A collection of rare holy books and manuscripts from the Ethiopian Jewish community written in Ge’ez, an ancient South Semitic language sometimes referred to as Classical Ethiopic, have been digitized and will be available online, the National Library of Israel announced on Wednesday.
The 17 texts were previously held by the community’s Kesim, or clergy, in private homes or in community synagogues, but were not accessible to the public at large.
The high-resolution scans of the items will “soon” be made available to the public via the National Library website, while the original items will remain with the Beta Israel communities.
The manuscripts include the Octateuch known as The Orit (the set of scriptures used in Ethiopian Jewish synagogues composed of the Pentateuch—the five books of the Torah—and the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth), the Jewish apocryphal texts of Jubilees and Enoch, and prayer books such as the Book of Psalms. In addition, there are holy books held by descendants of Kesim.
“The National Library of Israel is delighted to have reached an agreement with the leaders of the Beta Israel community to enable their scanning, cataloguing and accessibility of their manuscripts for the benefit of the public for generations to come,” said library curator Dr. Haim Neria.
“These cultural treasures are undoubtedly part of the community’s heritage and deserve exposure to an interested public, while they will continue to be maintained with their owners in the various houses of worship,” said Dr. Dalit Rom-Shiloni, an associate professor at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Biblical Studies.
