The Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews) have a unique history and religious tradition, one of the most fascinating aspects of which are the mäloksočč, commonly referred to as monks in scholarly and popular literature. The mäloksočč served as the supreme religious leaders of the Betä Ǝsraʾel and were charged with educating and initiating Betä Ǝsraʾel priests. They lived in separate compounds and observed severe purity laws prohibiting physical contact with the laity. Thus, they are the only known example in medieval and modern Jewry of ascetic communities withdrawing from the secular world and devoting themselves fully to religious life.

This book presents the results of the first comprehensive research ever conducted on the way of life and material culture of the ascetic religious communities of the Betä Ǝsraʾel. A major part of this research is an archaeological survey, during which these religious centres were located and documented in detail for the first time.

Medieval and early modern Jews usually lived as a minority under non-Jewish rule, but there are a few known cases of independent or autonomous Jewish polities. One of the most intriguing is the autonomous Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews) in the Sǝmen Mountains of Ethiopia.

Betä Ǝsraʾel oral tradition refers to this polity as the “Kingdom of the Gideonites.” From the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, the Betä Ǝsraʾel of the Sǝmen and its surroundings were involved in a series of wars against the Christian Solomonic kingdom, until finally being subdued in the late 1620s.

Based, in part, on the archaeological survey of Betä Ǝsra’el monastic sites, this book examines not only textual and oral accounts, but also the historical geography of the Betä Ǝsraʾel polity and its strongholds. It also discusses the commemoration of these wars in later times and their impact on the development of religious sites.

This book demonstrates the potential of material culture, including artworks and archaeological finds, to shed new light on Jewish-Christian interaction in medieval and early modern times. Previous studies have focused on areas where Jews lived as a minority under Christian rule, such as in Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire. This book, on the other hand, explores the eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia, the Red Sea and India, where Jews and Christians interacted on a different footing.