Black Jews in Africa and the Americas by Tudor Parfitt, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts; ISBN 978-0-674-06698-4 ©2013, $29.95, p. 170, plus notes and index
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California — Samaria, the capital of Northern Israel, fell after a two-year siege under the command of its king, Sargon II in 722 BCE. The subsequent dispersion of many of the northern Israelites throughout the Assyrian Empire and their replacement by other Assyrians brought to an end the divided Jewish kingdom, which existed since the death of Solomon in 931 BCE. These exiled Jews became collectively known as the “Ten Lost Tribes.”
The prophet Ezekiel interpreted one of his visions, the well-known story of the Valley of the Dry Bones, to mean that the northern and the southern tribes will one day be reunited in their historic homeland. The Jewish general turned Roman historian, Josephus, in the first century CE, declared that the tribes of Northern Israel prospered “beyond the Euphrates River,” and about a hundred and fifty years later Commodianus, a Christian poet, recounted a story that the Jews were cut off by a river beyond Persia, where they lived without bodily pain. In the ninth century, Eldad ha-Dani (Eldad the Danite) arrived in Tunisia, claiming to be from one of the lost tribes, which resides in East Africa, near Ethiopia. The famous Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela wrote that he met Jews from many of the lost tribes who said they lived in the Nashapur Mountains in northwest Persia.
Black Jews in Africa and the Americas by Tudor Parfitt, an eminent scholar in Jewish studies and international affairs, and an individual described as a British historian, writer, traveler, broadcaster, and adventurer, picks up the story of the “Ten Lost Tribes” in the sixteenth century, where he traces European and American social, racial, and biblical beliefs and links them to Black Africans and the lost tribes of Israel.
Presently, about three to five thousand of the Igbo tribe in Nigeria, alleging a direct bond with the Lost Tribes, claim that their ancestors arrived in Africa within fifty years after their defeat at the hands of the Assyrians. During the Biafra War (1967-70), surrounded by a multitude of enemies, numerous Igbos created a metaphorical link to the Israeli people, who likewise are surrounded by their enemies. In reaction, the Israelis strengthened this relationship through “frequent visits … and the gifts of quantities of books on Jewish themes and ritual objects.” In addition, according to a recent Times of Israel article, “[in] the last 30 years or so there has also been a movement among some Igbos to match their tradition of Jewish descent with the practice of rabbinic Judaism, the learning of Hebrew, and the fostering of connections with Jews abroad.”
Some of the Ashanti also think that they have Jewish roots, believing that their people originated in Canaan, and various members of the Yoruba say that they can trace their history back to the biblical king Nimrod, a descendent of Noah.
Parfitt’s thesis is quite simple: the West African natives who assert any historical connections to the lost tribes of Israel, such as members of the Igbo, Ashanti, Yoruba, Tutsi, and Zulu, have no relationship to them whatsoever. Rather, their belief is a reaction to Eurocentric racist policies. When white people first encountered West African tribes, they perceived similarities between these Africans and modern-day Jews and Judaism, including facial features, resemblance of African languages to Hebrew, use of circumcision, and even a connection to the stereotypical Jewish trait of stubbornness. The missionaries taught the Bible to the natives, particularly the so-called Curse of Ham, which is actually a misnomer since Noah cursed Canaan, Ham’s son, and not Ham. The missionaries taught that black skin is the result of this curse.
These racist policies carried over to the slave population in America as well. While American Christian missionaries were more than willing to convert the Indians to Christianity because of the belief that the Indians were remnants of the Ten Lost Tribes, the same did not hold for Black African slaves, whose origins were rooted in West Africa. They were taught the Bible and the same Hamite curse, responding with an affinity to the Israelite slaves in Egypt.
East Africa is a different story for Parfitt. The Falasha and Lemba tribes’ stated connection to Israelite history precedes white people’s involvement with Africa. The Falashas, also known as Beta Israel, link their history with the national history of Ethiopia, a history affirming that Menelik, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, was the first king of Ethiopia. In 1977 the Israeli government formally recognized Beta Israel as eligible to live in Israel under the Law of Return. The Lemba of Zimbabwe are primarily Christians and Muslims, but many of their religious practice resemble post-Second Temple Judaism, such as marrying within the tribe, observing Shabbat and Kashrut, including refraining from eating pork, circumcision, and abstaining from marital relations during menstruation.
Science resolved the question of whether a Jew could be black or a Black could be a Jew at the close of the last century. Genetic testing on the Lemba using Y-chromosome markers, which follow patriarchal lineage, indicates that half of the tested Lemba have markers with a Semitic origin. Later, additional testing showed that a substantial number of them have the so-called “Cohen gene,” a marker for the tribe of Levi. The testing on Beta Israel produced mixed results. Mitochondrial DNA tests found no Semitic connections on the mothers’ side, and most studies found that Beta Israel is descended from local Ethiopian stock. A small study by Stanford University, however, found a link between Beta Israel and Yemenite Jews. From these genetic studies, one might reasonably infer that the Assyrian deportation created a class of crypto-Jews in East Africa in the same way that the Spanish Inquisition and subsequent expulsion in 1492 created crypto-Jews in Mexico and the American southwest.
In Black Jews in Africa and the Americas, Parfitt tells the absorbing and little-known story of the Western World’s struggle to convert Black Africans to Christianity and subjugate them, together with the theological resistance offered by the African tribes and slaves through the rejection of Ham’s curse and the creation and incorporation of tribal histories that tie to the long-suffering yet strong-willed Israelite nation.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and a fiction book, Reclaiming the Messiah. The author can be reached via fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.