..In 1966, he had a vision that the angel Gabriel told him to “return to the holy land by way in which we came”, said Yafah Baht Gavriel, a spokeswoman for the group. He then gathered his few hundred followers, mainly from Chicago, and led them to Liberia, the west African republic which was settled by freed slaves in the 19th century. In a statement, the group said time was then spent “shedding the many detrimental habits that as an enslaved people, they had acquired”. They moved to Israel in 1969 and settled in Dimona, a poverty-stricken town in the southern Negev desert. “Ben Ammi’s immense love for the Land of Israel remained constant throughout his life – from the initial awakening to his Hebraic roots,” the group said. But Israel didn’t know what to make of the newcomers, who adopted Hebrew names and a west African style of dress, and the government was unsure where they fit under the country’s “law of return”, which gives citizenship to almost any Jew who requests it. Advertisement The group refused to convert to Judaism, even though it would have entitled them to citizenship. They considered themselves the true Jews of ancient Israel, and they followed a lifestyle they said was based on the Torah and Ben Israel’s teachings, but without traditional Judaism’s rabbinical interpretations. Members of the group dress in colourful, self-made clothes, practice polygamy, shun birth control and refrain from eating meat, dairy products, eggs and sugar. The group has thousands more members in the US, the Caribbean, and Africa. The African Hebrew Israelites say they have chosen a way of life dedicated to serving Yah, or God. They address each other as “saint”. At first they were met with a mixture of welcome, skepticism, and bewilderment. But over time, the estimated 6,000-strong community, known in Israel as the “black Hebrews”, became widely accepted.. theguardian/world/2014/dec/28/spiritual-leader-black-hebrew-israelites-dies?CMP=share_btn_fb
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 15:21:38 +0000
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