Religionשרון שלום

Sharon Z. Shalom

Sharon Shalom is an Israeli rabbi, lecturer and author, born in Ethiopia, who leads a community in Kiryat Gat and heads a chair for Ethiopian Jewish studies at Ono Academic College.

born 1973Rabbi of a Kiryat Gat communityThe book From Sinai to EthiopiaEthiopian Jewish studies at Ono

Born: 13 August 1973, Ethiopia
Occupation: rabbi
Education: Yeshivat Har Etzion, Michlalah Jerusalem College

Sharon Z. Shalom was born in 1973 in Ethiopia

Shalom was born in 1973 as Zaude Tesfay in a small Jewish village in northern Ethiopia. He was the eldest of 5 children in a farming family. As a boy he once set out for Jerusalem with a friend, but they got lost and went home.

In 1981 his family began the journey to Israel and walked to a refugee camp in Sudan. His parents later sent him ahead with his uncle, and he reached Israel by sea in Operation Brothers. In Israel he was wrongly told that his parents had died, but they arrived later and the family settled in Or Akiva and then Kiryat Gat.

He served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces. He then studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion under Aharon Lichtenstein and Yehuda Amital, and was ordained as a rabbi in 2001. He went on to a doctorate in Jewish philosophy at Bar-Ilan University.

Shalom is rabbi of the Kedoshei Yisrael community in Kiryat Gat and lectures at Ono Academic College and Bar-Ilan University. In 2012 he published From Sinai to Ethiopia, which tried to bridge Beta Israel tradition and rabbinic law. Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar issued a letter forbidding its rulings, and some Ethiopian-born rabbis also opposed it.

He published Dialogues of Love and Fear in 2021. He lives in Kiryat Gat with his wife Avital, a Swiss-born social worker, and their 5 children.