All that changed in the late 20th century, however, when the Ethiopian Jewish community made Aliyah to the Land of Israel. The Ethiopian Jews arrived with a tradition that includes a holiday, Sigd, that falls every year on the 29th of Heshvan. And it’s not just an Ethiopian-Jewish holiday anymore: Israel’s Knesset legislated the “Sigd Law” in 2008, declaring the 29th of Heshvan to be a national holiday. So what’s Sigd all about?

In his book, From Sinai to Ethiopia: The Halakhic and Conceptual World of Ethiopian Jewry (2016), Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom explores the significance of Sigd. Regarding the date, Shalom notes that the 29th of Heshvan is fifty days after Yom Kippur, the 10th of Tishrei. The relationship between Yom Kippur and Sigd thus parallels the relationship between Pesach and Shabuot, which are also separated by fifty days. But the parallel isn’t only numerical. Shabuot is, in a sense, the completion of Pesach, as the freedom from Egypt finds its purpose in the acceptance of the Torah. Likewise, the process that is begun on Yom Kippur finds its completion on Sigd. How so? According to Shalom, Yom Kippur is geared towards personal repentance, while Sigd is geared towards communal repentance:

From the Ethiopian Jewish perspective, exile occurred because of societal breakdown, and return to the Land of Israel will only be possible when interpersonal relations are rectified:

In Ethiopia, this act of collective repentance was marked by various degrees of fasting during the day, and a festive, communal meal in the evening. The holiday was marked on a high hill which the community ascended and, from this elevated perspective, prayed in the direction of Jerusalem.

How was Sigd celebrated once the Ethiopian Jewish community began arriving en masse in the Holy Land in the 1980s? I asked Shalom this question, and he related that he had posed the same question to the first chief rabbi of the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel, R’ Yosef Hadane. Fascinatingly, R’Hadane reported that the Ethiopian Jewish community wasn’t initially sure if they should continue to mark the holiday at all. One half of the community didn’t see any reason for continuing to observe Sigd now that the Ethiopian Jews were in Israel, while the other half argued that, absent a Temple in Jerusalem, the holiday should continue to be marked by praying in the direction of the Temple Mount instead of simply turning to Jerusalem.  The second view carried the day, but here, too, there was a dispute: the Amharic-speaking Ethiopian Jews chose to observe Sigd by looking out onto the Temple Mount from the Armon HaNatziv promenade in the city’s south, while the Tigri-speaking Ethiopian Kessim (Priests) chose to go to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City. The custom of observing Sigd from Armon HaNatziv became the norm, and each year various dignitaries, including the Israeli Prime Minister and President, arrive at the lookout and partake in the annual observance. That said, some Ethiopian Jews still travel to the Western Wall on Sigd as part of the day’s ritual observances. 

But the present-day significance of Sigd isn’t exhausted by its emphasis on communal repentance, the remembrance of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, or the transformation of Heshvan from a bitter to a sweet month. Sigd is also important for its role in animating the resilience of the Ethiopian Jewish community.

Compounding these challenges, the authenticity of the Ethiopian Jewish tradition isn’t fully recognized by the Israeli rabbinate. It’s a strange situation. While Ethiopians are recognized as Jews, the rabbinate has always assumed that Ethiopian Jews will cast aside their Ethiopian Jewish traditions, many of which differ radically from mainstream rabbinic practice, and assimilate themselves to existing rabbinic traditions, for instance, the Sephardi way as taught by R’Ovadia Yosef. Israel’s President and Prime Minister celebrate Sigd together with the Ethiopian Jewish community, but, significantly, Israel’s chief rabbis don’t. In practice, while many Ethiopian Israeli youth have become alienated from their Ethiopian Jewish traditions, they haven’t adopted other Jewish traditions in their place. And lacking a strong sense of Jewish identity, young Ethiopian Israelis are increasingly filling the vacuum by seeing themselves first and foremost as black.

Shalom received his ordination from the Israeli rabbinate, but he nevertheless insists that the key to giving Ethiopian Jews the power to view themselves as full participants in the grand sweep of Jewish history and full citizens of the Jewish state lies in recognizing the authenticity of the Ethiopian Jewish tradition. So long as the authenticity of that tradition is doubted, however, Ethiopian Jews will inevitably drift into viewing themselves less as Jews and more through the limiting lens of skin color. What’s more, once the self-perception of Ethiopian Israelis becomes primarily a function of skin color, demagogues and ideologues of various stripes will capitalize upon Ethiopian Israelis’ difficulties in order to advance politics of division within the Jewish state. The Aliyah of Ethiopian Jewry was inspired by the traditional belief that, “All Jews are responsible for one another.” Once the politics of division gains the upper hand, however, the name of the game becomes, “The oppressors versus the oppressed.” And in that upside-down game, victimization confers prestige.

It is within this larger context that, according to Shalom, we can appreciate the contemporary significance of Sigd. This traditional Ethiopian holiday is so important because it reaffirms the Jewish dimension of the Ethiopian Israeli identity for Ethiopian Jews themselves. By seeing themselves primarily as Jews, irrespective of how they are perceived by others, Ethiopian Israelis can find the inner strength to triumph over the challenges they face in integrating into the Jewish state. Of course, what’s true for Ethiopian Jews in miniature is also true for the Jewish People as a whole. A strong identity, or inner compass, creates the inner strength to see oneself as a capable agent, and not as a passive victim.  In this sense, the particularly Ethiopian message of Sigd resonates today with Jews around the world.

Hag Sigd Sameach!
The American Sephardi Federation