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75-724: The operation, named after the biblical figure Moses , was a cooperative effort between the Israel Defense Forces , the Central Intelligence Agency , the United States embassy in Khartoum , mercenaries , and Sudanese state security forces. Years after the operation completed, it was revealed that Sudanese Muslims and the secret police of Sudan also played a role in facilitating the mass migration of Ethiopian Jews out of Sudan. Operation Moses

150-481: A theophoric name with the god’s name omitted. The suffix mose appears in Egyptian pharaohs’ names like Thutmose ('born of Thoth ') and Ramose ('born of Ra '). One of the Egyptian names of Ramesses was Ra-mesesu mari-Amon , meaning “born of Ra, beloved of Amon” (he was also called Usermaatre Setepenre , meaning “Keeper of light and harmony, strong in light, elect of Re”). Linguist Abraham Yahuda , based on

225-508: A Greek historian, geographer and philosopher, in his Geographica (c. 24 CE), wrote in detail about Moses, whom he considered to be an Egyptian who deplored the situation in his homeland, and thereby attracted many followers who respected the deity. He writes, for example, that Moses opposed the picturing of the deity in the form of man or animal, and was convinced that the deity was an entity which encompassed everything – land and sea: 35. An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed

300-533: A clear image. His primary work, wherein he describes Jewish philosophy , is his Histories ( c.  100 ), where, according to 18th-century translator and Irish dramatist Arthur Murphy , as a result of the Jewish worship of one God, " pagan mythology fell into contempt". Tacitus states that, despite various opinions current in his day regarding the Jews' ethnicity, most of his sources are in agreement that there

375-413: A familiar motif in ancient Near Eastern mythological accounts of the ruler who rises from humble origins. For example, in the account of the origin of Sargon of Akkad (23rd century BCE): My mother, the high priestess, conceived; in secret she bore me She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid She cast me into the river which rose over me. Moses' story, like those of

450-685: A historical Moses-like figure include the princes Ahmose-ankh and Ramose , who were sons of pharaoh Ahmose I , or a figure associated with the family of pharaoh Thutmose III . Israel Knohl has proposed to identify Moses with Irsu , a Shasu who, according to Papyrus Harris I and the Elephantine Stele, took power in Egypt with the support of "Asiatics" (people from the Levant ) after the death of Queen Twosret ; after coming to power, Irsu and his supporters disrupted Egyptian rituals, "treating

525-399: A military expedition to Ethiopia , where he won great victories. After having built the city of Hermopolis , he taught the people the value of the ibis as a protection against the serpents, making the bird the sacred guardian spirit of the city; then he introduced circumcision . After his return to Memphis , Moses taught the people the value of oxen for agriculture, and the consecration of

600-487: A number of US government buildings. In the medieval and Renaissance period, he is frequently shown as having small horns , as the result of a mistranslation in the Latin Vulgate bible, which nevertheless at times could reflect Christian ambivalence or have overtly antisemitic connotations. The Egyptian root msy ('child of') or mose has been considered as a possible etymology, arguably an abbreviation of

675-669: A portion of the country called the Lower Egypt , being dissatisfied with the established institutions there, left it and came to Judaea with a large body of people who worshipped the Divinity. He declared and taught that the Egyptians and Africans entertained erroneous sentiments, in representing the Divinity under the likeness of wild beasts and cattle of the field; that the Greeks also were in error in making images of their gods after

750-435: A reference to Cicero , Moses is the only non-Greek writer quoted in the work; contextually he is put on a par with Homer and he is described "with far more admiration than even Greek writers who treated Moses with respect, such as Hecataeus and Strabo ". In Josephus ' (37 – c. 100 CE) Antiquities of the Jews , Moses is mentioned throughout. For example, Book VIII Ch. IV, describes Solomon's Temple , also known as

825-461: A rod, in remembrance of that used for Moses' miracles. He describes Moses as 80 years old, "tall and ruddy, with long white hair, and dignified". Some historians, however, point out the " apologetic nature of much of Artapanus' work", with his addition of extra-biblical details, such as his references to Jethro: the non-Jewish Jethro expresses admiration for Moses' gallantry in helping his daughters, and chooses to adopt Moses as his son. Strabo ,

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900-467: Is associated with narratives of an exodus and a conquest, and several motifs in stories about him are shared with the Exodus tale and that regarding Israel's war with Moab ( 2 Kings 3 ). Moab rebels against oppression, like Moses, leads his people out of Israel, as Moses does from Egypt, and his first-born son is slaughtered at the wall of Kir-hareseth as the firstborn of Israel are condemned to slaughter in

975-648: Is mentioned in ancient Egyptian literature . In the writing of Jewish historian Josephus , ancient Egyptian historian Manetho is quoted writing of a treasonous ancient Egyptian priest, Osarseph , who renamed himself Moses and led a successful coup against the presiding pharaoh , subsequently ruling Egypt for years until the pharaoh regained power and expelled Osarseph and his supporters. Moses has often been portrayed in Christian art and literature, for instance in Michelangelo's Moses and in works at

1050-544: Is no textual indication that this daughter of Pharaoh is the same one who named Moses. Ibn Ezra gave two possibilities for the name of Moses: he believed that it was either a translation of the Egyptian name instead of a transliteration or that the Pharaoh's daughter was able to speak Hebrew. Kenneth Kitchen argues that the Hebrew etymology is most likely correct, as the sounds in the Hebrew m-š-h do not correspond to

1125-625: Is the high honour in which it holds the peoples of the East in general and some specific groups among these peoples." In addition to the Judeo-Roman or Judeo-Hellenic historians Artapanus , Eupolemus , Josephus , and Philo , a few non-Jewish historians including Hecataeus of Abdera (quoted by Diodorus Siculus ), Alexander Polyhistor , Manetho , Apion , Chaeremon of Alexandria , Tacitus and Porphyry also make reference to him. The extent to which any of these accounts rely on earlier sources

1200-483: Is unknown, but it is commonly assigned to the late 1st century C.E. The writer quotes Genesis in a "style which presents the nature of the deity in a manner suitable to his pure and great being", but he does not mention Moses by name, calling him 'no chance person' ( οὐχ ὁ τυχὼν ἀνήρ ) but "the Lawgiver" ( θεσμοθέτης , thesmothete ) of the Jews, a term that puts him on a par with Lycurgus and Minos . Aside from

1275-635: Is unknown. Moses also appears in other religious texts such as the Mishnah (c. 200 CE) and the Midrash (200–1200 CE). The figure of Osarseph in Hellenistic historiography is a renegade Egyptian priest who leads an army of lepers against the pharaoh and is finally expelled from Egypt, changing his name to Moses. The earliest existing reference to Moses in Greek literature occurs in

1350-654: The Book of Deuteronomy another. Moses has traditionally been regarded as the author of those four books and the Book of Genesis , which together comprise the Torah , the first section of the Hebrew Bible . Scholars hold different opinions on the historicity of Moses. For instance, according to William G. Dever , the modern scholarly consensus is that the biblical person of Moses is largely mythical while also holding that "a Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in

1425-1000: The Interior Ministry . In April 2016, they announced that a total of 10,300 people would be included in the latest round of Aliyah, over the following 5 years. On March 11, 2021, 300 Ethiopian Jews went to Israel–the last of 2,000 Jews from Operation Tzur Israel which began in December 2020. In 2021, the estimated number of Jews remaining in Ethiopia was about 100. On 2 February 2022 the Israeli Supreme Court suspended Aliyah from Ethiopia. On 1 June 2022 180 Jews from Ethiopia made Aliyah to Israel as part of Operation Zur Israel to reunite 3,000 Jews in Ethiopia with their brethren in Israel. As of 14 June 2022 500 Jews from Ethiopia made Aliyah to Israel. This operation

1500-531: The Israeli cabinet approved a plan to allow an additional 8,000 Falash Mura to immigrate to Israel. In 2015 it was reported the number of Jews in Ethiopia was 4,000. On November 16, 2015, the Israeli cabinet unanimously voted in favor of allowing the last group of Falash Mura to immigrate over the next five years, but their acceptance would be conditional on a successful Jewish conversion process, according to

1575-452: The Jewish religion or took a tip from Jochebed (Moses' mother). The Egyptian princess who named Moses is not named in the book of Exodus. However, she was known to Josephus as Thermutis (identified as Tharmuth), and some within Jewish tradition have tried to identify her with a "daughter of Pharaoh" in 1 Chronicles 4:17 named Bithiah , but others note that this is unlikely since there

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1650-794: The Red Sea Crossing as a sign of his power to Israel and the nations. After defeating the Amalekites in Rephidim , Moses led the Israelites to Mount Sinai , where he was given the Ten Commandments from God, written on stone tablets . However, since Moses remained a long time on the mountain, some of the people feared that he might be dead, so they made a statue of a golden calf and worshipped it , thus disobeying and angering God and Moses. Moses, out of anger, broke

1725-476: The Torah . According to the Book of Exodus , Moses was born in a time when his people, the Israelites, an enslaved minority, were increasing in population and, as a result, the Egyptian Pharaoh worried that they might ally themselves with Egypt 's enemies. Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed , secretly hid him when Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of

1800-473: The 4th century BCE, long after he is believed to have lived. No contemporary Egyptian sources mention Moses, or the events of Exodus–Deuteronomy, nor has any archaeological evidence been discovered in Egypt or the Sinai wilderness to support the story in which he is the central figure. David Adams Leeming states that Moses is a mythic hero and the central figure in Hebrew mythology. The Oxford Companion to

1875-598: The Bible states that the historicity of Moses is the most reasonable (albeit not unbiased) assumption to be made about him as his absence would leave a vacuum that cannot be explained away. Oxford Biblical Studies states that although few modern scholars are willing to support the traditional view that Moses himself wrote the five books of the Torah , there are certainly those who regard the leadership of Moses as too firmly based in Israel's corporate memory to be dismissed as pious fiction . The story of Moses' discovery follows

1950-481: The Biblical story may reflect an attempt to cancel out traces of Moses' Egyptian origins . The Egyptian character of his name was recognized as such by ancient Jewish writers like Philo and Josephus . Philo linked Moses' name ( Ancient Greek : Μωϋσῆς , romanized :  Mōysēs , lit.   'Mōusês') to the Egyptian ( Coptic ) word for 'water' ( môu , μῶυ ), in reference to his finding in

2025-432: The Egyptian history of Hecataeus of Abdera (4th century BCE). All that remains of his description of Moses are two references made by Diodorus Siculus, wherein, writes historian Arthur Droge, he "describes Moses as a wise and courageous leader who left Egypt and colonized Judaea ". Among the many accomplishments described by Hecataeus, Moses had founded cities, established a temple and religious cult, and issued laws: After

2100-454: The Exile (i.e., in the first half of the 6th century BCE), testifies to tension between the people of Judah and the returning post-Exilic Jews (the " gôlâ "), stating that God is the father of Israel and that Israel's history begins with the Exodus and not with Abraham . The conclusion to be inferred from this and similar evidence (e.g., the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah ) is that

2175-689: The Exodus story, in what Calvinist theologian Peter Leithart described as "an infernal Passover that delivers Mesha while wrath burns against his enemies". An Egyptian version of the tale that crosses over with the Moses story is found in Manetho who, according to the summary in Josephus , wrote that a certain Osarseph , a Heliopolitan priest, became overseer of a band of lepers , when Amenophis , following indications by Amenhotep, son of Hapu , had all

2250-641: The First Temple, at the time the Ark of the Covenant was first moved into the newly built temple: Radu Mih%C4%83ileanu Radu Mihăileanu (born 23 April 1958) is a Romanian -born French film director and screenwriter . In addition to his work in cinema, he published a book of poems in 1987 titled Une vague en mal de mer . His film The Source premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival . This Romanian biographical article

2325-612: The Israelites. Through Pharaoh's daughter , the child was adopted as a foundling from the Nile and grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slave-master who was beating a Hebrew, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian , where he encountered the Angel of the Lord , speaking to him from within a burning bush on Mount Horeb . God sent Moses back to Egypt to demand

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2400-507: The Nile and the biblical folk etymology . Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews , claims that the second element, -esês , meant 'those who are saved'. The problem of how an Egyptian princess (who, according to the Biblical account found in the book of Exodus , gave him the name "Moses") could have known Hebrew puzzled medieval Jewish commentators like Abraham ibn Ezra and Hezekiah ben Manoah . Hezekiah suggested she either converted to

2475-538: The U.S.-led Operation Joshua . More than 1,000 so-called "orphans of circumstance" existed in Israel, children separated from their families still in Africa, until five years later Operation Solomon took 14,324 more Jews to Israel in 1991. Operation Solomon in 1991 cost Israel $ 26 million to pay off the dictator-led government, while Operation Moses had been the least expensive of all rescue operations undertaken by Israel to aid Jews in other countries. On 14 November 2010,

2550-514: The age of 120, within sight of the Promised Land . The majority of scholars see the biblical Moses as a legendary figure, while retaining the possibility that Moses or a Moses-like figure existed in the 13th century BCE. Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE; Jerome suggested 1592 BCE, and James Ussher suggested 1571 BCE as his birth year. The Egyptian name "Moses"

2625-454: The age of one hundred and twenty: So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows his burial place to this day. (Deuteronomy 34:5–6, Amplified Bible ) Moses is honoured among Jews today as the "lawgiver of Israel", and he delivers several sets of laws in

2700-448: The air transport by Trans European Airways of some 8,000 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan via Brussels to Israel , ending January 5, 1985. Over those seven weeks, over 30 flights brought about 200 Ethiopian Jews at a time to Israel. Trans European Airways had flown out of Sudan previously with Muslims making the pilgrimage to Mecca, so using TEA was a logical solution for this semi-covert operation because it would not provoke questions from

2775-455: The airport authorities. Before this operation, there were approximately as few as 250 Ethiopian immigrants in Israel. Thousands of Beta Israel had fled Ethiopia on foot for refugee camps in Sudan, a journey which usually took anywhere from two weeks to a month. It is estimated as many as 4,000 died during the trek, due to violence and illness along the way. Sudan secretly allowed Israel to evacuate

2850-485: The banks of the Jordan River , in sight of the land, Moses assembled the tribes . After recalling their wanderings, he delivered God's laws by which they must live in the land, sang a song of praise and pronounced a blessing on the people, and passed his authority to Joshua , under whom they would possess the land. Moses then went up Mount Nebo , looked over the Promised Land spread out before him, and died, at

2925-450: The book World War Z by Max Brooks, the evacuation of African Jews to Israel in response to the outbreak of the titular epidemic is referred to as Operation Moses II. The film The Red Sea Diving Resort is loosely based on the events of Operation Moses and Operation Joshua. 20°00′18″N 37°11′26″E  /  20.00500°N 37.19056°E  / 20.00500; 37.19056 Moses In Abrahamic religions , Moses

3000-573: The course of the four books. The first is the Covenant Code , the terms of the covenant which God offers to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. Embedded in the covenant are the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments , Exodus 20:1–17), and the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20:22–23:19). The entire Book of Leviticus constitutes a second body of law, the Book of Numbers begins with yet another set, and

3075-464: The decisive role he played in Israelite religion, and a third that argues there are elements of both history and legend from which "these issues are hotly debated unresolved matters among scholars". According to Brian Britt, there is divide amongst scholars when discussing matters on Moses that threatens gridlock. According to the official Torah commentary for Conservative Judaism, it is irrelevant if

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3150-693: The end of the Exodus journey had become the enemies of the Israelites due to their notorious role in enticing the Israelites to sin against God . Moses was twice given notice that he would die before entry to the Promised Land: in Numbers 27:13, once he had seen the Promised Land from a viewpoint on Mount Abarim , and again in Numbers 31:1 once battle with the Midianites had been won. On

3225-402: The establishment of settled life in Egypt in early times, which took place, according to the mythical account, in the period of the gods and heroes, the first ... to persuade the multitudes to use written laws was Mneves, a man not only great of soul but also in his life the most public-spirited of all lawgivers whose names are recorded. Droge also points out that this statement by Hecataeus

3300-421: The figure of Moses and the story of the Exodus must have been preeminent among the people of Judah at the time of the Exile and after, serving to support their claims to the land in opposition to those of the returning exiles. A theory developed by Cornelis Tiele in 1872, which has proved influential, argued that Yahweh was a Midianite god, introduced to the Israelites by Moses, whose father-in-law Jethro

3375-533: The first stage, including Moses and his direct heirs; to the final stage where "the Temple of Jerusalem continued to be surrounded by an aura of sanctity". Strabo's "positive and unequivocal appreciation of Moses' personality is among the most sympathetic in all ancient literature." His portrayal of Moses is said to be similar to the writing of Hecataeus who "described Moses as a man who excelled in wisdom and courage". Egyptologist Jan Assmann concludes that Strabo

3450-511: The five, originally independent, themes of that work. Manfred Görg  [ de ] and Rolf Krauss  [ de ] , the latter in a somewhat sensationalist manner, have suggested that the Moses story is a distortion or transmogrification of the historical pharaoh Amenmose ( c.  1200 BCE ), who was dismissed from office and whose name was later simplified to msy (Mose). Aidan Dodson regards this hypothesis as "intriguing, but beyond proof". Rudolf Smend argues that

3525-481: The gods like the people" and halting offerings to the Egyptian deities. They were eventually defeated and expelled by the new Pharaoh Setnakhte and, while fleeing, they abandoned large quantities of gold and silver they had stolen from the temples. Non-biblical writings about Jews, with references to the role of Moses, first appear at the beginning of the Hellenistic period , from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE. Shmuel notes that "a characteristic of this literature

3600-610: The guidance of the first being, by whose aid they should get out of their present plight. In this version, Moses and the Jews wander through the desert for only six days, capturing the Holy Land on the seventh. The Septuagint , the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, impressed the pagan author of the famous classical book of literary criticism, On the Sublime , traditionally attributed to Longinus . The date of composition

3675-431: The historical Moses existed, calling him "the folkloristic, national hero". Jan Assmann argues that it cannot be known if Moses ever lived because there are no traces of him outside tradition. Though the names of Moses and others in the biblical narratives are Egyptian and contain genuine Egyptian elements, no extrabiblical sources point clearly to Moses. No references to Moses appear in any Egyptian sources prior to

3750-424: The human form. For God [said he] may be this one thing which encompasses us all, land and sea, which we call heaven, or the universe, or the nature of things.... 36. By such doctrine Moses persuaded a large body of right-minded persons to accompany him to the place where Jerusalem now stands. In Strabo's writings of the history of Judaism as he understood it, he describes various stages in its development: from

3825-412: The journey, God tried to kill Moses for failing to circumcise his son, but Zipporah saved his life . Moses returned to carry out God's command, but God caused the Pharaoh to refuse, and only after God had subjected Egypt to ten plagues did Pharaoh relent. Moses led the Israelites to the border of Egypt, but their God hardened the Pharaoh's heart once more, so that he could destroy Pharaoh and his army at

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3900-575: The land. Later on, Korah was punished for leading a revolt against Moses. When the forty years had passed, Moses led the Israelites east around the Dead Sea to the territories of Edom and Moab . There they escaped the temptation of idolatry, conquered the lands of Og and Sihon in Transjordan , received God's blessing through Balaam the prophet, and massacred the Midianites , who by

3975-452: The land. The spies returned with samples of the land's fertility but warned that its inhabitants were giants . The people were afraid and wanted to return to Egypt, and some rebelled against Moses and against God. Moses told the Israelites that they were not worthy to inherit the land, and would wander the wilderness for forty years until the generation who had refused to enter Canaan had died, so that it would be their children who would possess

4050-592: The lepers in Egypt quarantined in order to cleanse the land so that he might see the gods. The lepers are bundled into Avaris , the former capital of the Hyksos , where Osarseph prescribes for them everything forbidden in Egypt, while proscribing everything permitted in Egypt. They invite the Hyksos to reinvade Egypt, rule with them for 13 years – Osarseph then assumes the name Moses – and are then driven out. Other Egyptian figures which have been postulated as candidates for

4125-433: The news began to reach their Arab allies. Once the story broke in the media, Arab countries pressured Sudan to stop the airlift. Although thousands made it successfully to Israel, many children died in the camps or during the flight to Israel, and it was reported that their parents brought their bodies down from the aircraft with them. Some 1,000 Ethiopian Jews were left behind, approximately 500 of whom were evacuated later in

4200-482: The other patriarchs , most likely had a substantial oral prehistory (he is mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Isaiah ). The earliest mention of him is vague, in the Book of Hosea and his name is apparently ancient, as the tradition found in Exodus gives it a folk etymology. Nevertheless, the Torah was completed by combining older traditional texts with newly-written ones. Isaiah , written during

4275-513: The priesthood under the sons of Moses' brother Aaron , and destroyed those Israelites who fell away from his worship. In his final act at Sinai, God gave Moses instructions for the Tabernacle , the mobile shrine by which he would travel with Israel to the Promised Land. From Sinai, Moses led the Israelites to the Desert of Paran on the border of Canaan. From there he sent twelve spies into

4350-514: The pronunciation of Egyptian msy in the relevant time period. The Israelites had settled in the Land of Goshen in the time of Joseph and Jacob , but a new Pharaoh arose who oppressed the children of Israel. At this time Moses was born to his father Amram , son (or descendant) of Kehath the Levite , who entered Egypt with Jacob's household; his mother was Jochebed (also Yocheved), who

4425-402: The refugees. Two days after the airlifts began, Jewish journalists wrote about “the mass rescue of thousands of Ethiopian Jews.” Operation Moses ended on Friday, January 5, 1985, after Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres held a press conference confirming the airlift while asking people not to talk about it. Sudan killed the airlift moments after Peres stopped speaking, ending it prematurely as

4500-604: The release of the Israelites from slavery. Moses said that he could not speak eloquently, so God allowed Aaron , his elder brother, to become his spokesperson. After the Ten Plagues , Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea , after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai , where Moses received the Ten Commandments . After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died on Mount Nebo at

4575-498: The same by Moses gave rise to the cult of Apis . Finally, after having escaped another plot by killing the assailant sent by the king, Moses fled to Arabia , where he married the daughter of Raguel [Jethro], the ruler of the district. Artapanus goes on to relate how Moses returns to Egypt with Aaron, and is imprisoned, but miraculously escapes through the name of YHWH in order to lead the Exodus. This account further testifies that all Egyptian temples of Isis thereafter contained

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4650-402: The southern Transjordan in the mid-late 13th century B.C." and that "archeology can do nothing" to prove or confirm either way. Some scholars, such as Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter, consider Moses a historical figure. According to Solomon Nigosian, there are actually three prevailing views among biblical scholars: one is that Moses is not a historical figure, another view strives to anchor

4725-591: The spelling given in the Tanakh , argues that it combines "water" or "seed" and "pond, expanse of water," thus yielding the sense of "child of the Nile " ( mw - š ). The biblical account of Moses' birth provides him with a folk etymology to explain the ostensible meaning of his name. He is said to have received it from the Pharaoh's daughter : "he became her son. She named him Moses [ מֹשֶׁה , Mōše ], saying, 'I drew him out [ מְשִׁיתִֽהוּ , mǝšīṯīhū ] of

4800-425: The tablets, and later ordered the elimination of those who had worshiped the golden statue, which was melted down and fed to the idolaters . God again wrote the ten commandments on a new set of tablets. Later at Mount Sinai , Moses and the elders entered into a covenant, by which Israel would become the people of YHWH, obeying his laws, and YHWH would be their god. Moses delivered the laws of God to Israel, instituted

4875-463: The two details about Moses that were most likely to be historical are his name, of Egyptian origin, and his marriage to a Midianite woman, details which seem unlikely to have been invented by the Israelites; in Smend's view, all other details given in the biblical narrative are too mythically charged to be seen as accurate data. The name King Mesha of Moab has been linked to that of Moses. Mesha also

4950-515: The water'." This explanation links it to the Semitic root משׁה , m-š-h , meaning "to draw out". The eleventh-century Tosafist Isaac b. Asher haLevi noted that the princess names him the active participle 'drawer-out' ( מֹשֶׁה , mōše ), not the passive participle 'drawn-out' ( נִמְשֶׁה , nīmše ), in effect prophesying that Moses would draw others out (of Egypt); this has been accepted by some scholars. The Hebrew etymology in

5025-790: Was a prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the Exodus . He is considered the most important prophet in Judaism and Samaritanism , and one of the most important prophets in Christianity , Islam , the Baháʼí Faith , and other Abrahamic religions . According to both the Bible and the Quran , God dictated the Mosaic Law to Moses, which he wrote down in the five books of

5100-449: Was a Midianite priest. It was to such a Moses that Yahweh reveals his real name, hidden from the Patriarchs who knew him only as El Shaddai . Against this view is the modern consensus that most of the Israelites were native to Palestine . Martin Noth argued that the Pentateuch uses the figure of Moses, originally linked to legends of a Transjordan conquest, as a narrative bracket or late redactional device to weld together four of

5175-439: Was an Exodus from Egypt. By his account, the Pharaoh Bocchoris , suffering from a plague , banished the Jews in response to an oracle of the god Zeus - Amun . A motley crowd was thus collected and abandoned in the desert. While all the other outcasts lay idly lamenting, one of them, named Moses, advised them not to look for help to gods or men, since both had deserted them, but to trust rather in themselves, and accept as divine

5250-435: Was beating a Hebrew. Moses, in order to escape Pharaoh's death penalty , fled to Midian (a desert country south of Judah), where he married Zipporah . There, on Mount Horeb , God appeared to Moses as a burning bush , revealed to Moses his name YHWH (probably pronounced Yahweh ) and commanded him to return to Egypt and bring his chosen people (Israel) out of bondage and into the Promised Land ( Canaan ). During

5325-484: Was kin to Kehath. Moses had one older (by seven years) sister, Miriam , and one older (by three years) brother, Aaron . Pharaoh had commanded that all male Hebrew children born would be drowned in the river Nile , but Moses' mother placed him in an ark and concealed the ark in the bulrushes by the riverbank, where the baby was discovered and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter , and raised as an Egyptian. One day, after Moses had reached adulthood, he killed an Egyptian who

5400-549: Was similar to statements made subsequently by Eupolemus. The Jewish historian Artapanus of Alexandria (2nd century BCE) portrayed Moses as a cultural hero, alien to the Pharaonic court. According to theologian John Barclay, the Moses of Artapanus "clearly bears the destiny of the Jews, and in his personal, cultural and military splendor, brings credit to the whole Jewish people". Jealousy of Moses' excellent qualities induced Chenephres to send him with unskilled troops on

5475-571: Was the brainchild of then Associate U.S. Coordinator for Refugee Affairs, Richard Krieger. After receiving accounts of the persecution of Ethiopian Jews in the refugee camps, Krieger came up with the idea of an airlift and met with Mossad and Sudanese representatives to facilitate the Operation. After a secret Israeli cabinet meeting in November 1984, the decision was made to go forward with Operation Moses. Beginning November 21, 1984, it involved

5550-414: Was the historian "who came closest to a construction of Moses' religion as monotheistic and as a pronounced counter-religion." It recognized "only one divine being whom no image can represent ... [and] the only way to approach this god is to live in virtue and in justice." The Roman historian Tacitus (c. 56–120 CE) refers to Moses by noting that the Jewish religion was monotheistic and without

5625-507: Was the subject of an Israeli-French film titled Live and Become , directed by Romanian-born Radu Mihăileanu . The film centers on an Ethiopian child whose Christian mother passes him as a Jew so he can immigrate to Israel along with the Jews in order to escape the famine that is looming in Ethiopia. The film went on to win the 2005 award for Best Film at the Copenhagen International Film Festival . In

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