The Black Jews of Ghana

These African villagers consider themselves Jews. Should we?

Tablet Magazine has a fascinating firsthand audio report from a village in Ghana that is home to the country's only self-styled Jewish community.

You can listen to the audio here:

Tablet Magazine podcast_feature100509_sefwijews

Or, better yet, you can go listen on Tablet's website, which also has some great pictures of the village and the Jewish villagers.

Comments

[DK]

Enough with the "lost tribes" already. Always in Africa. Never from Vermont.

[nachos]

Isn't Bernie Sanders from Vermont and he is definitely a lost tribe!!!

[BaltimoreYid]

My feeling on this subject is simple: if you're crazy enough to want to be a member of this insanity then I welcome you and your families.

[pushkina]

i've known these folks in ghana and nigeria for a long time, more than ten years. a group i work with, b'chol lashon has been working wiht them, as well as the lemba folks in zimbabwe, the ugandans, folks in latin america, india / burma and even in new mexico.

none of these folks woke up one day and decided, "ah ha! let's declare ourselves jews and see what it gets us" as so many from the the normative (and racially exclusive) jewish communities seem to think.

not only b'chol lashon works with these folks, so does kulanu.

personally, daughter of old time yekkes and the granddaughter of an ethiopian kes that i am, i can say this: i didn't decide one day to turn dark-skinned just to antagonize folks. i was born with this skin and it has PO'ed so many normative jews, it's really gotten to be a bore.

it would have been so much easier to just drop jewishness and skip it but then, what would the Eternal say to me later? and having now worked closely, intimately, in the community of jews of color officially for two decades, i can tell you all this: that is what they say, what would the Eternal say to me if i rejected his ways and his people," (no matter how stupid they can be.)

we have all been taught that jewish history is BIG and old and wide. folks get (got ) lost. everyone should remember that it could have been their families who got lost.

be nice. welcome them.

PS pres. Obama's (well, michelle's cousin) cousin in law, r. capers funnye made a halachic conversion decades ago. i've known him for what seems forever and i've often been more stringent than he when it comes to welcoming in 'lost ' communities. he is one who hears them and tried to introduce them gently into the world of normative judaism. after years of my own study ,undertaken after years of conventional jewish education, i'm beginning to understand.

all those 'lost tribes' of the bible went somewhere, usually somewhere that the bad guys wouldn't/couldn't find them. you can hide a jewish body, but not a jewish soul.

[reuven sabel]

their women do not dress tzniyus. they should not be accepted as jews or as converts.

[Torres]

Come on... (their women do not dress tzniyus. they should not be accepted as jews or as converts.)

There are many in the community who dont as well. Do we discount their Jewishness?

[Joe Bloom]

They can be unitarians or b'nai noach - we don't need more poor people - they are leave us alone - i wouldn't come to live in Israel to be with these people - i want to be with Shearit Yisrael - these people are economic social climbers

[Zohar Ivri]

You should consider those that keep Torah Jewish, and not doubt the ones that are African. Jews have African blood and are considered 'afro-semetic' this is the case. Some Jews that were exiled into gentile/goyish lands started to look European or Eastern European. This same fact is true of the African ones.

[Zohar Ivri]

Since Maimonides wasn't white looking, he would have been discriminated against today in our time. Ancient Hebrews looked African, and today they would have suffered the prejudice view point that many of us with dark skin are faced with today.

[Debra]

Spent a day with these folks last august, lovely pious people, they could teach me a few things about Judaism . Wishing my friends in sefri wiawso a sweet new year

[Nasi Yahniyah Ben Y'huda]

Wait until the day the the truth is truly exposed. Today, nw that we have started using dna/genetic ancestry scans. The truth is finially being revealed about the Real Israelites and those who are from European ancestry. Let's just hope that as we continue to open pandoras box that those whom say they are and are not, will tell the truth and those whom are not but truly are will be excepted as such for only that Most High knows the outcome.