“Descendants of the lost Israelite tribe of Dan, according to Jewish lore, Ethiopian Jews spent millennia isolated from the rest of the Jewish world. In most Jewish communities, the priesthood of the Bible was replaced by rabbis who emphasized text study and prayer. Ethiopia’s Jewish kessoch continued the traditions of Biblical-era priests, sacrificing animals and collecting the first fruits of the harvest. “
anyone have any perspective on this to offer?
I contend that most of these Africans are not Jews at all. This was a typical left-wing “Jewish guilt” move to bring in blacks to make the Labor party and Commie kibbutzniks feels morally superior.
Rabbis are in no way, shape or form comparable to Cohanim (or “priests,” as the author refers to them). The latter are hereditary ministrators in Solomon’s Temple, as are the Leviim. They still perform some ritual functions even now, although with the Temple in ruins and under occupation, they can’t perform their main functions. Rabbis are merely teachers, and do not offer animal sacrifices or accept first fruits and such, which can only be done when the Temple is rebuilt.
But the Tribe of Dan is a lost tribe. Another such tribe is the Benei Menashe, who also used to make sacrifices on Passover on Bamot when they lived in rural India. Members of both tribes are my neighbors and friends in Kiryat Arba. They were exiled during the period of the First Temple, when making animal and other sacrifices on small, makeshift altars called Bamot was still commonplace. It would not surprise me if these Kesachs are really hereditary Cohanim, continuing the practices of the First Temple era, despite the changes in Jewish law from which they’ve been isolated for too long. But I’d have to learn more about them. This is the first I’ve ever heard of them.
The ancient priests were to be derived from the tribe of LEVI who had the LORD as their inheritance and were given no tribal lands. I should be skeptical of any claims priests derived from the tribe of Dan.