ordered institution, prescribed in detail in a written rule. By the same analogy the Ethiopian monastery is a university: each monk studies perfection in his own way within a loosely-knit community, governed by traditional rules and customs. Ethiopian monasticism has retained the flexibility and freedom of the first desert convents of Egypt. The monk is within broad limits his own master, both spiritually and physically. He can participate in the community life as much or as little as he chooses, from being a hard worker who enjoys the company of his fellows in his leisure hours, to being a hermit.

St. Benedict in the sixth century purposely moved away from this kind of monasticism, but in recent years the pendulum has begun to swing back in the West. The Western monks may now be reverting to the primitive traditions which Ethiopia has preserved for 15 centuries. (The research on which this article is based was done jointly by the author, his wife Sarah, Father Thomas Conway and Miss Jocelyn Grigg).