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Product Details
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Gefen Publishing House (April 10, 2008)
The story of Baruch Tegegne begins with his childhood in one of the impoverished villages of the Bet Yisrael, Ethiopian Jews who may date back as far as King Rehoboam's time (civil wars after the death of Solomon) or to Ptolemy's time. DNA studies seem to indicate that Ethiopians were originally converts, but there is also some evidence that a major wave of immigration from the Kingdom of Judah to present-day Ethiopia dates as far back to the 7th Century BC Assyrian Siege of Jerusalem.
Be that as it may, people who are Jews (though lacking the Mishnah and Gemara of the 2nd through 5th Century AD) live in Ethiopia and have been trying to exercise the Jewish Right of Return. And their skins are dark. And they observe Judaism differently due to their separation for centuries. (One interesting example; Pesach or Passover is celebrated by them with butchering an animal, rather like the Pascal Lamb which was used as the substitute for the first-born to avoid the plague of death. The Seder feast is the ceremony today, with a lamb bone on the plate to symbolize the Pascal Lamb, but the Ethiopians use a freshly-killed lamb or goat to begin the feast.)
Baruch Tegegne is a young man, despite poor health, manages to leave Ethiopia and study in Israel. What is striking is his dedication to three things; his people, his faith and his desire for freedom. He lets nothing stand in his way in his quest.
He is abused in jobs, and what's more disturbing, slighted and treated with disdain by mainstream, European-origin Jews in Israel, despite the fact he served in the military including a stint with the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency. Tegegne led a protest march in 1977 in Jerusalem and worked, despite failing health, to see that Ethiopian Jews had rights.Read more ›
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Baruch's Odyssey: An Ethiopian Jew's Struggle to Save his people Baruch Tegegne with Phyllis Scwartzman Pinchuk Gefen Publishing, 2009
Reviewed by Seth J. Frantzman
A brilliant tale of a full life
Baruch Tegegne's brilliantly and concisely told autobiography reminds us of several important qualities; Man must be ready at all times to stand up for himself, to never suffer fools or racism, always defend his heritage and his people, to be willing to take revenge, to never shy from a fight, to challenge bullies and to have no regrets over losing one's temper against injustice. Barry Goldwater might have said "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." Tegegne's tale reminds us of something else too: the soft racism of certain segments of the intellectual elites and, on the other side, the all important decision by numerous religious Jewish leaders and statesmen to "bring them [the Ethiopian Jews] to me," as Begin described it. Tegegne's story is not just a Jewish story, its not even just an Ethiopian Jewish story, it's the story of struggle, adventure, often times hardship, but at times hilarious, of one brilliant man's life which could only have been lived by a unique individual but from which we can all draw inspiration. Tegegne's story strikes home because it is human, it is not preachy, it is not over done, it is simple and genuine, full of flaws and greatness, with no punches pulled. The reader feels, from start to finish, in a book that is impossible to put down, that a man's life has been truly brought to life.
Tegegne was born in a small village called Wozaba in Ethiopia in 1944. From 1955 to 1963 he took part in a program where a select group of Ethiopian youngsters were able to come to Israel and study.Read more ›
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No one knows the origin of the Ethiopian Jews. Some scholars believe that these Jews travelled to Ethiopia in 586 B.C.E., when the first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, other think they arrived after the Second Temple's destruction in 70 C.E. Others are convinced that they are remnant of Israelites who settled in Ethiopia during the reign of King Solomon when Queen Sheba returned to the area after visiting the king. Africans call these Jews Falashas, meaning "outsiders," because their practices differ radically from other Ethiopians, but they call themselves "Bet Yisrael," the house of Israel. The Bet Yisrael had a thriving kingdom in the tenth century with about a million citizens. But in the seventeenth century the kingdom was conquered. Their land was confiscated, and they were forbidden ever after to own land in Ethiopia. Many of these Jews were sold into slavery. Many were forced to convert to Christianity. During the next centuries, Christian missionaries traveled to Ethiopia because they felt that it was their divine duty to convert the survivors, and they were frequently successful. The Bet Yisrael people love the Bible and follow biblical laws as they understand them. They knew nothing of rabbinic teachings until their first contact with European Jewry in the nineteenth century, since they arrived in Ethiopia before the writing of the Mishnah and Midrashim.Read more ›
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