Hiphop Archive & Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research Harvard University, 104 Mount Auburn Street (3rd Floor), Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Black & Jewish, a Talk Series | Abrham Gebremichael: “Ethiopian Jewish Identity: A Journey through the Prism of Scientific Knowledge“
If you missed this event, here is a recording:
This talk introduces an article that investigates the relationship between knowledge and social reality. It discusses how these relations lead to identity formation. Explicitly, how science as a means of information to society in the modern world influences and shapes societies’ perception. The information or knowledge from these sources is not just facts but molds our social reality over many aspects of life and society’s perception of a minority group. This article focuses on a community called Ethiopian Jews who live in Israel. This community has lived in Israel since the 1980s and faces cultural, economic, racial, and social problems as a group and as individuals.
The article is qualitative and investigates scholarly literature since the 1980s written on the origin and originality of this community and used as the source. These research works are in genetics, medical science, and social studies in Israel and focused on this community. Therefore, the paper argues that these resources play a massive role in policymakers’ decision-making and justify the decisions. Second, the findings of this knowledge construct the community’s social identity in Israeli society through imposition. Hence, in summary, this paper attempts to analyze these means of knowledge attainment and see their contribution to the production of the current social identity of the community.
Abrham Yohannes Gebremichael
Bielefeld University, Germany
Center for Jewish Studies Stroock Fellow, 2023-2024
This event is co-sponsored by the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies and the the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research
