Mirrors and Magnets: The Leveraging of "White Falasha" in the Construction of Religious Identity

I am a “White Falasha.” (Robert Hess, Introduction to Stern, Wanderings among the Falashas in Abyssinia, xxii). In the 1860s, two individuals—Henry Aaron Stern, a Protestant missionary, and Joseph Halevy, a French Orientalist scholar—arrived in Ethiopia at separate times, identifying themselves as a “White Falasha.” Each endeavored to dictate what Jewishness should mean for the Beta Israel—one through Christian conversion, the other through rabbinic reversion. 

Stern, a German-Jew who converted to Protestant Christianity, was sent to Ethiopia in the early 1860s by the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews (LSPCJ/CMJ) in order to continue the work of earlier missionaries who sought to convert the historic Beta Israel community (more commonly known today as Ethiopian Jews) to Christianity. Unlike his predecessors, Stern’s position as a Jewish convert was unique. By identifying himself as a “White Falasha,” Stern posited that Christianity, specifically Protestantism, was a natural byproduct and subsequent fulfillment of one’s Jewish identity (Henry Aaron Stern, Wanderings among the Falashas in Abyssinia; together with a description of the country and its various inhabitants).

In 1867, less than a decade later, French-Jewish Orientalist scholar Joseph Halevy employed the same label—“White Falasha”—to establish his own authority among the Beta Israel (Rachel Baron-Bloch, The Racial Politics of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, 127). Seeking to counter missionary efforts like Stern’s, Halevy positioned himself within the Beta Israel community (many of whom were now Falash Mura**) as a Jewish reversionist guide, framing Eurocentric Rabbinic Judaism as the normative faith tradition they were meant to embrace (Baron-Bloch, The Racial Politics, 129). While both figures deployed the same term to shape Jewish identity among the Beta Israel, their goals were diametrically opposed.

Henry Aaron Stern sought to integrate the Beta Israel into Christianity, arguing that Protestantism represented the true spiritual fulfillment of ancient Jewish practice. His position as a Jewish convert, symbolized by the term “White Falasha,” functioned as a lens through which the Beta Israel could recast their Jewish identity within the rhetoric of religious conversion. Conversely, Joseph Halevy appropriated the same phrase in an attempt to reinstate Jewish identity according to his own scholarly authority. In an effort to combat earlier missionary efforts, Halevy argued for a “return” to Rabbinic Jewish identity, placing Ethiopian Jewish religious practices, traditions, and culture within a Eurocentric framework (Steven Kaplan, Can the Ethiopian Change His Skin? The Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews) and Racial Discourse, 545, 42n).

This paper aims to explore how Protestant missionary Henry Aaron Stern and French-Jewish scholar Joseph Halevy both utilized their Jewish identities to leverage religious dominance among the Beta Israel. By analyzing both individuals’ use of the term “White Falasha” as a form of introduction and engagement with the larger Beta Israel community, I aim to show how their European Jewish identities were used as a form of theological manipulation to serve their respective religious agendas. In both cases, Stern and Halevy’s embracing of the term “Falasha” in conjunction with “white” reflects racialized assumptions about Jewishness while underscoring the ways in which religious identity was used to subvert ethnic and religious autonomy.

This study employs a comparative analysis of primary sources, including the reports, correspondence, and publications of Stern and Halevy, alongside other missionary sources. Utilizing historical and theological frameworks, I argue that both individuals functioned as arbiters of Jewish “legitimacy,” reinforcing Eurocentric views of Jewish identity and positioning themselves as mediators of religious transformation. By placing these two figures in conversation, this paper interrupts reductionist dualisms of coercion and volition in religious conversion. Rather than presuming the Beta Israel’s religious decisions were entirely voluntary or entirely coercive, both in their attraction towards Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, this research problematizes the intersection of racial identity, religious authority, and theological persuasion in the construction of conversion processes.

**The Falash Mura are descendants of the historic Beta Israel community who were forced or chose to convert to Christianity in the 19th and early 20th centuries.