We flowered in this generation, triumphantly

It may interest you to know, here on the second night of Hanukkah, that there is a group of people accepted as Jews who lived until recently in relative isolation in Ethiopia. These Ethiopian Jews are also known as Beta Israel, and most of them now live in Israel. There is much discussion about the origin of this community, but the most interesting possibility may be that they are descendants of the ancient Hebrew King Solomon and his lovah, the Queen of Sheba. There is also a rumor that they are the remnants of the Hebrew tribe of Dan.

In any event, they have a claim on as much of the history of Judaism as any group and arguably more on a direct line to King Solomon. This claim was not lost on King Halie Salessie I, said to be the last King of Ethiopia in a direct line from Solomon himself. In the middle part of the last century, Salessie talked about establishing a New Jerusalem in the Ethiopian town of Lalibela. This city would be a metaphorical Zion to counter the metaphorical Babylon represented by much of modernity, especially in those parts of the Western Hemisphere in which slavery once was predominant.

Descendants of former slaves in one of those areas, Jamaica, came to deify Halie Salessie as a new incarnation of the Messiah. They called him by his pre-regnal name: Ras Tafari. Their movement came to be known as Rastafari. The music most closely associated with this movement in general is reggae, and specifically the reggae music of Bob Marley. So that is how, many years later, you can find an orthodox Jew performing reggae tunes in memory of a Rastafarian.