The Transmutation of the Beta Israel Family in Ethiopia to the Ethiopian Jewish Family in Israel

This chapter documents the trends in the transmutation of the Beta Israel family from Ethiopia to Israel, and analyzes the causes. In Ethiopia, the Beta Israel (formerly known as “Falashas” in Ethiopia) lived an agrarian life in scattered villages in Gondar province, Woggera, the Simien mountains, Walkait and the Shire region of Tigray; their origins are obscure. They were monotheistic, practicing a Torah-based, non-Oral-Law style of Judaism, and celebrating many Jewish festivals and fasts. Purity of women was an ultimate value. The transmutation of the Beta Israel family has its origins in its migration from an underdeveloped society to a modern, Western society from the end of the 1970s on. Approximately 165,000 Ethiopian Jews and their descendants live in Israel today. The Ethiopian seven-generation kinship unit is breaking down; laws of ritual impurity are being modified; girls no longer marry at first puberty. Married women are encouraged to go out to work in order to assist with the family income. In the public sphere, women often appear more ‘successful’ than men in Israeli society (as singers, models, TV reality personalities etc.). The divorce rate is high, with over one third of Ethiopian families living as one-parent families. Finally, Ethiopian-Israeli women are disproportionately represented in the numbers of Israeli femicides perpetrated each year.