Dr. Ben destroys the myth of a "white Jewish race" and the bigotry that has denied the existence of an African Jewish culture. He establishes the legitimacy of contemporary Black Jewish culture in Africa and the diaspora and predates its origin before ancient Nile Valley civilizations.

Throughout most black societies today, there are Jews who are not accepted by the worldwide community of Rabbinic Jews. They are known as Black Jews, and the movement they represent is known as Black Judaism. Originating in the post-Civil War southern states, the early leaders of this movement were motivated by oppression and racism to migrate north. They came into contact with Rabbinic Jews and the Judaism they represented, but Black Jews and Black Judaism were rejected. Black Judaism continued to spread and reached the continent of Africa where it became an integral part of the Independent Black Church Movement and an active component of the various struggles for independence. From New York it spread to Latin America, especially the West Indies, and is known there in its most varied form as "Rastafarianism." During the turbulent days of the Civil Rights era, an uneasy alliance developed between some Black Jews and Rabbinic Jews, but again rejection soon followed. Black Judaism has never been a large movement in numbers of adherents, but its influence far exceeds its numbers, making it recognizable, as Landing shows in this book, as one of the most important social movements in African-American history. "There is limited existing literature on the topic and Landing's book offers a much needed analysis of this little known religious phenomenon. The work includes an extensive annotated bibliography and photographic supplement. Recommended for academic and research libraries." -- Association of Jewish Libraries, September/October 2004

A glimpse into the diverse stories of Black Jews in the United States What makes a Jew? This book traces the history of Jews of African descent in America and the counter-narratives they have put forward as they stake their claims to Jewishness. The Soul of Judaism offers the first exploration of the full diversity of Black Jews, including bi-racial Jews of both matrilineal and patrilineal descent; adoptees; black converts to Judaism; and Black Hebrews and Israelites, who trace their Jewish roots to Africa and challenge the dominant western paradigm of Jews as white and of European descent. Blending historical analysis and oral history, Haynes showcases the lives of Black Jews within the Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstruction and Reform movements, as well as the religious approaches that push the boundaries of the common forms of Judaism we know today. He illuminates how in the quest to claim whiteness, American Jews of European descent gained the freedom to express their identity fluidly while African Americans have continued to be seen as a fixed racial group. This book demonstrates that racial ascription has been shaping Jewish selfhood for centuries. Pushing us to reassess the boundaries between race and ethnicity, it offers insight into how Black Jewish individuals strive to assert their dual identities and find acceptance within their respective communities. Putting to rest the simplistic notion that Jews are white and that Black Jews are therefore a contradiction, the volume argues that we can no longer pigeonhole Black Hebrews and Israelites as exotic, militant, and nationalistic sects outside the boundaries of mainstream Jewish thought and community life. The volume spurs us to consider the significance of the growing population of self-identified Black Jews and its implications for the future of American Jewry.

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.

"Black Power, Jewish Politics expands with this revised edition that includes the controversial new preface, an additional chapter connecting the book's themes to the national reckoning on race, and a foreword by Jews of Color Initiative founder Ilana Kaufman that all reflect on Blacks, Jews, race, white supremacy, and the civil rights movement"--

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.

"This book presents, one by one, the different groups of Black Jews in Western central, eastern, and southern Africa and the ways in which they have used and imagined their oral history and traditional customs to construct a distinct Jewish identity. It explores the ways in which Africans have interacted with the ancient mythological sub-strata of both western and African ideas of Judaism."--Résumé de l'éditeur.