The history of Farasha

Farasha claimed to be a member of the Israeli royal family, descended from Menelik I, the son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. But in fact, their ancestors may be the local Agew people in Ethiopia, or they may be one of the Hebrew 12 tribes that mysteriously disappeared. Jews who spent hundreds of years in Arabian life in south around the Christian era converted them. In the 4th century, after the powerful Kingdom of aksum in Ethiopia converted to Christianity, Farasha remained devout to Judaism, so he was persecuted and had to retreat to Lake Tana in northern Ethiopia. Although Ethiopian Christians managed to destroy Farasha in 15 and 16 centuries, they remained partially independent until 17 century, when Emperor Susenios defeated them and confiscated their land. The situation in falasha improved in the late19th century and the 20th century, when tens of thousands of falasha lived in the area north of Lake Tana.

Farasha made a contribution to Ethiopian history. From13rd century to19th century, there were 58 kings of "Solomon descent" in various dynasties in Ethiopia. After Ethiopia's independence, whether it has "Solomon descent" is regarded as the standard of succession to the throne. Haile Selassie, the last Ethiopian emperor, claimed to be the 255th direct grandson of King Solomon and Queen Seba, and was a "Jewish lion". Farasha is brave and good at fighting, and emperors have chosen them as court guards. 1974, after the last Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown, the new government implemented land reform, allowing falasha to own land and encouraging them to go down the mountain.

In the past decade or so, Ethiopia has been in constant war, coupled with years of famine, and people have been living in poverty. A large number of falasha have left their homes and taken refuge in foreign countries. At this time, Israel, which was fighting against Arab countries, took the opportunity to receive Farasha immigrants in the name of "humanitarian relief" because of the shortage of soldiers and labor. In the following 10 years, about 8,000 falasha immigrated to Israel. 1985, Israel implemented the immigration plan codenamed "Operation Moses" and airlifted about 7,000 farazas to Israel. Due to information leakage and pressure from Arab countries, Operation Moses failed to continue, 1.5 million Farasha failed to leave Ethiopia, and a large number of Farasha were separated from their relatives. 1991may, the Ethiopian regime was on the verge of collapse, and the Israeli government and Jewish organizations decided to fly Farasha in Ethiopia back to Israel to help them escape from civil strife and return to Israel. "Operation Solomon" directly allocated US$ 6,543.80 billion from the government, rented 34 large passenger planes from Israel Airlines, and flew14,324 Ethiopian falasha directly to Israel in just 36 hours. And a plane carrying 1 122 people at a time also broke the air transport record. The picture shows that in order to increase the traffic volume as much as possible, all the passenger seats involved in the transportation have been removed. 1980 ~ 1992, about 45,000 falasha fled Ethiopia destroyed by drought and war and moved to Israel. About 654.38 million+200,000 falasha have settled in Israel. The number of falasha remaining in Ethiopian territory is unknown, but it is estimated that there are only a few thousand. The gradual integration of Farasha community into Israeli society has become the source of inter-ethnic tension and controversy in the future.

In order to integrate Farasha, who settled in Israel, into the mainstream society of Israel, the Israeli government first placed them in immigration centers to let them learn Hebrew and some social skills, and then arranged them all over Israel to become a part of society through labor. Israel has spent billions of dollars on education alone. Due to isolation, the existence of this Jewish isomorphism is almost unknown to the whole world. This situation did not stop until the Scottish explorer J Bruce described it in detail in his five-volume Journey to the Source of the Nile. The book was published in Edinburgh on 1790.

"Discovering" them will have interesting consequences. The western organization that first noticed their existence was the Protestant Missionary Mission, which tried to make these newly discovered Jews follow Christianity. Before Professor J Helway was sent to Ethiopia in 1864, no Jewish representative contacted Farasha.

Forty years later, Western Jews made real contact with them, but they were not sincere, because the religious authorities took into account the primitive state of their religion and resisted the idea of recognizing Farasha as a Jew.

Therefore, Farasha experienced a lot of religious reform activities.

As a result, falasha has been assimilated and the population of Farasha has been decreasing. There were an estimated 250,000 people in the Bruce era.

When Herve preached, it was estimated that there were 654.38 million+people, 50,000 at the beginning of this century, and only 28,000 before Farasha finally immigrated to Israel.