By Daniella Lurion, Tour for Humanity Director

Strand A: Heritage and Identity: Communities in Canada, Past and Present

A3.7: Experiences and contributions of Jewish communities and the impact of antisemitism on these communities, including some of the ways they have contributed to Canada.

Spotlight: Yaffa Tegegne and Beta Israel (Montreal’s Ethiopian Jewish Community)

Ethiopia has been home to a Jewish Diaspora group for thousands of years. The Beta Israel (or Ethiopian Jews) lived primarily in the modern-day Tigray and Amhara regions, spread out over 500 villages of predominantly Christian and Muslim populations. Isolated from other Jewish communities worldwide, the Beta Israel developed their own religious practices and rituals, only making contact with other Jewish communities in the 20th century.

The Beta Israel faced significant persecution when the Ethiopian government banned Judaism in the 1980s. Many chose this moment to emigrate from their homeland, migrating to countries around the world. Through the late 1970s and well into the 1990s, Israel launched a series of rescue missions from Ethiopia to help the Beta Israel. Today, more than 130,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel, with only a few thousand remaining in Ethiopia. There is also a small but vibrant community in Montreal.  

Human rights advocate and community leader, Yaffa Tegegne, is a proud member of the Montreal community. Her father, Baruch Tegegne, was among the first Ethiopian Jews to arrive in Israel in 1956. Yaffa’s parents met in Israel but after facing discrimination as an interracial couple, they relocated to her mother’s hometown of Montreal, where Yaffa was born. Today, Montreal’s Beta Israel largely worship alongside the broader Jewish population while also meeting separately to preserve their distinct traditions and as Yaffa has said: “To preserve a sense of culture and identity for our children.” Each year, the Beta Israel in Montreal hold an “Ethiopian Shabbat” on the anniversary of the Israeli rescue missions.

For more information:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/who-are-the-ethiopian-jews

https://www.mcgill.ca/morsl/article/black-history-month-montreals-ethiopian-jewish-community

https://www.yaffategegne.com/