Background
Taamrat was born on 1888 in the village of Azazo near the city of Gondar. Taamrat's home village became Christian prior to his birth, and therefore he grew up being part of the Falashmura community.
Taamrat was born on 1888 in the village of Azazo near the city of Gondar. Taamrat's home village became Christian prior to his birth, and therefore he grew up being part of the Falashmura community.
In his youth Taamrat attended the School of the Swedish Evangelical Mission in the Italian Eritrea. At the age of 16 Taamrat met Dr. Jacques Faitlovitch, him took him back with him to Paris to study. When Taamrat arrived in Paris he was sent in 1904 to a school for teachers of the Alliance israélite universelle organization which was located in Paris. Four years later on, in 1908, when Taamrat was 20 years of age, he was sent by Dr. Faitlovitch to a Jewish Theological Seminary (Collegio Rabbinico Italiano) in Florence, Italy under the watchful eye of Rabbi Dr. Samuel Hirsch Margulies and Rabbi Tzvi-Peretz Hayot. In 1915 Taamrat graducated from the seminary thus becoming a Rabbi, Shochet (Kosher Slaughterer) and professor. Emmanuel taught afterwards at the same college for about 16 years and eventually in 1920, at the age of 32, he returned to Ethiopia with Faitlovitch.
From 1921 he spent three years in Palestine as a haluiz (pioneer) at a kibbutz of the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair movement. In 1923 he returned to Ethiopia with Faitlovich and they established a teacher-training school in Addis Ababa, which combined religious and secular studies. News of its existence spread throughout Ethiopia and potential students walked hundreds of miles in the hope of enrolling. Graduates of the school were sent to the interior to open schools in Ethiopian Jewish villages. Some of the religious leaders of the Ethiopian Jewish community, however, saw this trend as a challenge to their authority and also opposed the contact with non-Jews. Some religious Jews would even wash their hands to rid themselves of the "impurity” upon coming into contact with Taamrat or his pupils.
Taamrat developed friendly relations with Emperor Haile Selassie, which often stood the Jews in good stead. The emperor, for example, on occasion agreed to intervene when local lords took Ethiopian Jew's for forced labor or prevented the establishment of Jewish schools.
Taamrat’s antifascist writings put him on a blacklist when Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in 1935. His school in Addis Ababa was closed and he was hunted — not as a Jew but as an antifascist. He escaped to Cairo and joined a group of Ethiopians in exile who were supporting the resistance in their home country. Many of his teachers and students were active in the resistance and the Italians reacted by obliterating a Jewish village in an air bombardment. After Ethiopia’s liberation in World War II, Taamrat returned and was asked to serve in various official capacities. He helped to establish the Ministry of Education and devoted much time to writing. He translated a work on Gandhi into Amharic and began to write a history of Ethiopia.
After the establishment of the State of Israel, he worked for the immigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. He asked Haile Selassie to permit the Jews to emigrate, but the emperor refused. He himself moved to Jerusalem in the capacity of counselor in the Ethiopian consulate. There he spent his last years.