BLACK JEWS IN ABYSSINIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 335, 19 September 1879, Page 17

BLACK JEWS IN ABYSSINIA.

A VEBY correct ethnological fact has been communicated to Les Missions Catholiqves, which sees in it an argument in favour of the unity of the human race. On the authority of a Jewish traveller and convert named Halevy, it is said that there is a race of Jewish black men in Abyssinia. It appears that M. Halevy learned that there was such a race in the highlands, from which the Takezze descend. Naturally, he felt anxious to meet his co-religionists, whose features and colour had changed so remarkably. He sought out accordingly these people, who are known in that country as Falaschas. With singular good fortune, he found two of them who bad been baptized. It was not difficult to interview them concerning their origin, or to induce one of them to repeat a prayer for the morning, which he had learned from his mother. This prayer he said, not as in the West with joined hands, but with them raised as high as the face and the palms turned away from it. Its sentiment is certainly Hebraic, and it was addressed to the Omnipotent and Eternal God who had delivered them from Egypt, and had destroyed the army of Pharaoh ; who had nourished them in the desert, and had led them by night and day. It continues : '• Who is like unto You, 0 Eternal ; who else is worshipped in the assembly of the saints ; what God is like our. God ? sfou are from all eternity ; Your years will have no end. Remember, O Eternal, Your testament which You gave to Moses on Mount Horeb. May God be praised from all eternity. Amen, amen."

M. Halevy expresses himself convinced that these men were real descendants of Abraham, notwithstanding the colour and the disappearance of well-known Hebrew features. By means of these two men, he discovered many others of the same race and colour. At HBpta'five of them were trading in pipes and sabres. They in turn iiitroduced him to a little colony, who were inexpressibly astonished 4t seeing a " white Falascha." When they heard that M. Halevy had been .at Jerusalem, they expressed great curiosity, and inquired for Mount Sion and the " tomb of their mother Rachel, Bethlehem and the city of Hebron, where rest the remains of Sarah and Abraham." M. Halevy further relates some particulars of a holy war undertaken by them to deliver Jerusalem, to deliver it from infidels and make it the capital of all the nations of the earth. They set out in gieat numbej^ convinced that God would renew in their favour the u-iracles gracßd to the prayers of Moses, that the sea would again divide to permit their passage, and that they would be supported by manna from heaven ; ialmost all who set out perished This lact and the belief iv a temporal Messiah who would restore the kingdom of Israel, go to prove that the Abyssinian exodus dates from tke dispereioii of the Jews after tfie destruction of Jerusalem.