Interview with Ethiopian Chief Rabbi on History of Sigd

Interviews from the Sigd festival at the Tayelet promenade in Jerusalem on the Jewish Ethiopian community and its traditions.

Featuring:

• Ethiopian Chief Rabbi Yosef Hadane

• Chief Kes Raphael Hadane

• Shoshana Ben-Dor, Israel director of the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry

• Lior, an assistant to researcher Dr. Yossi Ziv, author of Festival and Holiday in the Ethiopian Jewish Tradition of Beta Israel

• Dr. Avraham Neguise of the South Wing to Zion organization

• Aviv Melese, musician and author of Circles of Life – From Ethiopia to Israel

• Yehiel Yisrael of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews on his experiences in Sudan in the 1980s rescuing refugees

These interviews were conducted years ago and I am happy to re-upload them as a historic record.

Also check out my previous podcast: Ethiopian Aliyah – the Struggle to Immigrate to Israel

Chief Rabbi Yosef Hadane (left) with his father Rafael Hadane (right) at Sigd in Jerusalem, 2012. Credit: Ben Bresky

Shoshana Ben-Dor, Israel director of the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry teaches Gez. Credit: Ben Bresky

Aviv Melese plays a masenqo. Photo credit: Ben Bresky

Dr. Avraham Neguisse in Jerusalem at Sigd, 2010. Credit: Ben Bresky

Prayer books in Hebrew and Ge’ez at the Haas Promenade in Jerusalem on Sigd, overlooking the Old City walls and Temple Mount, November 2017. Photo credit: Ben Bresky