Black Hebrew Israelites (BHI)

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Overview:

Black Hebrew Israelites(BHI) also known as Black Hebrews, or, Hebrew Israelites are groups of African-Americans situated mostly in the United States who claim to be descendants of the ancient Israelites. Not to be confused with African Hebrew Israelites, or Beta Jews they claim that they are Alpha Israelites and that they are not Africans at all, but were merely sold into slavery from Africa.

They claim they are refugees of the so-called "First Jewish-Roman War" avoiding the holocaust at Masada In 73 AD. In 70 AD they claim to have fled Judea into the interior of West Africa, and sojourned there some 1,500 years. Their Shemetic ancestors were sold by Hametic Africans, to Ishmaelite-Arabian slave traders, who (in turn) sold them to European, Trans-Atlantic Slave Traders in the early 1600’s.

They assert that the Negroes, and Indians of North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean are all descended from the twelve Israelite patriarchs. They use many prophecies in the Hebrew Bible to show similarities to the predicted fate of the descendants of the Israelites in the "latter days". They most often cite the 28th Chapter of the book of Deuteronomy as proof that the predicted condition of the Israelites more closely matches their own, than that of today's Caucasian Ashkenazi, and Sephardic practitioners of Judaism.

Origins

African American and African Caribbean Christianity had long developed a comparison of their experience in the New World with that of the Jews held in slavery in Egypt, particularly as regards the Book of Exodus. From the mid-eighteenth century a metaphorical embrace of a Hebrew identity was a major element of New World African spirituality. Thus in 1800 Gabriel's slave conspiracy in Virginia identified themselves with the Israelites of the Old Testament, as was Denmark Vesey's attempted rebellion of 1822. However it was not until later in the nineteenth century that an identification as ancient Hebrews developed from identification with biblical prophecy.

Groups within the BHI movement:

Religious beliefs:

The Black Hebrew Israelites of New York City, a Yahoo! forum, lists the following correspondences between the ancient twelve tribes of Israel and modern-day inhabitants of the western hemisphere:

Ruben = Seminole Indians (Muskogee).
Simeon = Dominicans of Hispanola.
Levi = Haitians.
Judah = African Americans.
Dan = Cubans.
Naphtali = Argentineans & Chileans.
Gad = Native Americans.
Asher = Incas.
Issachar = Aztec Indians and other Mexicans.
Zebulon = Mayan Indians and other inhabitants of countries from Guatemala to Panama.
Ephraim & Manasseh = Taino & Boriqua Indians and other Puerto Ricans
Benjamin = Carribe, Cibao, Arrowack, and other inhabitants of Guyana and the West Indies.

Many Black Hebrew Israelites are at odds over the religious aspects of mainstream Judaism and tend to reject Jewish conversion because of its heavy reliance on the Talmud which has been edited exclusively by European-born rabbis since the 8th century, often superseding the teachings of Torah, and so most Black Hebrew Israelites reject the Talmud, and the Kabbalah as being contrary to the will of YHWH and the testimony of Moses.

The remaining number tends to split along the lines of Messianic, and non-Messianic, ironically inheriting the European Judeo-Christian dichotomy from European schools of thought.

B.H.I. groups tend to reject the notion of returning to Israel, as citizens of the sovereign Israeli government, preferring a more religious and prophetic return to sovereignty a new covenant with their God YHWH.

Racism and anti-semitism:

Because they believe that the Tanakh forbids them from allowing "whites" —Jews of relatively light complexion whom they call "Caucasians", as opposed to Semites—into their congregations, a number of Black Hebrew Israelite groups have been thought of as racist, being mirror images of Black Christian Identity groups to whom the concept of race is unnecessarily made an issue. They insist that these "Caucasian," non-Semitic Jews are not descended from Israelites at all, but rather from Edomites and Khazars. As such, BHI groups have been accused of anti-semitism, a term which they reject as Black people are in fact Shemetic, disacknowledging the fact that, in modern usage and in this context, the term ‘anti-Semite’ almost exclusively refers to antagonism towards Jews.

BHI literature

External links:

BHI Forums:

This essay, with the exception of the list of correspondences and links to the Southern Poverty Law Center  was copied on 2006-MAY-30 from a Wikipedia essay "Black Hebrew Israelites" at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hebrew_Israelites Used by permission.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.

Originally posted: 2006-MAY-30
Latest update: 2006-MAY-30