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Black Hebrew Israelites (also called Hebrew Israelites, Black Hebrews, Black Israelites, and African Hebrew Israelites) are a new religious movement claiming that African Americans are descendants of the ancient Israelites. Some sub-groups believe that Native and Latin Americans are descendants of the Israelites as well.[1] Black Hebrew Israelites combine elements to their teaching from a wide range of sources[2] to varying degrees. Black Hebrew Israelites incorporate certain aspects of the religious beliefs and practices of both Christianity and Judaism, though they have created their own interpretation of the Bible,[3] and other influences include Freemasonry and New Thought, for example.[2] Many choose to identify as Hebrew Israelites or Black Hebrews rather than Jews in order to indicate their claimed historic connections.[4][5][6][7]
Black Hebrew Israelites are not associated with the mainstream Jewish community, and they do not meet the criteria that are used to identify people as Jewish by the Jewish community. They are also outside the fold of mainstream Christianity. Black Hebrew Israelism is a non-homogenous movement with a number of groups that have varying beliefs and practices.[5] Various sects of Black Hebrew Israelism have been criticized by academics for their promotion of historical revisionism and replacement theology due to the lack of evidence supporting their claims.[8][9]
The Black Hebrew Israelite movement originated at the end of the 19th century, when Frank Cherry and William Saunders Crowdy both claimed to have received visions that African Americans are descendants of the Hebrews in the Bible; Cherry established the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations, in 1886, and Crowdy founded the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896.[10][11][12][13] Subsequently, Black Hebrew groups were founded in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from Kansas to New York City, by both African Americans and West Indian immigrants.[14] In the mid-1980s, the number of Black Hebrews in the United States was between 25,000 and 40,000.[15]
Some of the Black Hebrew Israelite sects are considered black supremacist and antisemitic.[16][17][18] According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), "Some, but not all, [Black Hebrew Israelites] are outspoken anti-Semites and racists."[19] In 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) listed the Black Hebrew Israelites as one of the "black nationalist groups of concern", along with the Nation of Islam and others.[20] The SPLC has also described the Black Hebrew Israelites as a hate group which supports racial segregation, Holocaust denial, homophobia, and promotes a race war,[21] and as of December 2019, it "lists 144 Black Hebrew Israelite organizations as black separatist hate groups because of their antisemitic and anti-white beliefs".[22] The SPLC has since clarified that they now use the term "Radical Hebrew Israelite" to distinguish between extremist and non-extremist sects and to acknowledge that some Hebrew Israelites are non-Black.[23]
- ^ Hauck, Grace. "Jersey City shooting: Who are the Black Hebrew Israelites?". USA Today. Archived from the original on December 12, 2019. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
- ^ a b Dorman, Jacob S. (2006). "Black Israelites". In Gallagher, Eugene V.; Ashcraft, W. Michael (eds.). Jewish and Christian Traditions. Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America, 2. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Pub. ISBN 978-0-275-98714-5. LCCN 2006022954. OCLC 315689134.
- ^ Musodza, Masimba (November 8, 2019). "Two Hebrew Israelite Biblical Verses Examined". The Times of Israel. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
- ^ Ben-Jochannan, p. 306.
- ^ a b Ben Levy, Sholomo. "The Black Jewish or Hebrew Israelite Community". Jewish Virtual Library. Archived from the original on July 9, 2012. Retrieved December 15, 2007.
- ^ Johannes P. Schade, ed. (2006). "Black Hebrews". Encyclopedia of World Religions. Franklin Park, N.J.: Foreign Media Group. ISBN 1-60136-000-2.
- ^ Bahrampour, Tara (June 26, 2000). "They're Jewish, With a Gospel Accent". The New York Times. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Markowitz2013was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Miles, Jennifer (November 3, 2022). "The Unbiblical Teachings of the Black Hebrew Israelite Movement". Alliance for the Peace of Jerusalem. Retrieved May 3, 2023.
- ^ Hutchinson, Dawn (2010). Antiquity and Social Reform: Religious Experience in the Unification Church, Feminist Wicca and Nation of Yahweh. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 139. ISBN 9781443823081.
The first was the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations founded by F.S. Cherry in 1886 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Cherry preached that Adam, Eve, and Jesus were black and that African Americans lost their Hebrew identity during slavery. Later, William S. Crowdy founded the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896 in Lawrence, Kansas. Crowdy taught that blacks were heirs of the lost tribes of Israel, while white Jews were descendants of inter-racial marriages between Israelites and white Christians.
- ^ Fernheimer, Janice W. (2014). Stepping Into Zion: Hatzaad Harishon, Black Jews, and the Remaking of Jewish Identity. University of Alabama Press. p. 10. ISBN 9780817318246.
One of these groups, Prophet Cherry's Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of Truth for All Nations is the oldest known Black Judaic sect. It was originally established in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1886. Prophet Cherry argued they were part of the original Israelite tribes chased from Babylonia (and, they claim, into Central and Western Africa where they were later sold into slavery) by the Romans in 70 CE.
- ^ Rubel, Nora L. (2009). "'Chased Out of Palestine': Prophet Cherry's Church of God and Early Black Judaisms in the United States". In Curtis I.V., Edward E.; Sigler, Danielle Brune (eds.). The New Black Gods: Arthur Huff Fauset and the Study of African American Religions. Indiana University Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780253004086.
In 1893, Crowdy had a vision that resulted in the establishment of the Church of God and Saints in Christ.
- ^ Bleich, J. David (Spring–Summer 1975). "Black Jews: A Halakhic Perspective". Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought. 15 (1): 63. JSTOR 23258489.
Crowdy claimed to be the recipient of a series of revelations in which, among other things, he was told that Blacks were descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Chireau21was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Sundquist, p. 118.
- ^ Ong, Kyler (2020). "Ideological Convergence in the Extreme Right". Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses. 12 (5): 1–7. ISSN 2382-6444. JSTOR 26954256.
- ^ Jikeli, Gunther (2020). "Is Religion Coming Back as a Source for Antisemitic Views?". Religions. 11 (5): 255. doi:10.3390/rel11050255. ISSN 2077-1444.
- ^ Salazar, Philippe-Joseph (2022). "The Covington smile: Norms and forms of violence in the age of the White Awakening". Acta Juridica. 2022: 198–219. doi:10.47348/ACTA/2022/a9. S2CID 253755632.
- ^ "Black Hebrew Israelites". ADL. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
- ^ Johnson, Daryl (April 8, 2017). "Return of the Violent Black Nationalist". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
- ^ Strick, Simon (2020). "Discomforting Silences in Alt-Right America". In Birke, Dorothee; Butler, Stella (eds.). Comfort in Contemporary Culture: The Challenges of a Concept. Transcript Verlag. p. 237. doi:10.1515/9783839449028-013. ISBN 978-3-8394-4902-8.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
splc201912was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Radical Hebrew Israelites". SPLC. Retrieved March 4, 2023.