Are Ethiopians the original Jews?

The original Jews, for obvious reasons, are long dead. No one is that old. But if you mean if the ANcient Hebrews were actually Ethiopians, no. Ethiopians were late converts to Judaism (some of them kept the religion and even moved to Israel). The original Jews had many descendants, amongst them modern Jews. Modern Jews descend from ancient Hebrews. read more

Ethiopian Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Beta Israel communities of Ethiopia, who now reside in Israel. Most of the community made aliyah from Ethiopia to Israel in two waves of mass immigration assisted by the Israeli government: Operation Moses (1984) and Operation Solomon (1991). read more

The theory essentially holds the Ethiopian Jews to be the descendants of indigenous non-Jewish Ethiopians, and their belief in ancient Jewish descent to be just a matter of myth and legend. Proponents of the theory have been praised for being "thought-provoking" (Waldron, 1993) and for "demythologizing" (Gerhart, 1993) the history of the group. read more