Hebrewism of west africa and hebrews slaves that brought our culture to america
Options
Comments
-
Brudda your from Ghana, not Israel.
how do you know that, how do you know im not from another part of west africa where hebrews was living and i traced my ancestry back, how do you know that on my mother side i traced my family back slaves that carried their hebrew traditon from west africa, and the same as my Father. Even down the line some was native blacks in america that was thought to be indians that came from florida and moved to tennesee out to red country in oaklahoma who had hebrew customs, yes some might come from ghana, i even know what slave ship some of my ancestors came on and what european was the captain of the ship
Yes my ancestors are from west africa that came from canaan
According to the writings of Eldad the Danite, a famous Algerian Jewish author of the ninth century, Ghana was a Hebrew nation which followed the Law of Moses. The people of Ghana traced their roots to Jews of the First Diaspora of 600 BC, who were forcibly expelled from Israel by the Assyrians. In support of this, Eldad reported that the Ghanans possessed the Torah, which was compiled before the Diaspora, but not the Talmud, which was compiled in Jerusalem and Babylon much later, during the early centuries of the Christian era. -
Timbuktu, Mali
history
Egyptian Jews began trading with tribes in the northern part of Mali as long ago as biblical times and pushed further and further into the foreboding Sahara throughout the centuries. In the eighth century A.D. the Rhadanites (multi-lingual Jewish traders) settled in Timbuktu and used it as a base from which they could solidify their trade routes through the desert. In the 14th and 15th centuries Jews fleeing Spanish persecution settled in Timbuktu. Members of the Kehath (Ka'ti) family founded three villages that still exist near Timbuktu -- Kirshamba, Haybomo, and Kongougara. In 1492, King Askia Muhammed took power in Timbuktu and threatened Jews who did not convert to Islam with execution. Some Jews fled, some converted, some remained in Mali and faced centuries of persecution and the occasional massacre. By the 20th century there were no practicing Jews in Mali.
However, in the 1990s Malian Jewry has begun to experience a revival. Ismael Diadie Haidara, a historian from Timbuktu, has been at the forefront of the movement to explore Mali’s Jewish past. In 1993 Haidara established Zakhor (the Timbuktu Association for Friendship with the Jewish World) as an informal association of Malian descendants of Jews. Zakhor’s members hope to teach their children about their Jewish heritage, learn and use Hebrew as a second language and publish histories of their ancestry. In Timbuktu alone there are almost a thousand descendants of Jews who have become interested in exploring their identity.
Finally, the vast majority of Hebrews migrated into Western Africa/Sudan, along the Western Coast of Africa and sojourned there for over fifteen hundred years (70 AD - 1619 AD). The Hebrews became a dominant factor in establishing many of the cultures throughout Western Africa, including the following countries:
In Ghana, the Hebrews were identified as the Ashantee
In Mali, the indigenous people were identifed as the Mandinka, however, they were not Hebrews
In Songhay, the city of Timbuktu, which was a great center of education and commerce and many of the indigenous people were Hebrews
Guinea, which was Known as the Gold Coast, also had a significant numbers of Hebrews
*edit according to the first article hebrews where in Mali* -
Only the most persistent travelers journey to Timbuktu. Though today one may catch a three hour flight from the Malian capital of Bamako, before the late 20th century the only way to reach the legendarily remote city was to take a lumbering five day boat ride up the Niger, or to travel hundreds of miles across the Sahara. The Jews were among the most persistent of ancient travelers, at least when they wished to trade in distant centers of commerce such as Timbuktu. All Jews in Timbuktu converted over the generations to Islam or Christianity, but recent historical research has led several families in the distant Malian city to reconnect with the religion of their ancestors.
The Abayudaya of Uganda
Out in the green, rolling hills of eastern Uganda, near the city of Mbale in the shadow of Mount Elgon, the Abayudaya Jews live as Ugandans always have, supporting themselves through subsistence farming and struggling against the elements to bring in the next harvest. These rural Ugandans share much with their neighbors; the surrounding fields bursting with mango trees, sugar cane, banana trees and cassava, the frequent communal festivals to celebrate birth, marriage and death, the uncertainty of rapidly changing national politics and the exhaustion of poverty. A significant difference between the Abayudaya and their countrymen is that when they raise their heads to the heavens in prayer, their ? is not Jesus, Allah or any tribal spirit, but the ? of Israel. They set themselves apart through devout Judaism and their adherence to the belief that some day they will become an accepted part of the international Jewish community. -
Morocco
"The worst insult that a Moroccan could possibly offer was to treat someone as a Jew . . . ."
-- Moroccan writer Said Ghallab, 1965 in Les Temps Modernes
The Jews of Morocco have maintained their faith for more than two thousand years, surviving massacres, political and geographic segregation and continual legal status as second-class citizens. They have remained true to their religion through Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Arab, Turkish and Vichy-French persecution. Even today, though much of the community has emigrated to Israel, Europe and the United States, its remaining members are confident, prepared to maintain their faith in the face of covert threats like assimilation, secularization and Westernization.
Cape Verde
"Monument of the grave, a pure and righteous man who made himself walk in his purity, modesty and virtue. He, by his donation, exists. With full funds he sought justice. He strengthens all support of the group of the Burial Society. The wise and important Mister Mordechai Auday who went to his rest 2 day in the month of Tibet 5761 of Creation. May his soul be bound in the bond of life."
– translation from Hebrew of inscription on a tombstone in Cape Verde
The story of the Jewish community in Cape Verde is one of greed, slavery and the Portuguese Inquisition. Since the 1460s, when the Portuguese discovered the array of fourteen islands that sit 450 kilometers off the West African coast, they used the archipelago as a fueling station for explorers on their way to conquer the New World, as a stopover terminal for the slave traders, where they could also refuel and "dispose of" weak or objectionable slaves, and as an outpost for Jews that the Inquisition forced to convert to Catholicism under threat of death. -
Rusape, Zimbabwe
"We believe most African (Black) descendants are in fact the ancient Hebrews and in fact most Blacks are the descendants of the 12 children of Israel . . . . We believe the true faith of the African descendants is Judaism and not Islam, as Islam is a revelation for descendants of Ishmael."
-- Solomon Guwazah of the Rusape, Zimbabwe, community, in a letter to The African Sun
The community of self-proclaimed Jews centered in Rusape, about two hours from Harare, Zimbabwe, appreciates its unusual history. On one hand they claim to be spiritually, if not genetically, descended from a "Lost Tribe" of Jews who migrated from the North. On the other, they can trace their recent incarnation back to a 1903 meeting between a former American slave named William Saunders Crowdy who was also a former Baptist deacon, and a spiritually hungry man named Albert Christian who eventually brought Crowdy’s teachings to Southern Africa.
Today’s Rusape Jewish community is a vibrant, exciting group that comes together often in song in prayer at their recently rebuilt tabernacle, located about seven kilometers out of town. They follow the same holidays as Western Jews, are learning Hebrew, and are deeply devoted to reviving the Jewish culture of the Old Testament, which they believe is greatly in tune with their own ancient local ways. The community is several thousand strong and growing. -
Iberian Jews of Yoruba Nationality
The Bnai Ephraim (“Children of Ephraim”) from Nigeria, live among the Yoruba nationalities. Their oral history tells that the Bnai Ephraim people came from Morocco after the Jews were banished from the Iberian Pennisula sometime after 1492.
They speak a dialect that is a mixture of Moroccan Arabic, Yoruba, and Aramaic. They are known by the Yoruba people as the “Emo Yo Quaim”, or “strange people”. Unlike other African Israelite communities in Nigeria, the Bnai Ephraim have the Torah, portions of which they keep in their sanctuaries.
The Bnai Ephraim provides a living and irrefutable proof of this barely known history of mass Jewish re-settlement in West Africa, between 1492 and 1692, a 200 year non-stop return of Jews to Africa. This set of Moorish refugees are not to be confused with more ancient Hebrew and Canaanite tribes that had been living in Nigeria and other African countries for thousands of years. -
The following is a partial list of the various tribes throughout north, south, east and west Africa who are descendants of the Hebrew Israelite nation:
1) Beta Israel/Falasha- Ethiopia 2) Abayudaya-Uganda 3) Tutsi- Rwanda 4) Rusape- Zimbabwe 5) Lemba- South Africa
6) Sefwi Wiawso- Ghana 7) Ashanti- Ghana Ga- Ghana 9) Ewe- Ghana 10) B’nai Ephraim(sons of Ephraim)- Yoruba, Nigeria
11) Lam-Lam- Timbuktu 12) Katsena- Nigeria 13)Zafin Ibrahim- Malagasy Republic 14) Ibo- Nigeria -
waterproof wrote: »The following is a partial list of the various tribes throughout north, south, east and west Africa who are descendants of the Hebrew Israelite nation:
1) Beta Israel/Falasha- Ethiopia 2) Abayudaya-Uganda 3) Tutsi- Rwanda 4) Rusape- Zimbabwe 5) Lemba- South Africa
6) Sefwi Wiawso- Ghana 7) Ashanti- Ghana Ga- Ghana 9) Ewe- Ghana 10) B’nai Ephraim(sons of Ephraim)- Yoruba, Nigeria
11) Lam-Lam- Timbuktu 12) Katsena- Nigeria 13)Zafin Ibrahim- Malagasy Republic 14) Ibo- Nigeria
good thread ahch, u got the whole list or know where i can find it at? -
SHALOM!!! BROTHERS AND SISTERS, twitter hold me down, now time to get back to business
-
Decline of the Black Jews of Africa
Many reasons have been sought for the decline and virtual disappearance of Africa’s once thriviing Jewish communities of black Jews. Many see the beginning of this decline as contemporaneous with the advent of the Islamic religion in Africa.
Some historical accounts highlight the fact that black Jews were die-hard nationalistic traditionalists and had led the black African resistance against the influx of the black muslim jihadists and their new interpretation of morality. The most notableof these black Jewish nationalists was Queen Kahina Dahiya ? Thabitah ibn Tifan otherwise known as El-Kahina. A descendant of one of the priestly Black Jewish families of North Africa, Kahina led the nationalist resistance against the muslim invasion until her defeat at the hands of Hassan Ibn Numan. See Margolis, “History of Jewish people”, 1927 pages 278-279. See also Remy Ilona, “The Igbos : Jews in Africa?” volume 1, Research Findings Historical Links, Commentaries, Narratives,” 2004, Mega Press Limited, Abuja, Nigeria.
Amidst this tumult, the Jews of Northern and West Africa were given a choice of conversion or emigration. Many left for the deeper forest recesses of West Africa seeking the peace and tranquility that appeared to elude them in each generation. The late incursions by the colonialist christian elements of Europe did not make matters any better. There seems to have been a direct link between the incursion of relatively modern religions in Africa and the decline of the ancient practise of the Hebrews which had a pride of place in Africa, its mother land.
For instance the Jewish enclaves of Qamnurya or Naghira in the area of modern Senegal was destroyed completely in the wake of sectarian unrest. Similarly, Al-Maghili a prominent black Muslim noble not only destroyed the Jewish enclaves of Tuat in the old Mali empire, he convinced other potentates throughout the Western Sudan to banish Jews from the empire’s cities. See Remy Ilona, supra.
Lichtblau speculates that: although “…Jewish presence is also confirmed by numerous surviving accounts of Portuguese and other European visitors in the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as North African and Arab historical records… gradually most of these communities disappeared. Since they existed largely in isolation, there was a good deal of intermarriage which for a while reinforced their influence and expansion. As a result they were increasingly viewed as a threat by Muslim rulers, and most of the Jewish communities and nomad groups south of the Atlas mountains were either forced to convert to Islam or massacred; the remainder fled to North Africa, Egypt or the Sudan, and a few also to Cameroon and Southern Africa.” -
Jews Of Nigeria, Senegal and Congo
Moreover,with Israel coming under Greek, Persian and later Roman rule and dependency, renewed waves of Jewish refugees including traders and artisans began to set up more communities in Egypt, Cyrenaica, Nubia and the Punic Empire, notably in Carthage. From Carthage they began to scatter into various historically established, as well as newly emerging Jewish communities south of the Atlas mountains nearer to the modern day Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon and Congo. Several Jewish nomadic groups also moved across the Sahara from Nubia and the ancient kingdom of Kush towards west Africa.
Various East and West African ethinic nations lay verifiable claim to their Jewish ancestral heritage. The Falashas, the most famous of those Black Jews have been validated. Close to three hundred thousand of those black Falasha Jews live in the modern State of Isreal as practising Jews.
The Lembas of South Africa, another so-called Bantu tribe have a cogent and valid claim to Jewish ancestory and heritage backed by solid genetic evidence i.e. the prevalence of the so-called Cohen modal J haplogroup. The Lembas as a group are indistinguishable from their Bantu neighbours suggestiing that most Bantus groups possess this archetypal Jewish genetic haplogroup. It implies that there are potentially more bloodline Jews on the continent of Africa than anywhere else including modern Europe and Israel.
The names of old Jewish communities south of the Atlas mountains (around the regions of modern Niger, Nigeria), many of which existed well into Renaissance times, can be found in documents in synagogue archives in Cairo. See “George E. Lichtblau”
Jewish and Islamic chronicles cite the existence of Jewish rulers of certain Jewish tribal groups and clans (self identifying as Jewish) scattered throughout Mauritania, Senegal, the Western Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana. See Ismael Diadie Haidara, “Les Juifs a` Timbouctou”, Recueil de sources relatives au commerce juif a Timbouctou au XIXe siecle, Editions Donniya, Bamako, 1999.
According to the Tarikh es Soudan recorded by Abderrahman ben Abdallah es-Sadi (translated by O.Houdas) a Jewish community was formed by a group of Egyptian Jews, who had travelled to the West Africa through Chad. See also: al-Kati M., “Tarikh al-Fattash, 1600″.
Another such community was located near the Niger River by the name of Koukiya led by a ruler known as Dia or Dji, a shortened form of “Dia min al Yaman” or Diallaiman (meaning he who comes from Yemen). According to local traditions, Diallaiman was a member of one of the Ethiopian-Jewish colonies transplanted from Yemen to Ethiopian-Abbysinia in the 6th century C.E. Dialliaman is said to have moved to West Africa along with his brother. They set up the Jewish community in Northern Nigeria which later merged with the famous 7 Hausa States. See Meek C.K., “Northern Nigeria Tribes” Volume 1, Oxford, p.66.
A 9th century Jewish traveller Eldad ben-Mahli (also known as Eldad the Danite) related accounts about the location of some of the lost tribes of the House of Israel. According to this account, the tribe of Dan had migrated from Palestine so as not to take part in the internecine civil wars at the time of Yeroboam’s succession. It was reported that this section was residing in the land of Havila beyond the waters of Ethiopia where there was much gold i.e. West Africa.
It was further reported that three other tribes had joined the tribe of Dan namely Naphtali, Gad, Asher. Those joined up with Dan in the land of Havila in the times of Sennacherib. They had an entire body of scriptures barring Esther and Lamentations. They neither used the Talmud nor the Mishna, but they had a Talmud of their own in which all the laws were cited in the name of Joshua the son of Nun. See Nahum Slouschz, “Travels in North Africa” Philadelphia 1927, p.227. -
Ibn Khaldun, who lived in the 13th century, a respected authority on Berber history testified about the Black Jews of Western Sudan with whom he personally interacted. The famous muslim geographer al-Idrisi, born in Ceuta, Spain in the 12th century, wrote extensively about Jewish Negroes in the Western Sudan.
Black Jews were fully integrated and achieved pre-eminence in many West African kingdoms. For instance Jews were believed to have settled in great West African empires such as Songhai, Mali, Ghana and Kanem-Bornu empires. According to numerous accounts of contemporary visitors to the region several rulers, and administrators of the Songhai empire were of Jewish origins until Askia Muhammad came to power in 1492 and decreed that all Jews either convert to Islam or leave the region. See Ismael Diadie Haidara, “Les Juifs a` Timbouctou”, Recueil de sources relatives au commerce juif a Timbouctou au XIXe siecle, Editions Donniya, Bamako, 1999.
The 16th century historian and traveler Leon Africanus, was a Hebrew-speaking Jewish convert to Islam, raised in a Jewish household by Jewish parents of Moroccan descent. Leon Africanus travelled extensively in Africa south of the Sahara where he encountered innumerable Black African Jewish communities. Leon later converted to Catholicism but remained interested in Jewish communities he encountered throughout his travels in West Africa. See Leo Africanus (al-Hassan b. al -Wazzan al-Zayyati), Della discrittione dell’Africa per Giovanni Leoni Africano, Settima Parte, in G.B. Ramusio, Delle navigationi e viaggi. Venice 1550, I, ff.78-81r.
Additional evidence is provided by surviving oral traditions of numerous African ethnic groups, including links to biblical ancestors, names of localities, and ceremonies with affinities to Jewish ritual practices. Moreover, the writings of several modern West African historians indicate that the memories of Jewish roots historical in West Africa continue to survive.
For instance, there are a number of historical records of small Jewish kingdoms and tribal groups known as Beni Israel that were part of the Wolof and Mandinge communities. These existed in Senegal from the early Middle Ages up to the 18th century, when they were forced to convert to Islam. Some of these claimed to be descendants of the tribe of Dan, the traditional tribe of Jewish gold and metal artisans, who are also said to have built the “Golden Calf”.
Black Jews are said to have formed the roots of a powerful craft tradition among the still-renowned Senegalese goldsmiths, jewelers and other metal artisans. The name of an old Senegalese province called “Juddala” is said to attest to the notable impact Jews made in this part of the world. In addition to the Jewish tribal groups in Senegal who claim to be descendants of the tribe of Dan, the Ethiopian Jews also trace their ancestry to the tribe of Dan.
Additionally, Mr. Bubu Hama, a former president of the National Assembly in Niger and a prolific writer on African history has argued in many treatise as well as lecture tours that the Tuaregs had a Jewish queen in early medieval times, and that some Jewish Tuareg clans had preserved their adherence to that faith, in defiance of both Islamic and Christian missionary pressure, until the 18th century. In several of his books Hama cites the genealogies of Jewish rulers of the Tuareg and Hausa kingdoms. See “Lichtblau”.
Some accounts place some West African Jewish community in the Ondo forest of Nigeria, south of Timbouctou. This community maintained a Torah Scroll as late as 1930s, written in Aramaic that had been burnt into parchment with a hot iron instead of ink so it could not be changed. See Gonen Rivaka, “The Quest for the Ten Lost tribes of israel: To the Ends of the Earth”, Jason Aronson Inc., Northville, NJ., 2002 at pages 180-181.
The Igbos of Nigeria, one of the bigger nations that comprise Nigeria lay a strong claim to Jewish ancestry as borne out by their mores, laws, rituals and idioms which have a heavily accented old testament Hebrew flavour.See Ilona R, “The Ibos: Jews of Nigeria,” volume 1, Research Findings Historical Links, Commentaries, Narratives,” 2004, Mega Press Limited, Abuja, Nigeria
Some of the established Jewish communities existed in such still renowned places as Gao, Timbuktu Bamako, Agadez, and Kano. In Timbucktu, the UNESCO still maintains notable archives containing records of the old Jewish community of Mali and the Hausa states of Nigeria. -
@lethal5 I hope this thread further answer your questions
