Discovered through Tel Aviv University initiative, sacred Ge’ez-language texts—central to Beta Israel religious life—preserved by Ethiopian-born kesim and represent earliest surviving examples of Orit tradition, long obscured from scholarly and public view
Sharon Kidon|01:31
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Two rare Orit manuscripts—sacred texts central to the liturgical and theological life of the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewish) community—have been identified as dating from the 15th century, making them the oldest extant examples of the Orit discovered to date. The find was made in the context of a traveling workshop operated by the Department of Biblical Studies at Tel Aviv University.
Prof. Dalit Rom-Shiloni, the founder and director of the program, explained that the term Orit—meaning “Torah”—derives from the classical Ethiopian language Ge’ez, itself drawing etymologically from the Aramaic “Orayta.” Ge’ez, a liturgical language no longer spoken conversationally, serves as the sacred tongue of both Ethiopian Christianity and the Beta Israel.
“The Orit texts,” Rom-Shiloni noted, “comprise the Torah and, subsequently, the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth. These eight books form the earliest and most sacred portion of the Ethiopian Biblical canon.” These manuscripts, written in Ge’ez script, are part of a manuscript tradition spanning centuries, but extant specimens from as early as the 15th century remain exceedingly rare.
“While the Ethiopian manuscript tradition is known from the 14th to the 20th century,” she continued, “surviving sacred texts from the 14th century are extremely few, and even those from the 15th century are scarce. What we have uncovered is that among the kesim—the religious leaders of Beta Israel—residing in various parts of Israel, there exist manuscripts preserved from the early and late 15th century. This had not been known to the scholarly world.”
A mission to preserve and study
The initiative’s name, roughly translating as “Catchers of Orit”, is drawn in parallel to a term employed by the prophet Jeremiah, who refers to scribes or priests as “those who grasp the Torah.” In this spirit, Rom-Shiloni coined “those who grasp the Orit” with the vision of forming a scholarly cohort composed of students from the Beta Israel community, alongside others, who would be trained in the textual, linguistic and exegetical traditions of these sacred writings.