Some Jewish communities in Africa are among the oldest in the world, dating back more than 2700 years. African Jews have ethnic and religious diversity and richness. African Jewish communities include: Scattered African gro ups who have not maintained contact with the wider Jewish community from ancient times, but who assert descent from ancient Israel or other connections to Judaism. These include groups who observe Jewish rituals, or rituals bearing recognizable resemblance to Judaism. Groups such as the Lemba, many of whom practice Christianity but have preserved some rituals and customs believed to be Jewish in origin. This group has also been found to have genetic traits that other Jewish population groups possess, thereby bolstering their claims to Jewish ancestry. Sephardi Jews and Mizraḥi Jews living in North Africa, including Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Sudan and Egypt. The vast majority of them have emigrated, chiefly to Israel and France, with substantial numbers also emigrating to Brazil, Canada and the USA. Small but active communities remain in Morocco and Tunisia. The South African Jews, who are mostly Ashkenazi Jews, descended mostly from pre-and post-Holocaust immigrant Lithuanian Jews. Although not all African Jews are religious, some of the practices found in African Jewish communities are Orthodox. The Lemba are a Jewish people in southern Africa. Although they speak Bantu languages similar to their neighbours, they have specific religious practices similar to those in Judaism and other Semitic traditions. They also have a tradition of being a migrant people, with clues pointing to an origin from Yemeni Jews. They have restrictions on intermarriage with non-Lemba. It is difficult for male non-Lemba to become part of the community. A significant number of individuals carry a genetic signature on the Y chromosome known as the Cohen modal haplotype, indicative of a Semitic patrilineal ancestry. Amongst Jews, this Y chromosome trait is particularly associated with the Kohanim or priests, a distinct subgroup of Israelites. It can also be found in other non-Jewish Y-DNA Haplogroup J populations across the Middle East and beyond. Though the Lemba are descended from Jewish ancestors, they have not practised Judaism for many centuries. Although the vast majority of Lemba, like the eastern and western Jews who see no difficulties in claiming Jewish heritage but not practising the religion itself, do not see a contradiction in proclaiming their Hebrew heritage while practising Christianity or Islam. Lately, some have wanted to shift towards mainstream Judaism. West Africa: Bilad el-Sudan Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa) Zimbabwe: Jews of Rusape The Jews of Rusape, Zimbabwe claim ancient Hebrew tribal connections—in fact, they claim that most Black Africans (especially the Bantu peoples) are actually of Ancient Hebrew origin. However, the active practice of Judaism in the Rusape community dates back only to the early twentieth century; in this case, to 1903. (Despite the chronological proximity of the beginnings of observance in these two communities, a historical relationship between them should not be inferred: there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate the existence of any relationship between them, aside from their interest in Judaism.) This community, although no longer believing in Jesus as the Messiah like Christians do, does believe that Jesus was a prophet, however the community also believes that all people on Earth are prophets as well and so Jesus had no high or special status. Currently the community is moving towards more mainstream Judaism. This group believes that the majority of African peoples are descendants of the 12 lost tribes of Israel and that most Africans have Hebraic practices.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 14:42:02 +0000
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