Ethiopian Jewish in Israel

The Ethiopian Jews in Ethiopia lived primarily in villages in the north and Northwest of the country, far from their Christian neighbors, with separate social and economic institutions and conditions.

Their story is a fascinating example of Jewish perseverance and survival despite time, trial and tribulation.

It is a story of people long isolated from the rest of the Jewish world. That separation was so complete, that at one point, the Ethiopian Jews thought themselves the only remaining Jewish community in the world - the last guardians of Jewish knowledge, tradition and the "Torah of Moses." The Ethiopian Jews struggled mightily to retain that tradition and guard it from outside forces that would see it assimilated, conquered and destroyed. As a result, throughout Ethiopian history, they often fell sacrifice to Christian kings, wars and oppression.

That struggle continued in different forms even after the arrival of the Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Their homecoming, joyous as it was, was marked by a lack of acceptance, as state religious institutions did not officially recognize their status and Jews. These institutions made life hard for Ethiopian immigrants, and in some ways still do.

The first trickle of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to Israel began in the 1950s when 50 children were brought to study in Israel and return to Ethiopia as teachers. In the 1970s, individual Ethiopian activists and their families began crossing into Israel via Sudan. These journeys represent a crucial and important moment in Ethiopian Jewish History.

The dream of returning to Jerusalem, rejoining the Jewish Nation and building a state together seemed on the verge of coming true. In 1977, due to pressure from various quarters, then Prime Minister Menachem Begin proclaimed, "bring me the Ethiopian Jews," and the floodgates were opened. This set the stage for the mass exodus that took place in the mid-1980s.

In 1977 30 families came. Between 1977 - 1984, 3000-4000 Ethiopian Jews came to Israel, primarily from the Tigrae region. "Operation Moses" brought another 8,000, mostly from Gonder. During that Aliyah, approximately 4,000 lost their lives in the desert wastes and refugee camps of Sudan. "Operation Solomon" saw another 15,000 Ethiopian Jews reach Israel, and small groups have continued to congregate in Addis Ababa, and immigrate ever since. Today there are approximately 85,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel, 20,000 of who were born here.

The story of the Ethiopian Jews by no means ends with Aliyah. Their absorption and integration into Israeli society has been a long road of challenges, successes and difficulties. Some of the obstacles they faced were objective ones - such as the dislocation of moving from a developing nation to a modern industrialized one. Others were the products of institutions and authorities - such as the problems the community still faces with regards to religion, education, employment and housing.

The Ethiopian Jews are now counting their second decade in Israel, and their successes surely outweigh the difficulties they have faced. The community is grateful to all those individuals and institutions who were part of their immigration process, and who support them as they integrate into Israeli society. They hope that the process will only grow easier as they go.

Ethiopian Jewish in Israel crafts

Hebrew and Jewish Poesie Personalized Rings

A swift Poesy Rings overview

Posie rings (sometimes spelled "posy ", "posey" or "poesy rings") are finger rings with short inscriptions on their outer surfaces. More rarely the inscription is on the inner surface.

A posey ring or love ring, is a simple gold or silver band engraved with a brief sentiment or poem on the outside. They were used as a lover's token, a wedding ring, or simply as a means of showing regards or giving a gift.

Poesy rings are rings with brief poems that express love sentiments inscribed either around the outside or on the inside of the band. This type of ring dates as early as classical times, when they were considered magical, having the power when worn to enforce the poesy engraved on them. (Tradition has it that there is a vein running directly from the fourth finger to the heart and words touching this vein have a special power.)

In the 16th and 17th century England and France, a wedding ring would be inscribed with a sentiment of love, faith and hope. A silver betrothal ring would often be replaced with the same poesy ring in gold on marriage.

These rings reached their greatest popularity during the Renaissance when they were not only given as wedding rings, but used as a lover's token or simply as a means of showing fond regard or giving a gift. Many of Shakespeare's plays mention them such as Hamlet Act III, scene 2, "Is this a prologue or the poesy of a ring."

These very short love poems and rhymed inscriptions can be found engraved on antique posy rings (also 'posie' or 'posey rings').

They repesent deep intimate feelings of people. Such rings were given on various occasions, but as one can clearly see, mostly as tokens of engagement or as wedding rings. Not many of them can be considered true gems of literature, but the power of these short love poems is in their romantic sincerity and old time charm. Their brevity is naturally dictated by the limitations of space - only one or two phrases used to fit on a ring. Modern day Valentines are influenced by this genre, but some of these rhymed lines have apparently gone unnoticed for centuries.

The language used in many early posy rings was Norman French, with French, Latin and English used in later times. The posies were originally written on the outside, moving to the hidden inside of the ring in later (mid 16th Century onwards) times.

Bluenoemi offers a collection of Hebrew posey rings, capturing verses, prayers, love messages. Handmade specially crafted spinning rings, Hebrew love prayers and blessing verses and poesy. Rose Gold, Yellow Gold and Sterling Silver. Original and elegant swivel rings. Jewish promise and wedding rings.

Made in Israel with care and love. You can choose the verses option in any model with any verse from the following:

1. I am My Beloved and My Beloved is Mine - Ani le Dodoi ve Dodi Li

2. I have found the One whome my Soul Loves - Matzhati et ma she ahava nafshi

3. A woman of Valour who shall Find - Eshet Hail mi Imtza

4. May G-d Bless you and guard You - Yevarecheha Adonai ve Ishmereha

5. If I forget my Jerusalem May my Right Hand forget its Strength - Im Eshkaheh Ierushalaim tishkah Yemini

6. Multitude of Waters cannot extinguish Love. Maim rabim lo iuhlu lechabot et haahava

7. Jacob Blessing to Joseph Ben Porat (a protection against evil eye) - Ben Porat Yosef Ben Porat alei Ain

8. In the Name of G-D we shall do and we shall succeed - Be shem adonai naase ve natzliah

9. May you Leave in Peace and Return in Peace - Tzetha u Boaha le shalom

10. Hear Oh israel G-D is Our G-D is One - Shma Israel Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad

11. Ahavat Olam Ahavtich.... I have loved thee with an everlasting love

12. Ki Malahaih Yetzave lah Lishmor - The angels order to keep you safe

13. Ana be Koah Degulat Ieminha - Ana be Koach prayer

14. Ve Erastih li le Olam - I compromise to you forever

15. El na Rafe Na La. God will bring to you health

Personalize: We can engrave your names or text. Consult us by email.

Choose from our beautiful assortment Hebrew verses and prayer rings. Enjoy!

Bluenoemi collection of hebrew poesie rings in silver and gold.

Bluenoemi collection of spinning rings in silver and gold.

A bit about Israeli History Culture & Music

A swift overview

We bring here a swift overview of the Israeli new history, the Zionism, the Israel's state independence and all years since then.

Zionist settlement in Palestine (as the country was called during the centuries when it was part of the Ottoman Empire and later the British Mandate) began in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and continued with further waves of Jewish immigration during the thirty years of British rule after World War I. These are the five waves of ʿaliyah'—that is, the “first ʿaliyah, ” the “second ʿaliyah, ” and so on.

By 1948, when the State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and fought its War of Independence, there were some 600,000 Jews in Israel, the overwhelming majority of whom came from countries in Eastern and Central Europe.

By 1952, the Jewish population had almost tripled with the arrival of more European Jews (many of them Holocaust survivors) and, most significantly, large waves of immigration from Arab and Muslim countries (Yemen, Iraq, and Morocco were among the largest).

The Jewish population of Israel numbered approximately five million, and the Arab-Palestinian minority, one million.



Defined as a “Jewish state, ” Israel has adapted the Jewish religion, tradition, symbolism, and mythology to its modern, secular nationalistic beliefs.

Zionism, as a set of cultural practices in Palestine and later in Israel, evolved around two major, interrelated themes: the rejection of the culture of the Jewish Diaspora (the galut, that is, the existence of Jews in scattered communities in many different countries) and the invention of a “new” Jew, the Hebrew person, the Israeli.

Early Hebrew national style in music

The Zionist settlers - created a new style of music that would strengthen ties with their Hebrew roots and distinguish them from Diaspora Jewry and its perceived weakness.




The ethos of the Zionist enterprise was linked to the “return to the land” in its most practical sense: to agricultural work, “the blooming of the desert, ” as David Ben Gurion once put it. The Zionist narrative celebrated the agricultural settlement as its most tangible achievement.

The culture created in these settlements, especially in the communal kibbutzim, became a model for incoming Jewish immigrants as well as supporters of the Zionist movement outside Palestine, though the majority of the Jewish population both in the Yishuv and abroad belonged to the urban bourgeoisie.



Thus the Israeli folk song, that is, Shirei Eretz Yisrael (SLI) and particularly the songs of its golden age (the 1920s to the 1960s), composed in many cases by kibbutz members, became the musical paradigm of the new Hebrew culture.

Elements were borrowed a bit from Arabic music and, to a lesser extent, traditional Yemenite and eastern Jewish music. The songs were often homophonic, modal, and limited in range.

Greek-style bouzouki music became increasingly popular in the early 1960s. Aris San, a non-Jewish Greek singer who moved to Israel and became an Israeli citizen, was the driving spirit behind this trend. One of Aris San's hit songs was "Sigal" (lyrics by Yovav Katz). Aris San, who owned the Zorba club in Jaffa, wrote songs for Aliza Azikri (Bahayim hakol over, Yesh ahava ata omer), that effectively broke down the barriers between Israeli song and the world of Greek and Mizrahi music.

A number of young musicians traveled to South America in the late 1960s, and brought back Latin rhythms and sonorities which became a force in popular music through the 1970s.

The American folk movement of the 1960s and 1970s influenced the Israeli national style, and Israeli folksingers who patterned themselves after Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell.



In the 1960s, guitar duos such as the Dudaim and the Parvarim performed not only "canonical" Israeli songs, but also Hebrew versions of American and British folk songs.


Land of Israel style





Despite the great diversity in Israeli music today, a corpus of canonical songs has developed, known as "Shirei Eretz Yisrael" — "Songs of the Land of Israel" .



These songs, composed from 1920 to the mid-1970s, have certain identifying musical characteristics:

•Use of minor keys. The canonical songs are almost universally in minor. Songs based in the Russian or klezmer traditions normally use the harmonic minor (that is, with an elevated seventh), while songs in the New Hebrew style use natural minor, often with a diminished second leading to the tonic. Songs in this style are also sometimes modal, or semimodal, ending on the dominant rather than the tonic.





SONG OF CAMARADERIE (GURI-ARGOV)

On the Negev the autumn night falls

And gently, gently lights up the stars

When the wind passes through

Clouds wander along the road.

Already a year has elapsed

We practically did not feel

how the time passed in our fields.

Already a year and few of us are left.

So many are no longer among us.

But we will remember them all.

The handsome ones with beautiful curls

Because camaraderie like this

will never allow our hearts to forget.

Love sanctified by blood

Will return to flourish among us.


"At Adama" sung by Ran Eliran

•Hora, debka and other dance rhythms. These dance rhythms often have strong offbeats and asymmetric meters. They accompany popular Israeli folk dances. An example of a debka rhythm is At Adama based on a Bedouin melody, and sung by Ran Eliran.

•Use of the darbuka, the tambourine and other instruments associated with middle eastern music.


•Lyrics that relate to the Israeli experience. As one might expect in a country that has faced major wars and military conflicts since its inception, army life and wars are common themes in Israeli songwriting. Interestingly, very few of the war songs are marching songs, and none denigrate the Arab enemies. Most are melancholy, focusing on separation and loss during war, and the longing for peace. Many songs are about pioneering, building up the land, and love of hiking and nature. Others are based on biblical texts.

A typical pioneer marching song is Anu Nihiyeh HaRishonim (We will be the first), with words by Yosef Haftman to a traditional melody.





Singing along with Gabi Berlin - the Pioneers songs and spirit.

At Bluenoemi http://www.bluenoemi-jewelry.com/iscdsanddvdi.html you can find many of these nostalgic CDs and music.

Israeli all times music.