ABYSSINIAN JEWS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 81, 29 December 1928, Page 20

ABYSSINIAN JEWS

STRANGE MOUNTAIN TYPE It would be interesting to know how the coronation festivities in Abyssinia affected a certain strange tribe of mountaineers in what was once part of the Kingdom of Shoah, in the north of tli£ Negus’s country, says a correspondent ot the “Daily Telegraph.” These tribesmen, Falashas, as they call themselves, are, according to their own profession, Jews —the only Jewish mountaineers known on earth. They have the typical Jewish appearance physically, but none of the conventional habits or attributes. Neither they nor their ancestors have ever engaged in trade, being hunters and trappers who rarely mingle with the Abyssinians proper in the towns and villages 6f the low-land; They perform a rude imitation of the ancient Palestinian Passover ceremonies, otherwise they have neither priest nor temple. In the fastnesses of their mountains, however, they preserve in a quaint teakwood casket a venerable parchment copy of tlie Pentateuch, which their headmen allege came down to them direct from King Solomon through the Queen of Sheba. Probably these people’s ancestors at one time intermarried with Palestinian Jews and have handed down certain Semitic attributes to their modern representatives.