“The Question of Jewish Identity and Ethiopian Jewish Origins,” by Ephraim Isaac, Ph.DWorld Jewry can ill afford to divide itself into first- and second-class Jews. Xenophobia distracts us from recognizing that the mass aliyah of Ethiopian Jews to Israel was one of the most remarkable events in Jewish history. Doubts cast on the authenticity of Ethiopian Jewry do not hold up under scholarly inquiry. Ethiopian Jews are not Ethiopians or Jewish but Ethiopian and Jewish. Ethiopian Judaism has preserved some lost ancient religious practices. The fact that Ethiopian Jews speak Amharic and Tigrinya is no more unusual than that European Jews spoke and speak European languages. If the origins of some European Jewish groups were subjected to the same level of scrutiny as those of Ethiopian Jews, their authenticity too might be cast into doubt. There is far more that unites Ethiopian Jewry than divides them from other Jewish ethnic groups.