CCAR RESPONSA
The “Falas Mura”
5757.3
She’elah
The Commission on Social Action of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations has asked for our opinion concerning the community of Ethiopian Jews known as the “Falas Mura”. Between three and four thousand members of this community are currently living in Addis Ababa in a camp administered under the auspices of the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry (NACOEJ). These people seek permission to emigrate as Jews to Israel, but their aliyah has been delayed due to concerns over their Jewish status. Should the Commission resolve to call upon the government of Israel to authorize the aliyah of the “Falas Mura” and to bring them to Israel as soon as possible?
Teshuvah
This is an urgent question. The members of this community live under difficult conditions. Many have undergone severe hardships to reach Addis Ababa. Many of their close relatives died of disease or exposure on the way; others were killed. To rescue them is quite simply a matter of pikuach nefesh. The Social Action Commission wishes to move quickly; hence, we cannot offer a proper teshuvah and a full study of the problem at this time.[1] We emphasize as well that whatever answers we can offer are based upon the evidence that has been provided us through NACOEJ and the UAHC’s Religious Action Center.[2] If there exists other evidence which would support a contradictory conclusion, the position taken in this responsum might change accordingly. The Jewish Status of the “Falas Mura”. The issue to be decided here is whether that group of Ethiopians identified as “Falas Mura” enjoys the right to aliyah under Israel’s Law of Return. That legislation, which entitles all Jews to emigrate to Israel, defines a Jew as one who is born of a Jewish mother or who has converted to Judaism and who is not an adherent of any religion other than Judaism.[3] It is conceded by all that the “Falas Mura” are ethnically members of Beta Yisrael, the Ethiopian community whose status as Jews has been recognized by Israeli government and rabbinate. The problem is that nearly a century ago, the “Falas Mura” converted to Christianity during a period of severe political and economic hardship. For this reason, officials of the Jewish Agency denied many “Falas Mura” permission to emigrate to Israel during the mission to rescue the Ethiopian Jewish community (“Operation Solomon”) in 1990.[4] The “Falas Mura” now declare their determination to renounce Christianity and to return to Judaism. Are the “Falas Mura” a Jewish community, one which would qualify for a right to dwell in the state of Israel under the Law of Return? To answer this question, we shall have to consider two major problems with respect to their status: that of intermarriage and that of apostasy. 1. The Problem of Intermarriage. If the “Falas Mura” converted to Christianity, we might have to presume a great deal of intermarriage between them and the surrounding Ethiopian Christians. These intermarriages would have given rise to grave doubts as to the Jewishness, under halakhic standards, of many of their offspring and descendants. According to all accounts, however, the “Falas Mura” continued to marry among themselves, a fact due largely to their hostile relations with the Ethiopian Christians as well as with the rest of Beta Yisrael.[5] The absence of intermarriage means that the community enjoys a presumption of ethnic Jewishness (chezkat yahadut), and Israeli authorities would therefore have the burden of disproving this presumption in each and every individual case in order to refuse immigration. 2. The Problem of Apostasy. Do the “Falas Mura” remain Christian? The evidence at our disposal, drawn from reports from the camp in Addis Ababa as well as from the absorption center in Neve Carmel which houses a number of “Falas Mura” immigrants, declares overwhelmingly that the answer to this question is “no.” There is no indication that they maintain even the slightest active connection to Christianity,[6] and they have participated actively in an intensive program of Jewish study (hashavah leyahadut, “return to Judaism”) overseen by Rabbi Menachem Waldman, the representative of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate on this issue. Every report that we have seen indicates that the members of the community practice an intensive and rigorous Jewish religious lifestyle. Their synagogues are crowded, especially on Shabbat and festivals; they study Judaism in their schools; they observe Jewish ritual in their homes. In the words of Rabbi Waldman, “there is no doubt that this is a community of Jews faithful to the God of Israel, observant of the mitzvot, particularly Shabbat, kashrut, and public religious life (such as daily, Shabbat, and festival prayer). They have a powerful desire to study and to live as religious Jews, according to halakhah.”[7] This conclusion is shared by a number of first-hand observers of the community,[8] and we have seen no evidence that would argue against it. The Return of the Apostate to Judaism. In the eyes of our tradition, an apostate Jew remains a member of the community of Israel[9] and is encouraged to perform the act of teshuvah, to return to Jewish life.[10] The tradition looks with great sympathy upon those who were coerced into apostasy[11] and upon the descendants of apostates, who clearly did not have the opportunity to learn and to accept Judaism. The current generation of the “Falas Mura” clearly fall into this latter category.[12] There is some question as to whether this return should involve a ritual act, such as immersion in a mikveh, as a symbolic demonstration that the individual has indeed forsaken his or her non-Jewish religion. While we find no mention of such a requirement in the talmudic sources, a number of rishonim (rabbinic authorities prior to the writing of the Shulchan Arukh) do state that this ritual is customary.[13] Some suggest other ritual requirements as a means of marking the transition from apostasy to a renewed Judaism.[14] On the other hand, some scholars insist that since the apostate remains a Jew, a ritual that resembles conversion is out of place.[15] This fact is worthy of special emphasis in the present situation, since it is generally recognized that the “Falas Mura” are indeed members of the people of Israel. To require that they undergo a ritual of conversion or quasi-conversion would call this very status into question and lead to resentment among the “Falas Mura,” who would justifiably regard the demand to “convert” as a smear and an insult to their very identity as Jews. Opposition to Aliyah. Why has the Israeli government thus far not permitted the “Falas Mura” as a community to immigrate? The official explanation is set forth in a report of the government’s Ministerial Committee on the Issue of the “Falas Mura,” dated January 4, 1993. The report defines the members of this community as Jews who have willingly (meratzon) adopted another faith, a label which disqualifies an individual from the automatic right of aliyah under the Law of Return. The Ministerial Committee adds that it is not the business of the government of Israel to participate in any program of conversion or “return to Judaism” which would remedy this situation. On the other hand, “the government will examine the possibility that suitable agencies will, with the agreement of the government of Ethiopia, work with those of this community who are candidates for aliyah to bring them closer to Jewish tradition and to teach them about Israeli life, in order to minimize the difficulties of their absorption in Israel.”[16] The operation supervised by Rabbi Waldman, the representative of the Chief Rabbinate, is just such a “suitable agency,” and its programs, as noted above, have succeeded in bringing the members of this community back to a powerful identification with and attachment to Judaism and Jewish life. The rabbinic leaders of this operation have called upon the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency to expedite the immigration of the “Falas Mura” to Israel under the terms of the Law of Return.[17] Surely the concerns expressed by the Ministerial Committee have been met, so that there would no longer exist any reason to deny their aliyah. Recently, however, Israel’s Chief Sefardic Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi- Doron issued an opinion which dealt a serious blow to the efforts on behalf of the “Falas Mura.” He declared that the Jewish ancestry of those in the Addis Ababa camp is “unclear” and that “for a goodly number of (those already in Israel), their return to Judaism is insincere.”[18] These are serious allegations which, should they prove to be well-founded, would argue against allowing the residents of the Addis Ababa camp to enter Israel. Yet Rabbi Bakshi-Doron offers no evidence in support of his claims. His opinion contains nothing but bland assertions, which we are called upon to accept at face value. Against these stand the ample first- hand testimony, cited in this teshuvah, as to the Jewishness and Judaism of the “Falas Mura,” those in Addis as well as those in Israel. The halakhah posits that “the judge must decide the case on the evidence which lies before him,”[19] and based upon all the information at our disposal, we see no reason to prefer Rabbi Bakshi-Doron’s statement over the findings of Rabbi Waldman, the Chief Rabbinate’s own representative on this question. We repeat: in the absence of any substantial proof to the contrary, we must presume that the “Falas Mura” are an ethnically Jewish community and that they have returned to Jewish life. Conclusions. We join together with all those who call upon the government of Israel to rescue and to relieve the suffering of the “Falas Mura” living in Addis Ababa. Specifically: 1. We are persuaded that the “Falas Mura” are Jews and that they should be allowed to emigrate to Israel as soon as possible. 2. The “Falas Mura” should be required to complete satisfactorily a process of “return to Judaism” such as the one that has been conducted under the supervision of Rabbi Waldman. This process may be accompanied by rituals, such as immersion, which have long been associated with the return of the apostate Jew. It must not, however, be conceived of or presented as a form of conversion to Judaism, for the members of this community are already Jews. NOTES 1. Moshe Zemer, a member of this Committee, is in contact with Rabbi Uri Regev of the Israel Religious Action Center and Rabbi Menachem Waldman, director of the Israel Chief Rabbinate’s committee on the absorption of Ethiopian immigrants. His findings will be the basis for the published version of this teshuvah. 2. This includes a collection of reports edited by Rabbi Menachem Waldman (see note 1) entitled Beney ha-“falas mura” be’adis ababa uveyisra’el: shivah leyahadut, shemirat mitzvot ukelitah ruchanit datit, Cheshvan 5757 (1996), as well as his Beney Ha- “falas mura” veshivatam leyahadut le’or hahalakhah, Cheshvan 5757 (1996). 3. The CCAR’s doctrine of “patrilineal descent” is irrelevant to our discussion. Although under that principle we in North America would accept the child of one Jewish parent, either father or mother, as potentially Jewish, the resolution which enacted it explicitly limits its scope to Reform Jewish communities in North America. In offering counsel to Jewish communities elsewhere, therefore, it is inappropriate for us to violate these limits, which we ourselves have established, and insist that they adopt our own particular understanding of Jewish identity. 4. The criteria by which the Jewish Agency determined that some Ethiopian Jews would be denied permission for aliyah have not yet been fully explained; see the report by Avshalom Elitzur in Waldman, Beney ha-“falas mura” be’adis, 35-40. 5. Waldman, Beney ha-“falas mura” veshivatam, 2-3. 6. “From discussions with the local Amharric Christians it became clear that [the “Falas Mura”] did not attend church services”; Dan Siman, an anthropologist at Harvard University who has studied the Ethiopian Jewish community extensively, in Waldman, Beney ha-“falas mura” be’adis, 55. 7. Waldman, in Beney ha-“falas mura” be’adis, 64. In Beney ha- “falas mura” veshivatam, Rabbi Waldman numbers six specific indicators of the community’s return to Judaism: 1. a school for instruction in Judaism and Hebrew as well as general studies, attended by 1000 students; 2. a synagogue where daily services are attended by hundreds of worshippers; 3. widespread observance of daily, Shabbat, and festival mitzvot; 4. translations of the siddur, the machzor, and other Jewish works into Amharric for the community’s use; 5. the repeated declaration by the community’s members of their acceptance of Judaism; 6. the careful supervision of this process by representatives of the Israeli chief rabbinate. 8. See the reports of Elitzur and Siman in Waldman, Beney ha- “falas mura” be’adis. 9. The classic source for this doctrine is the statement “a Jew, even though he sins, remains a Jew,” an interpretation of a midrash on Joshua 7:11 found in BT Sanhedrin 44a. It was Rashi who lent this interpretation its halakhic force; see Teshuvot Rashi, ed. Elfenbein, 171, 173, 175. Although some earlier authorities entertained the notion that an apostate is in fact no longer a Jew (see Otzar hageonim, Yevamot 22a and Kidushin 18a), the predominant strain of the halakhah holds otherwise. See R. Yosef Karo, Bedek habayit YD 268, end: “apostates are obligated from Sinai to observe the mitzvot just as are the rest of us.” 10. See Resp. Rashbash (Shelomo b. Shimeon Duran, 15th-cent. North Africa), no. 89: those anusim who were forced into accepting Christianity should be “drawn to us with bands of love.” 11. Resp. Rivash (R. Yitzchak b. Sheshet, 14th-cent. Spain/N. Africa), no. 4 and no. 11; Yad, Yesodey Hatorah 5:4; SA YD 119:9. 12. Maimonides suggested that the Karaites of his generation, as descendants of the original Karaites, were like the child taken captive by Gentiles (tinok shenishbah bein hagoyim) and thus not to be held responsible for their apostasy (Commentary to Mishnah, Chulin 1:1). See also Beit Yosef YD 159. This description is applied to the “Falas Mura” by R. Chaim David Halevy, chief rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yafo; see his letter reprinted in Waldman, Beney ha-“falas mura” veshivatam, 53. 13. Rav Paltoi Gaon, Otzar hageonim, Yevamot 47b; Chidushey Haritva, Yevamot 47b; Mordekhai, Ketubot, ch. 306; Nimukey Yosef to Alfasi, Yevamot, fol. 16b; Yam shel Shelomo, Yevamot 4:52; Isserles, YD 268:12. 14. See Waldman, Beney ha-“falas mura” veshivatam, 27ff, and Stanton Zamek, Even Though He Sins He Remains a Jew: The Repentance of the Returning Apostate (Cincinnati: Rabbinical Thesis, HUC-JIR, 1996). 15. Rav Hai Gaon and Rav Amram Gaon, Otzar hageonim, Yevamot 47b; Resp. Rashba 5:306; Resp. Rashbash, no. 89. The objections to a conversion-like ritual are especially strong with respect to demands that the returning apostate undergo hatafat dam berit; there is simply no evidence in the sources to support such a requirement. See, in general, see R. Moshe Zemer, Halakhah Shefuyah (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1993), 128-134. 16. The report is printed in Waldman, Beney ha-“falas mura” veshivatam, 69-72. See particularly the opinion of Rabbi Shabbetai Sabato, an adviser to the Ministerial Committee, reprinted ibid., 67-68. 17. Letter signed by Rabbis Menachem Waldman, Ratzon Arusi, and David Shloush, dated 1 Kislev 5754 (Nov. 15, 1993), reprinted in Waldman, Beney ha-“falas mura” veshivatam, 78-79. 18. Letter of Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron, dated 14 Cheshvan 5757 (Oct. 27, 1996), on file with the Responsa Committee. 19. ein ladayan ela mah she`einav ro’ot; BT Bava Batra 130b.
If needed, please consult Abbreviations used in CCAR Responsa.