Black Jews in Africa and the Americas

Tudor Parfitt

Published by Harvard University Press 2012

Black Jews in Africa and the Americas

Tudor Parfitt

In the series The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674067905

Overview
Contents

About this book

Black Jews in Africa and the Americas tells the fascinating story of how the Ashanti, Tutsi, Igbo, Zulu, Beta Israel, Maasai, and many other African peoples came to think of themselves as descendants of the ancient tribes of Israel. Pursuing medieval and modern European race narratives over a millennium in which not only were Jews cast as black but black Africans were cast as Jews, Tudor Parfitt reveals a complex history of the interaction between religious and racial labels and their political uses.

For centuries, colonialists, travelers, and missionaries, in an attempt to explain and understand the strange people they encountered on the colonial frontier, labeled an astonishing array of African tribes, languages, and cultures as Hebrew, Jewish, or Israelite. Africans themselves came to adopt these identities as their own, invoking their shared histories of oppression, imagined blood-lines, and common traditional practices as proof of a racial relationship to Jews.

Beginning in the post-slavery era, contacts between black Jews in America and their counterparts in Africa created powerful and ever-growing networks of black Jews who struggled against racism and colonialism. A community whose claims are denied by many, black Jews have developed a strong sense of who they are as a unique people. In Parfitt’s telling, forces of prejudice and the desire for new racial, redemptive identities converge, illuminating Jewish and black history alike in novel and unexplored ways.

Author / Editor information

Tudor Parfitt is Professor of Modern Jewish Studies in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
1 The Color of Jews Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2 Lost Tribes of Israel in Africa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
3 Ham’s Children Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
4 Judaic Practices and Superior Stock Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
5 Half White and Half Black Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
6 The Emergence of Black Jews in the United States Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
7 Divine Geography and Israelite Identities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
8 The Internalization of the Israelite Myth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
9 History, Genetics, and Indigenous Black African Jews Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: Academics, Students, Libraries, Institutes
Pages
- Main content: 220

eBook

Published: February 4, 2013
ISBN: 9780674067905