Similarly, the Falashas nowadays prefer to call themselves “Ethiopian Jews” rather than Beta Israel, a name that linked them to Ethiopia’s Israelite (Solomonic) heritage, or Falasha, a term strongly rejected by them as derogatory. As Kaplan claims, “far more significant than their abandonment of the (in Ethiopian terms) positive appellation of “Beta Israel” is their willingness to embrace the hitherto negative label of “Jew.” In their choice of names, as in their selection of origin stories, Kaplan concludes, “we find a vivid testimony to the new identity they have begun to assume.”
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— Daniel Summerfield
“From Falashas to Ethiopian Jews: The External Influences for Change C.1860-1960”
Hebrew Ethiopianism
