Ayanawo Ferada Senebato sets package wrapped in an old Israeli flag down in front of us. Slowly, and with awe, he unfolds the flag. A collection of ancient parchments, torn, faded, and filled with tiny writing in black and red ink that hasn't faded at all despite the many years that have passed is revealed.
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His family cannot hide their emotions. In an apartment in a new building in Lod, on a small living room coffee table beneath an especially large television, is a prayer book that is hundreds of years old. It was passed from generation to generation and for decades lay on the floor of a church in a tiny village in northern Ethiopia. Ayanawo breaks the silence: "The lost, historic treasure has returned to us."
'Rectifications from the Book of Zohar'
The adventures Ayanawo Ferada Senebato (43), David Malsa Makuria (47), and Getnat Eshato Selam (53) had in Ethiopia are the makings of a great story: Three cousins who traveled to the end of the world, found themselves fighting villagers who refused to give them the lost book, and traveled off the beaten path to reach a happy ending.
"This book has been passed from generation to generation of our families," says Ayanawo. "It includes Psalms and ardit, special prayers of spiritual rectification, taken from the Zohar and Kabbalah. It's a very holy book," he says, turning the pages carefully one after the other, almost stroking them with his hands.
He lives in Rishon Lezion, is married, and a father of two. He is a former journalist who is well known in the Ethiopian community and ran in the last Knesset election on the eighth spot on the Religious Zionist Party list. This was not his first journey to Ethiopia. Almost two years ago, Israel Hayom told the story of how he brought his great-aunt's bones to be interred in Israel, against all odds.
Ayanawo's childhood took place far from here, in a remote Jewish village in the Dembiya region called Onearve. The three cousins, sons of three sisters, grew up together surrounded by thousands of acres of farmland, looking over the huge Lake Tana, the most important source of water in Ethiopia and Egypt, which supplies 80% of the waters of the Nile.
"Our grandmother, Tajeba Dajan Germai, brought us up because our mothers were very young when they married," says David, who now lives in Ashkelon and works for a company that repairs drinking water systems.
The book, they say, was the only one of its kind in the village and was part of their childhood. They cannot say when exactly was it written, or where. But they believe it is at least several hundred years old based on the fact that it had been handed down from father to son for generations. The Israel National Library, which examined the book at Israel Hayom's request, believes it is at least 200 years old.
"This is a book by spiritual leaders called 'Malkusa,'" explains Getent, a father of six who lives in Lod and works for the Israel Airports Authority. "These are Jewish monks. And therefore the book is written in Ge'ez, the language in which all Jewish holy books were written. It includes charms, prayers, and 'ardit,' which is part of the Kabbalah.
"In Ethiopia at that time, not everybody knew how to read, certainly not Ge'ez, in which the book is written. Only Ethiopia's most senior Jewish clergy knew how to decipher the letters and explain what is written. The keisim, the community rabbis, would read from it, with one keis reading and another translating to Amharic," he says.
The book, handed down from generation to generation within the family, from village to village, and from keis to keis, finally ended up in the hands of Mashesha (Hanoch) Rada Arkashin, the cousins' grandfather, who died before they were born. According to family legend, Hanoch was a scion of a dynasty of spiritual leaders and of the Kingdom of the Gideons, a Jewish kingdom that ruled parts of Ethiopia for hundreds of years.
"Grandfather was given the name Mashesha, which means 'shelter,' by Jews he rescued in the Balesa region. When Hanoch heard what had happened, he went to the place, found the people who had made the Jews' lives a nightmare, and then identified himself as a Jew. They began to beat him and Hanoch, who was tall and strong, hit them with his club. The Jews who had been abused joined in."
When Hanoch died, his wife kept the book. His nephew Fantahun Beru, who is 90 years old, lives in Ashdod. In Ethiopia, he would read the book on Shabbat and Jewish holidays.
"Grandfather's nephew was a genius and knew Ge'ez," says David. "Every Shabbat he would take out the book and read and explain to the family and residents of the village what it meant. I remember all this as if it were yesterday, and I know the book like the palm of my hand."
'We fled in the dead of night'
Years passed and tough times came. In the 1980s, civil war broke out in Ethiopia and the military junta placed restrictions on all the country's residents. From 1988-1990, thousands of Jews left villages in the north of the country, including Ayanawo, Getent, and David's families, who traveled to Addis Ababa to wait for permission to make aliyah. When the families were making their final preparations to leave the village, they were forced to leave the holy book behind.
"We really wanted to get to Addis Ababa, but at the time it was very difficult for the Jews of Ethiopia to take any property with them. Certainly not a book of that size," says David. "My uncle decided to give the book to Kebede, a friend of the family, a Christian, who he believed would take good care of it."
"We fled in the middle of the night," adds Ayanawo, "so no one would identify us as Jews. It was impossible to take books with us."
In 1991, the three cousins and their families made aliyah with Operation Solomon.
The years went by and the extended family settled in and branched out in Israel, securing work and celebrating marriages and births. But the family treasure was never forgotten.
"A few years after we made aliyah, we began thinking about the book. We were angry at ourselves for leaving it behind. We wondered whether it would be possible to bring it [to Israel]," says David. "There was an argument within the family because it was very painful for us to leave it behind. We were angry that we didn't bring something so important to the family with us, something that had passed from generation to generation. But there was nothing that could be done."
A few years ago, another cousin, Tefsahun Mulu Mashesha, decided to do something about it and went to Ethiopia. He went to the village of Onearve, but there he was bitterly disappointed. Kebede, the book's custodian, had died, and his sons and nephews refused to cooperate. They were evasive every time Tefsahun tried to find out about the book and refused to hand it over. When Tefsahun returned to Israel disappointed, another cousin, Gobeze Mulu Mashesha, attempted to get the book back, but he too was disappointed. It seemed the book was lost forever.
'African methods'
On a Getent's living room wall hangs a painting of an IDF soldier in uniform. The young man in the painting is Shai (Shigdav) Germai, Getent's younger brother, who was killed during a terrorist attack on the greenhouses of Tel Katifa in Gush Katif in 2002.
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Askevo Mashesha Rada, Getent's mother, is not well. When she asked Ayanawo to try again to locate the book, he agreed. Askevo remembers how he managed to bring his aunt for internment in Israel and knew that if anyone could get the lost book back for the family, it was Ayanawo.
"A few months ago, Getent's mother told me she can't sleep, that she feels that her roots have been severed and that we have to help her," says Ayanawo. "Ever since Shai was killed, she hasn't been happy, and now she isn't well, so I felt that I had to do this. I wanted to reawaken her joy. I knew she was asking me to do this for a reason."
"Askevo said to me that if we managed to bring back the book, for her it would be as if she could feel her father anew," says David.
Ayanawo approached Getent and David and brought them on board, then reached out to the fixers who had helped him on his previous trip to Ethiopia and began to work connections to try and get the mission going. In March 2022, the three cousins were on their way.
"When we arrived in Ethiopia, we tried to find a thread," says Getent. "We knew more or less in which region the book was located. But we had no idea where it had ended up. We knew who had taken the book and who that person's descendants were. It's true that they denied they knew where the book was, but we were confident we would convince them."
The three went from village to village along country roads. In some villages, the roads were completely unpassable. Not daring to enter the villages themselves, they would send their fixer on by motorbike.
"The situation there is very unstable," says David. "The locals look for people who have money, and if they see that you're well-dressed and find out that you're from overseas, it could be dangerous. They could try and rob you or even murder you."
In the end, the breakthrough came from Kebede's son, the one who had refused come hell or high water to tell them where the book was.
"The people that helped us took him to the town of Infriz, where they held several secret meetings to persuade him to reveal the location of the book," they say.
It's difficult to describe Infriz as a town. It has some 9,000 residents, a few mosques and churches, schools and shops, and serves as a regional hub for the villages in the area. Even though most of the streets in Infriz aren't paved, it's where the villagers do their shopping. The town has a long Jewish history. It was one of the places where the Beta Israel first settled and it was part of the Kingdom of Gideon. From the 16th century, the Christians ruled the area, to the 17th century, it was home to the town of Guzara, where Emperor Sarsa Dengel had his royal palace.
"You have to understand how Africa works," explains Ayanawo. "We sent people to Kebede's son, but at first he didn't want to reveal the location of the book. Our people invited him to a restaurant. They gave him food and alcohol so it was easier to get information out of him."
Twice the cousins tried to persuade Kebede's son to reveal the location of the book, and he refused. The third time, he cracked. "For the first time in decades, we knew where the book was," says Ayanawo.
The three found out that after Kebede had died, the book ended up in the hands of a priest at a local church in a village by the name of Bu-la. The fixer went to the village and put out feelers. The cousins received pictures of the book from the priest, their first sight of it in 34 years. The book was in bad condition.
"It had been thrown on the floor somewhere in a corner of the church. It was falling apart. They didn't care about it at all," says Getent.
"The pages were torn. It wasn't at all in a good state. But I recognized it straight away," says David.
Despite the good news, there was still a long way to go before they could rescue it. They had to overcome the challenges and flexibility of African laws, as well as paying out a lot of money.
"The local priest demanded lots of money from us at first," says Ayanawo. "In order to try and recover the book without paying we consulted with a lawyer and checked whether we could demand that he give us the book. But the lawyer said we would have to have decisive proof that it was indeed the book [that belonged to the family]."
The cousins once again found themselves facing a dead end. "But then a miracle happened," says Ayanawo. While the priest who had the book was hesitating, his son got into trouble with the law. "He shot and wounded him and the authorities arrested the priest and demanded that he give up his son. We spotted an opportunity and sent our representatives to the prison. We suggested that we pay for bail and the bribe money, and he agreed."
The sum they paid in the end was much lower than what the priest had originally demanded. The three, who were in Addis Ababa, sent Ayanawo on a direct flight to Gondar. From there, he drove to the village to grab the opportunity.
Shortly after he arrived in the village, Ayanawo sent a video to the other cousins showing a document the priest had signed, authorizing the transfer of the book back to the family. The fixer handed it to him in a white bag and Ayanawo wrapped it in an Israeli flag.
A few hours after leaving Gondar, Ayanawo returned to Addis Ababa, holding the lost the family's lost treasure.
The cousins sent photos of the book to their aging uncle, Fentahun Bero, so he could confirm that it was indeed the lost book.
When confirmation arrived, they were overwhelmed with joy. "We were so excited, we celebrated with a bottle of champagne," recalls Getent. "All night we laughed and cried from emotion. We couldn't stop smiling. We were so happy. The book raised so many memories for me, how we as children would get together with our uncle and how he would read to us it was our connection to Judaism. Our connection to Yerusalem."
Q: Did you believe that you would succeed?
David: The truth is that it was very difficult for me to believe. It looked like mission impossible. It was such a difficult journey and it's unbelievable that we managed to do it.
A day after being reunited with the book in Addis Ababa, the cousins returned to Israel and rushed to give it to Askevo, Getent's mother. They only told Ayanawo's mother about the journey when it was over. |She didn't know that I had gone," says Ayanawo. "It was only when we returned to Israel that I called to tell her. She remained silent for several minutes and then burst out in tears of joy. She said something that I have never heard from her. 'I'm proud and happy that you are my son. You surprise me every time anew.'"
Ready for a new mission
The National Library of Israel suggested the book go on display at the library, but the family want to retain their tradition and use it to teach their children. The book is at Ayanawo's home. The family wants to restore it, which will cost tens of thousands and shekels, and eventually have it translated into into Amharic and Hebrew.
"We feel that a historic lost treasure has returned to us," says Ayanawo. "My 12-year-old son asked to hold the book. I gave it to him and I explained that his great-grandfather prayed with it. We want the community to continue the tradition of praying with the book, not for it to be in a museum. We want the next generations to understand that we are not Afro-Americans or Afro-Israelis, we are Jews and this book is eternal proof of that."
Ayanawo and his cousins don't plan to rest on their laurels. "A lot of books like these were taken by the Ethiopian church, which to this day tries to blur out the Jewish history of Ethiopia," they say. "We hope that the state or other organizations will task us with the mission to bring back more such books. And by doing so, maintain the Jewish identity of the members of the Ethiopian community here in Israel."
