Rabbi Sharon Shalom, who charmed and informed participants at Hakhel 14, seeks

to reconcile Orthodox and Ethiopian traditions

A recent Y-net article featured Rabbi Sharon Shalom, one of Israel’s first Ethiopian-born Orthodox rabbis, who charmed his listeners at Hakhel 14 while explaining his attempts to reconcile Orthodox and Ethiopian traditions.

"Our synagogue is a kind of microcosm of Israeli society. It used to be inconceivable for a Sephardi Jew to come and pray here. Today people ask me if I´m Sephardi or Ashkenazi. I answer – guys, don´t you see I´m Ethiopian?"

His appointment as an Ethiopian rabbi serving a congregation of Holocaust survivors was unprecedented, yet there is only one way to describe what Rabbi Shalom has managed to accomplish in the past two years – a revolution. Under his care, the dying synagogue became the source of a young, modern, thriving community.

Since his arrival, the synagogue is constantly packed with congregants and visitors. On Rosh Hashana alone, 300 came through its doors – more than double what the synagogue is capable of holding. 
    
For the entire article:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3967094,00.html 
 
He has also spoken to audiences in America about his preserving Ethiopian traditions:

“When not presiding over his congregation, Shalom is completing a dissertation on the religious outlook of Ethiopian Jewry, meant as the scaffolding for what will be the first-ever written code of Ethiopian Jewish religious law. Until most of the community moved to Israel in the 1980´s and 90´s, its traditions were largely oral and its religious life principally mimetic: children learned what to do from watching their parents. Now, in Israel, memories of former ways are fading, and the young are more interested in integrating into Israeli society than in preserving the life of their forefathers. Shalom has undertaken to compose the code of law at the urging of his professor, Daniel Sperber, for whom this may be the last chance to record and systematize Ethiopian traditions.”

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