The World - News from April 9, 1986
Ethiopian Jewish clerics married 15 Ethiopian couples in Tel Aviv, defying an injunction by Israeli rabbis that the brides and grooms immerse themselves in a ritual bath as a symbolic conversion to Judaism. The couples were among thousands brought out of their famine-stricken country in a large-scale airlift more than a year ago. The immigrants consider themselves to be authentic Jews, but many Orthodox rabbis in Israel maintain that they must reaffirm their faith before marriage. The rabbis also do not recognize the Ethiopians’ own spiritual leaders.
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