BREAKING NEWS

Ethiopian High Priest Kes Raphael Hadane passes away

Kes Raphael Hadane, the Liqa Kahenat (High Priest) of the Ethiopian Beta Israel community in Israel, passed away on Sunday night at the age of 97.
Hadane was born in Seqelt in the Bagmadar district in Ethiopia. He lost his mother at the age of three and his father at the age of ten and was raised by extended family.
He was educated for the priesthood as a child and, after finishing his studies, moved to the village of Ambober where he married and began serving as a priest.
In 1954, he began studying rabbinic Judaism and Hebrew at a Jewish Agency school in Asmara, Eritrea. In 1983, he and his family began the journey to make aliyah and arrived in Israel about a year later.