Black_Judaism
Black Judaism
Judaism that is predominantly practiced by African communities
Black Judaism is Judaism that is practiced by communities of African descent, both within Africa and within the African diaspora, including North America, Europe, Israel, and elsewhere. Significant examples of Black Judaism include Judaism as it is practiced by Ethiopian Jews and African-American Jews. Jews who may be considered Black have existed for millennia, with Zipporah sometimes considered to be one of the first Black Jews who was mentioned within Jewish history.[1]
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Judaism has been present in sub-Saharan Africa for centuries. Beginning in the fifteenth century, Jews who were fleeing persecution in Spain and Portugal founded small mixed communities along the coast of West Africa. There was also an identifiable Black Jewish community which was probably of Spanish origin in the west African Kingdom of Loango until the end of the nineteenth century.[2] Moreover, throughout Africa Jewish communities were generated as part of the interaction between colonialism, Christianity and African societies. The connection between colonialism and the development of Jewish identities in South Africa was first shown by the South African Religious Studies scholar David Chidester in 1996.[3] In 2002, Tudor Parfitt, a British historian, argued that the production of Judaic communities was part of the complex symbiosis between African societies, colonialism and Christianity and moreover, it was a product of western colonialism throughout the world, from New Zealand to the Americas. He produced many examples of Judaic manifestations which existed throughout sub-Saharan Africa both during and after the colonial period. His argument was that such manifestations of Judaism were often constructed as part of an Othering process by Europeans, and they were often internalized by African communities.[4]
Black Hebrew Israelites are religious groups whose members claim descent from the Tribes of Israel, but these claims are rejected by Jewish communities and these groups are not recognized as Jewish by any Jewish community. According to the Black Orthodox Jewish writer and activist Shais Rishon, the Black Hebrew Israelite movement is not part of "the mainstream normative Black Jewish community" that practices Rabbinic Judaism.[5]