History of Judaism in Africa: Are the Black Hebrews Right?

the African continent has an extensive history in interaction with Abrahamic religions Christianity and Islam are well documented within the continent but seldom do we explore the history of Judaism in Africa and with modern-day movements within the African diaspora this history is being advanced within the social framework of the public consciousness what about from world is your boy home senior and I'm back at at one another video of African history culture and worldview remember if you want access to sources courses exclusive videos or you just want to support the home team you can do so on patreon calm the link is in the description box below it's no surprise that scholars are having to address the history of Judaism in Africa due to the rise of the black Hebrew Israelite community the Hebrew Israelites have done a fantastic job at moving the discussion through grassroots efforts and urban communities their narrative has become so potent that it even influenced the minds of popular hip-hop artists like Kendrick Lamar and Kodak black I'm is real light don't call me black no mo that word is on your color it ain't no mouth and this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Hebrew Israelite influence in popular culture my last video about the top 10 African ethnic groups taken in the Atlantic slave trade spurred of the debate about Hebrews like claims concerning biblical prophecies and how black people in the Diaspora may reflect this history a lot of you guys have been messaging me to share my thoughts on the topic I thought it would be an interesting topic to analyze but more importantly I wanted to go into the details of some of the major claims and compare it to what we know about West African history so here it goes first we're going to discuss the general history of Judaism in Africa and then we'll compare them to the Hebrew Israelite ideology and what some scholars have to say I definitely can't cover everything in this video so keep in mind that there will be a part two so make sure to make comments with any movement around the globe it's important to have elements of truth in it and that's how most of them acquired their following the truth is there is a history of Jews in Africa according to most accounts the earliest Jewish settlements were in North Africa and it only makes sense for Judaism in Africa to begin in the north as a point of entry from the Levant region where it originated Jews and a mosaic or what we call today Berbers ultimately interacted with each other and some Berbers in North Africa actually converted to Judaism in fact according to accounts from the 19th century onward Queen Kushina and a music queen who fought against the Arab invasion was said to have converted to Judaism even though this is debated within the scholarly community it still points to the presence and influence of judaism in africa pointing for the south in ethiopia the queen who destroyed the Aqsa mine empire was believed by some to have been it shores convert her name was queen goony and again despite the controversy the knowledge of Judaism in Africa was not foreign or unknown but the most unlikely place people are to expect a presence of Judaism tends to be West Africa because it's so far away from the origin of Judaism admittedly the most direct evidence for Jews in West Africa comes from the West African writers themselves and the tarik alpha toss the Tariq Alpha Tosh is a West African chronicle written in Arabic in the second half of the 17th century and it provides an account of the Songhai and Mali empires the Tariq Alpha toss describes a community called the Bani Israel that in 1402 existed in tender murmur Mali possess 333 wells and had seven leaders it even goes on to list the names of these leaders and even states that they had an army of around 1500 men apparently there was a sizable amount of Jews in the songhai empire in accordance to Leo africanus the Askia or King really wasn't too pleased that they were there the king is a declared enemy of the Jews he will not allow any to live in a city if he hears it said that a berber merchant frequents them or does business with them he confiscates his goods it's important to note that thousands of Jews and Moors during this same period were reportedly expelled from Spain and came to settle in North Africa but nonetheless Jews were in West Africa and Africans and Arabs recorded their presence there are many more counseled Jews in western Africa but let's discuss the strongest claim from the Hebrew Israelites that support their narrative like mentioned before the Hebrew Israelites claim that Hebrew communities lived in Africa and historically that's true but their strongest claim comes from dr. Rudolph Windsor in his book from Babylon to Timbuktu there he proclaims a Hebrew his light state in West Africa called Camp Nou or Canaria the moorish writer real africanus informs us of the past existence of a medieval hebrew state called chem Noria or Kendriya in fact chem Nuria did indeed exist and so dr. winters credit there is very strong evidence that there were Jews living there in Mauritania according to oral tradition of western Africa and Arab sources the first inhabitants of Mauritania were the buff for people who apparently claim Jewish origin the before were pre Berber people in the region who reportedly were black Africans with some Semite ancestry al-idrisi the muslim scholar and historian writes and I quote the inhabitants of camerea following the saying of merchants claimed to be Jews according to al-idrisi when the Islamic Berber Empire of the Almoravids were expanding they began suppressed about 4 come nuria population and they were left in a state of survival only a small group from Camarillo remained scattered between the deserts and near the coast and living off dairy products or fish they lead a hard and precarious life they wander in this territory now like mentioned before all movements and religions must contain elements of truth to them and this is by far the strongest and most reliable argument of the Hebrew Israelite community concerning Jews or Hebrews in West Africa now given all of that with further analysis of their claims the scholarly and religious community have many objections for the sake of time let's all concede and agree with the position of the Hebrew Israelites that all the Hebrews from Israel all the way to North and West Africa are all black Hebrews even if we can see to that point there are still difficulties with assigning these people not only to the African aspera but African kingdoms but we'll get into that later it's important to note that the Hebrew is like ideology and belief is very diverse so we're going to tackle the most popular one the book from Babylon to Timbuktu and its author dr. Rudolph Windsor is one of the most celebrated history books for most Hebrew Israelites so we'll use his claims from this book and compare it to what we know historically about West African history dr. Rudolf Windsor is a Hebrew Israelite himself and in his book he claims that the kings of the Ghana Empire also known as well God who were black Hebrews the black Hebrew kings of Ghana had two titles cuyahoga and Ghana it's a well documented fact that the Sun Inca people founded the empire of Ghana not black Hebrews the Sun Inca weren't Jews at all in fact they had a legend about a giant snake that they made a pact with to sustain their land according to soneca oral tradition the sown Inca venerated a giant snake named betta and they made sacrifices to him and I quote every year the beetle would receive a maiden and a horse and in exchange the beedo would rained gold upon the land this obviously has strong religious undercurrents concerning their traditional African belief system which was the veneration of snakes nothing at all within sonica society points to any Jewish socio political or religious parentage Hebrew Israelite scholarship has a tendency to bulk up the presence of Jews in West and Central Africa so that the millions of people sort of the coast of Africa will align with their claim that all victims of the Atlantic slave trade are the true and authentic children of Israel the argument actually crumbles with the numbers the way they tend to boost these numbers is by claiming the originators of some African empires or kingdoms were black Hebrews and they simply converted to Islam later on like with the empire of Ghana and the Sangha Empire many Hebrew Israelites claim the original West African songhai dynasty known as the Zhou idea dynasty had a line of black Hebrew kings this founder of the first Sudan ik dynasty in western Africa was a black Jew his name is sometimes written al-ayam on because it's assumed that we can't confirm issed or eclis the religion of the early dia or zhou dynasty of the Songhai dr. Windsor simply inserts the idea that it was a black Hebrew one that's raquel Sudan which is another chronicle from West Africa written by an African makes mention of the Zhou Dynasty and its ruler but does not at all mention that he was a Hebrew or a Jew for that matter thankfully today due to new information we have some writing from ancient songhai traditional scribes called the khumba this was the earliest songhai writing fan used to communicate largely religious matters a sangha historian named dr. hassan ii mugga has preserved the text of his people and given us insight into the religion of ancient songhai people the following is a written songhai communication between two priests peace be upon in debby men and women are greeting you and the river the force and Gangji the cattle the birds and the animals are suffering because of the lack of frame peace be upon and evii men and women are greeting you may the peace of the day in the night be upon you we must organize the dance we must sacrifice animal blood and offer it to the Gangi to drink when the khumba receives such letters from other scribes they explain or in herbert the meaning of such letters such letters also can be ordered by the chief of the village the king or they can be initiated by the khumba themselves for the benefit of the population now based off this communication between two Seong gyes scribes or priests before the advent of Islam it's clear that the God that they worship which the Zhou Dynasty Kings seemingly validated was not yeah of the black Hebrews but in Debbi also nothing in black Hebrew is like culture makes reference to offering animal blood to the Ganges which the early songhay dynasty believed were spirits in human form we have to ask ourselves why would black Hebrew kings of the Songhai allow the worship of in Debbie and the veneration of kenji these are very difficult questions to answer if we are to subscribe to this idea that the early song got Kings were black Hebrews the fact is this the ancient song got dynasties very clearly weren't black Hebrews acquiring any traditions from the Levant region and worship of yah but they were West Africans practicing a traditional African belief by claiming that Ghana and songhai were originally Hebrews you automatically boost up the numbers of Hebrews in Africa greatly along with other independent Jewish communities we see historically and thus you can comfortably align yourself for the claim that all of the millions of victims of the Atlantic slave trade are the true and authentic children of Israel but something to disprove Hebrew Israelite origin and African empires can be difficult as anyone can insert a Israelite presence with historical gaps but one thing that seems a little peculiar is dr. vouilloz claims that the black Jews maintained their history laws and written records and they did not absorb into the African tribes instead the African tribes absorbed into them the black Jews had an advantage over the African tribes they carried their culture history laws and written records with them this assured them a constant precedent for the development of a higher social organization because of the stability of the black Jewish culture the Jews were not absorbed into the autochthonous population so according to dr. Rudolf the black Hebrew Kings of Donna and Tsonga had the advantage over other Africans because they maintained their culture written records laws in history also these black Hebrews were not absorbed into the African culture taken on any of the African cultural religious or societal ways but that the Africans took on the ways of the black Hebrews this is a pretty bold and problematic statement because in order for it to be true the most basic human activity has to accommodate what he's saying and that's language the one question we must ask ourselves is this if these black Hebrews kept their cultural ways in history and laws and influence the Africans how did they not keep the Hebrew language how did the language and the writing not influence the local population and why aren't there any Hebrew history books in West Africa accounting for these African empires take for example the Tariq al Sudan and at Surry kalfa Tosh both of these books were written in Arabic which is a language brought over from a people also from the Middle Eastern region who clearly brought over their religion language history and laws influencing the African population if the Arabs were able to do it why weren't the black Hebrews able to keep a simple thing like their language or the Hebrew writing if millions of them migrated to Africa and built empires and maintained their culture is what he claims is correct than the so [ __ ] people of the Ghana Empire had to have been absorbed by the culture and laws of the black Hebrews if the kings of Ghana or Hebrew Israelites who kept their tradition why would they give themselves so [ __ ] names instead of Hebrew ones for example it was a small list of names from the kings of Ghana that is well documented King Cuyahoga King my andhave see say King bossy and King Tonka Manon the names of these Kings don't seem remotely Hebrew or Jewish in fact these names are son Inca in origin see say being a very popular man day name the names of these kings also point to the originators of the Ghana Empire which is obviously African and not black Hebrew Israelite as dr. winter proclaims also if the black Hebrews kept their laws and written records as dr. Rudolph claims why would the khumba Seong gyes scribes not be writing in Hebrew script what reason would they have to invent a totally new writing system and worship a new God named in Debby and not yah if these black Hebrews influenced the Africans and kept their Hebrew written records and laws as dr. Windsor claims then the supposed black Hebrew kings of songa would not be writing in an ancient song guy script when comparing African history with the most celebrated Hebrew Israelite commentary on black Hebrew Israelite history we run into some serious issues however even with these historical issues the Hebrew Israelites to their credit made convincing arguments from the Hebrew Bible itself as parallels between the children of Israel of the Bible and the Atlantic slave trade are bound to be similar well I'm all out guys in part 2 I'm going to tackle the strong biblical evidence black Hebrew Israelites use and compare it to biblical scholarship if you liked this video and want to learn more and gain the sources you can go to patreon.com/scishow stay tuned for part two as we discussed the history and rise of the Hebrew Israelites and analyze their strongest biblical position know thyself remember your ancestors peace [Music]

Channel: HomeTeam History

Views: 318,504

Keywords: Africa, African History, Black Hebrews, Black Israelites, Israelites, Israel, Lost Tribes, Blacks in the Bible, Atlantic slave trade, Judah, 12 tribes, Hebrew Israelites, Jews, Judaism, Jewish History

Id: 2HGDsgJrBCk

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 19 2018