Sigd

by: Schvach Yid

Oops! I missed it by eight days. Sigd falls on the 29^th day of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan. And what is Sigd? Sigd is the national holiday of Ethiopian Jews, where, in Ethiopia, worshippers gather on mountaintops to pray and fast for their speedy return to Mt. Zion – Jerusalem; in Israel, members of the Ethiopian Jewish community travel to Jerusalem for this annual observance.

Sigd means prostration in Amharic, the secular language of Ethiopia (its alphabet has 260 characters – and I thought Hebrew was tough). Gez is the Ethiopian Jewish religious language.

The Jewish Ethiopian community in Israel is in the process of establishing official recognition of Sigd as a formal holiday in Israel. One Jewish Ethiopian youth remarked, ‘We are very proud of our culture’. And why shouldn’t they be?

For those who are interested, here are some links:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/94305

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/649

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/116126

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380770992&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

This is the stuff for which Michael Freund and his organization Shavei Israel live. One year I’ll manage to remember the date and show up in Israel for the fest.