Medieval and early modern Jews usually lived as a minority under non-Jewish rule, but there are a few known cases of independent or autonomous Jewish polities. One of the most intriguing is the autonomous Betä ?sra?el (Ethiopian Jews) in the S?men Mountains of Ethiopia.
Betä ?sra?el oral tradition refers to this polity as the "Kingdom of the Gideonites." From the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, the Betä ?sra?el of the S?men and its surroundings were involved in a series of wars against the Christian Solomonic kingdom, until finally being subdued in the late 1620s.
Based, in part, on the archaeological survey of Betä ?sra'el monastic sites, this book examines not only textual and oral accounts, but also the historical geography of the Betä ?sra?el polity and its strongholds. It also discusses the commemoration of these wars in later times and their impact on the development of religious sites.