Black Jews in Africa and the Americas

240 Pages·2013·1.26 MB·English

by  Tudor Parfitt

B L A C K J E W S
T u d o r
I N A F R I C A
P a r f i t t
A N D T H E
A M E R I C A S
Black Jews in Africa and the Americas
THE NATHAN I. HUGGINS LECTURES

BL ACK JE W S IN AFRIC A
AND T HE A MERIC A S
Tudor Parfi tt
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts / London, Eng land / 2013
Copyright © 2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Parfi tt, Tudor.
Black Jews in Africa and the Americas / Tudor Parfi tt.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 674- 06698- 4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Jews— Africa—History. 2. African Americans– Relations with Jews.
3. African American Jews— History. 4. Africa— History. 5. Africa—
Colonial infl uence— History. 6. Africa— Ethnic relations. 7. United
States— Ethnic relations. I. Title.
DS135.A25P368 2013
305.892'406–dc23
2012018667
FOR OLIVIA AND SEBASTIAN

Contents
Preface ix
1 Th e Color of Jews 1
2 Lost Tribes of Israel in Africa 13
3 Ham’s Children 24
4 Judaic Practices and Superior Stock 36
5 Half White and Half Black 50
6 Th e Emergence of Black Jews in the United States 66
7 Divine Geography and Israelite Identities 102
8 Th e Internalization of the Israelite Myth 120
9 History, Ge ne tics, and Indigenous Black African Jews 134
Notes 171
Ac know ledg ments 215
Index 217

Preface
Ifi rst encountered black Jews1 in any form, as far as I am aware, on
November 22, 1984, when I found myself on the Sudanese border
with Ethiopia. I was then lecturer in Modern Hebrew at the School
of Oriental and African Studies, and this encounter changed the di-
rection my future interests would take. I had been sent to the Sudan by
the London- based Minority Rights Group, at the par tic u lar instiga-
tion of David Kessler, to look into accusations that the Ethiopian Jews
(Falashas) or Beta Israel were being poisoned in the refugee camps
along the border, which w ere full of mainly Christian Ethiopians
fl eeing the terrible famine of that year. On this day I witnessed the
arrival of a group of emaciated, ragged Beta Israel at the refugee
camp known as Um Raquba, and saw their bitter disappointment
when it was explained to them that this poor makeshift camp was
not, as they imagined, Jerusalem. Th ese, then, were the fi rst black Jews
ix