Sigdסִגְד

For centuries the Beta Israel lived in northern Ethiopia, separated from rabbinic Judaism, and developed their own liturgy in the Ge’ez language and their own festivals. Sigd is the most distinctively their own of these festivals.¹

The community links the festival with the assembly at which Ezra read the Torah to the people, and with the public confession of sins and renewal of the covenant.^2,3

Since the mass aliyah of the 1980s and 1990s (Operations Moses and Solomon) it has been celebrated in Israel; in 2008 the Knesset enacted it as a national holiday.

Sigd expresses the acceptance of the Torah, repentance and longing for Zion. The date, fifty days after Yom Kippur, is often interpreted as a parallel to the fifty days between Passover and Shavuot.

In Israel the festival is also an expression of the identity and pride of the Ethiopian community and an occasion to remember those who died on the journey to Israel through Sudan.

The faithful fast and, dressed in white, climb to a high place where the kessim carry and read the Orit, recite prayers and lead repentance. In Jerusalem the gathering is held today on the Armon HaNatziv promenade overlooking the Old City.

According to the tradition of the community, the fast is kept until the afternoon, followed by a joyful feast, dancing and singing.

The prayers are sung in Ge’ez and Amharic, now also supplemented by Hebrew texts; passages from the Orit are read, especially those about the covenant and the commandments.

White garments, the colorful umbrellas of the kessim, and volumes of the Orit carried on the head in cloth wrappings.

After the fast, traditional Ethiopian dishes are eaten, such as dabo bread and injera flatbread.

Sigd is the festival of the Beta Israel community; in recent years it has also been celebrated in Israel by the wider public, schools and some non-Ethiopian communities.

No celebrations of Sigd are documented in the Czech setting.