In this massive work, Joseph J. Williams documents the Hebraic practices, customs, and beliefs, which he found among the people of Jamaica and the Ashanti of West Africa. He initially examines the close relationship between the Jamaican and the Ashanti cultures and the folk beliefs. He then studies the language and culture of the Ashanti (of whom many Jamaicans have descended) by comparing them to well known and established Hebraic traditions. William's findings suggest stunning similarities. And, he challenges the reader by concluding that Hebraic traditions must have swept across "negro Africa" and left its influence "among the various tribes." While Williams presents a strong case, his evidence, including hundreds of quoted sources, also builds a strong case for the reverse--that an indigenous, continent-wide belief system among African people stands at the very root of Hebrew culture and Western religion. First published in 1931 and long out-of-print, today's reader will find Hebrewisms a valuable resource for understanding the cultural unity of African people.

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.

This is a new release of the original 1930 edition.

“Then they fasted that day, and put on sackcloth, and cast ashes upon their heads, and rent their clothes, and laid open the book of the law, wherein the heathen had sought to paint the likeness of their images.” - 1 Maccabees 3:47-48 Undeniable is the perfect outreach tool to connect with anyone that is skeptical of the claim that the Israelites of the Bible are were black, and have always been black. This is first and foremost an outreach tool, but it also makes a great gift for anyone that wants to see the hard evidence. + Full Color Images + Minimal Commentary + Designed To Start The Conversation Inside of the book you'll find: + Maps + Paintings + Statues + Explorer Journal Entries + Memorandum To The President of The United States All of the evidence adds up to the fact that there was a multi national conspiracy to kidnap, enslave, and hide the true history of Negroes scattered all over the world through the Transatlantic Slave Trade. There has been a conscious concerted effort to steer people away from the truth that Israel fled into Africa in 70 A.D. and still inhabits many areas of the continent.

From the 9th to the 15th century Arab travellers and observers produced a rich literature in West Africa. An annotated translation of this body of work is found in ""Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History"". This title is a simplified form of this corpus for students.

Africa's newest Jewish community of note is in Nigeria, where upwards of twenty thousand Igbos are commonly claimed to have adopted Judaism. Bolstered by customs recalling an Israelite ancestry, but embracing rabbinic Judaism, they are also the world's first 'Internet Jews'. William Miles has spent over three decades conducting research in West Africa. He shares life stories from this spiritually passionate community, as well as his own Judaic reflections as he celebrates Hanukka and a bar mitzvah with 'Jubos' in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.

This is an exploration of the interaction between African American religions and Jewish traditions, beliefs, and spaces. The collection's argument is that religion is the missing piece of the cultural jigsaw, and black-Jewish relations need the religious roots of their problem illuminated.