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Black Hebrew Israelites (also calledHebrew Israelites,Black Hebrews,Black Israelites, andAfrican Hebrew Israelites) are anew religious movement claiming thatAfrican Americans aredescendants of the ancient Israelites. Some sub-groups believe thatNative andLatin Americans are descendants of the Israelites as well.[1]
Black Hebrew Israelite teachings combine elements from a wide range of sources,[2] incorporating their own interpretations ofChristianity andJudaism,[3][4] and other influences such asFreemasonry andNew Thought.[2] Many choose to identify as Hebrew Israelites or Black Hebrews rather thanJews.[a] Black Hebrew Israelism is a non-homogenous movement composed of numerous groups with varying beliefs and practices. Black Hebrew Israelites are not associated with the mainstream Jewish community, and they do not meet thecriteria that are used to identify people as Jewish by the Jewish community. They are also outside the fold ofmainstream Christianity.[6]
The Black Hebrew Israelite movement originated at the end of the 19th century, whenFrank Cherry andWilliam Saunders Crowdy claimed to have received visions that African Americans are descendants of theHebrews in theBible. Cherry established the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations, in 1886, and Crowdy founded theChurch of God and Saints of Christ in 1896.[b] Subsequently, Black Hebrew groups were founded in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fromKansas toNew York City, by both African Americans andWest Indian immigrants.[3] In the mid-1980s, the number of Black Hebrews in the United States was between 25,000 and 40,000.[13]
Various sects of Black Hebrew Israelism have been criticized by academics for their theology andhistorical revisionism due to the lack of evidence supporting their claims.[14][15] Some sects are consideredblack supremacist andantisemitic.[16] According to theAnti-Defamation League (ADL): "Some, but not all, [Black Hebrew Israelites] are outspoken anti-Semites and racists."[17] TheSouthern Poverty Law Center designates several extremist sects ashate groups which supportracial segregation,Holocaust denial,homophobia, andrace war.[c] The SPLC refers to these extremist groups as "Radical Hebrew Israelites" to distinguish between "extremist and non-extremist sects" and because not all Hebrew Israelites are black.[21]
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The origins of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement are found inFrank Cherry andWilliam Saunders Crowdy, who both claimed that they had revelations in which they believed that God told them that African Americans are descendants of theHebrews in theChristian Bible; Cherry established the "Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations" in 1886, and Crowdy founded the "Church of God and Saints of Christ" in 1896.[9][10][11][12] Cherry taught that theTalmud was authoritative, that Jesus would return in the year A.D. 2000, and in a "square earth surrounded by three layers of heaven."[4] The playing of the piano and the collection oftithes during Black Hebrew Israelite worship was forbidden by Cherry, who also taught theeastward direction of prayer and "denigrated white Jews as interlopers."[4] The Church of God and Saints of Christ, originating in Kansas, retained elements of a messianic connection toJesus.[3] Another early key figure was William Christian. The pioneers of the movement were Freemasons, and it was strongly influenced by Masonic traditions.[22][2] In the late 19th century, Cherry's and Crowdy's followers continued to propagate the claim that they were the biological descendants of the Israelites.[23] During the following decades, many more Black Hebrew congregations were established.[4] Similar groups selected elements of Judaism and adapted them within a structure similar to that of theBlack church.[3] After Frank Cherry's death in 1963, his son Prince Benjamin F. Cherry took over leadership of the movement.[4]
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dozens of Black Hebrew organizations were established.[3] In Harlem alone, at least eight such groups were founded between 1919 and 1931.[24]
Some of these include:
The oldest known Black Hebrew organization is the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations.[25][32] The group was founded byFrank Cherry inChattanooga, Tennessee, in 1886, and it later moved toPhiladelphia.[33] Cherry, who was from the Deep South and had worked as a seaman and for the railroads before his ministry, taught himself Hebrew andYiddish.[34] Theologically, the Church of the Living God mixed elements of Judaism and Christianity, counting the Christian Bible—including theNew Testament—and theTalmud as essential scriptures.[35][36]
The rituals of Cherry's congregation incorporated many Jewish practices and prohibitions alongside some Christian traditions.[37] For example, during prayer, the men woreskullcaps and congregantsfaced east. In addition, members of the church were not permitted to eatpork.[37] Prayers were accompanied by musical instruments andgospel singing.[38] Cherry died in 1963 when he was about 95 years old; his son, Prince Benjamin F. Cherry, succeeded him.[36][39] Members of the church believed that he had temporarily left and would soon reappear in spirit in order to lead the church through his son.[39][26]
The Church of God and Saints of Christ was established inLawrence, Kansas, in 1896 by African AmericanWilliam Saunders Crowdy.[40] The group established its headquarters in Philadelphia in 1899; Crowdy later relocated to Washington, D.C., in 1903. After Crowdy's death in 1908, the church continued to grow under the leadership of William Henry Plummer, who moved the organization's headquarters to its permanent location inBelleville, Virginia, in 1921.[41]
In 1936, the Church of God and Saints of Christ had more than 200 "tabernacles" (congregations) and 37,000 members.[26][42]Howard Z. Plummer succeeded his father and became head of the organization in 1931.[43] His son, Levi Solomon Plummer, became the church's leader in 1975.[44] The Church of God and Saints of Christ was led by Jehu A. Crowdy Jr., a great-grandson of William Saunders Crowdy, from 2001 until his death in 2016.[45] Since 2016, it has been led by Phillip E. McNeil.[46] As of 2005, the church had fifty tabernacles in the United States and dozens more in Africa.[40]
The Church of God and Saints of Christ describes itself as "the oldest African-American congregation in the United States that adheres to the tenets of Judaism."[32][47] The church teaches that all Jews were originally Black and that African Americans are descendants of theTen Lost Tribes.[48][49] Members believe thatJesus was neither God nor the son of God, but rather an adherent of Judaism and aprophet. They also consider William Saunders Crowdy, their founder, to be a prophet.[50]
The Church of God and Saints of Christ synthesizes rituals from both normative Judaism and Christianity. They have adopted rites drawn from both theOld andNew Testaments. Its Old Testament observances include the use of theHebrew calendar, the celebration ofPassover, thecircumcision of infant males, the commemoration of theSabbath onSaturday, and the wearing ofyarmulkes. Its New Testament rites includebaptism (immersion) andfootwashing, both of which have Old Testament origins.[48][49]
In 1919,Wentworth Arthur Matthew, an emigrant fromSaint Kitts, founded a Black Hebrew Israelite congregation inHarlem, the Commandment Keepers of the Living God.[6] In 1930, Matthew established the Ethiopian Hebrew Rabbinical College (later renamed theIsraelite Rabbinical Academy) in Brooklyn.[51] He ordained more than 20rabbis, who went on to lead congregations throughout the United States and the Caribbean.[52][53] He remained the leader of the Commandment Keepers in Harlem, and in 1962 the congregation moved to a landmark building on 123rd Street.[54]
Matthew died in 1973, sparking an internal conflict over who would succeed him as head of the Harlem congregation. Shortly before his death, Matthew named his grandson, David Matthew Doré, as the new spiritual leader. Doré was 16 years old at the time. In 1975, the synagogue's board elected Rabbi Willie White as its leader. Rabbi Doré occasionally conducted services at the synagogue until the early 1980s, when White had Doré and some other members locked out of the building. Membership declined throughout the 1990s, and by 2004, only a few dozen people belonged to the synagogue. In 2007 the Commandment Keepers sold the building while various factions among former members sued one another.[55][56]
Matthew was influenced by the non-black Jews he met as well as byMarcus Garvey and theUniversal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. Garvey used the Biblical Jews in exile as a metaphor forblack people in North America. One of the accomplishments of Garvey's movement was to strengthen the connection between black Americans and Africa, Ethiopia in particular. When Matthew later learned about theBeta Israel—Ethiopian Jews—he identified with them, teaching that the Commandment Keepers were descendants ofSolomon and theQueen of Sheba.[57][58] Matthew taught that "the Black man is a Jew" and "all genuine Jews are Black men",[52] but he valued non-black Jews as those who had preserved Judaism over the centuries.[6] Matthew maintained cordial ties with non-black Jewish leaders in New York and frequently invited them to worship at his synagogue.[53]
Today, the Commandment Keepers follow traditional Jewish practices and observeJewish holidays.[27] Members observekashrut, circumcise newborn boys, and celebrateBar and Bat Mitzvahs, and theirsynagogue has amechitza to separate men and women during worship.[55]
Besides the Harlem group, there are eight or ten Commandment Keeper congregations in the New York area, and others exist throughout North America as well as inIsrael.[59] Since 2000, seven rabbis have graduated from the Israelite Rabbinical Academy founded by Matthew.[60]
Ben Ammi Ben-Israel established the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem inChicago,Illinois, in 1966, a time whenblack nationalism was on the rise as a response to thecivil rights movement. In 1969, after a sojourn inLiberia, Ben Ammi and around 30 Hebrew Israelites moved toIsrael.[29] Over the next 20 years, nearly 600 more members left the United States for Israel. As of 2006, about 2,500 Hebrew Israelites live inDimona and two other towns in theNegev region of Israel, where they are widely referred to as Black Hebrews.[61] In addition, there are African Hebrew Israelite communities in several major American cities, including Chicago, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.[62]
The Black Hebrews believe they are descended from members of theTribe of Judah who were exiled from theLand of Israel after theRomans destroyed theSecond Temple in 70 CE.[61][63] The group incorporates elements ofAfrican-American culture into their interpretation of the Bible.[62] They do not recognize rabbinical Jewish interpretations such as theTalmud.[61] The Black Hebrews observeShabbat and biblically ordainedJewish holidays such asYom Kippur andPassover.[64] Men weartzitzit on their African print shirts, women follow theniddah (biblical laws concerning menstruation),[62] and newborn boys are circumcised.[29] In accordance with their interpretation of the Bible, the Black Hebrews follow a strictlyvegan diet and only wearnatural fabrics.[29][63] Most men havemore than one wife, andbirth control is not permitted.[61]
When the first Black Hebrews arrived in Israel in 1969, they claimed citizenship under theLaw of Return, which gives eligible Jews immediate citizenship.[65] The Israeli government ruled in 1973 that the group did not qualify for automatic citizenship because they could not prove Jewish descent and had not undergone Orthodox conversion. The Black Hebrews were deniedwork permits and state benefits. The group accused the Israeli government ofracist discrimination.[66] In 1981, a group of American civil rights activists led byBayard Rustin investigated and concluded that racism was not the cause of the Black Hebrews' situation.[28] No official action was taken to return the Black Hebrews to the United States, but some individual members weredeported for working illegally.[66]
Some Black Hebrewsrenounced their American citizenship in order to try to prevent more deportations. In 1990, Illinois legislators helped negotiate an agreement that resolved the Black Hebrews' legal status in Israel. Members of the group are permitted to work and have access to housing and social services. The Black Hebrews reclaimed their American citizenship and have received aid from the U.S. government, which helped them build a school and additional housing.[66] In 2003, the agreement was revised, and the Black Hebrews were grantedpermanent residency in Israel.[30][67] In 2009, Elyakim Ben-Israel became the first Black Hebrew to gain Israeli citizenship. The Israeli government said that more Black Hebrews may be granted citizenship.[68]
Today, young men and some women from the African Hebrew community of Jerusalem serve in the IDF; they have entered international sporting events and academic competitions under the Israeli flag and have represented Israel twice in the Eurovision Song Contest.[69] The Black Hebrews of Israel maintain a populargospel choir that tours throughout Israel and the United States. The group owns restaurants in several Israeli cities.[66] In 2003, the Black Hebrews garnered public attention when singerWhitney Houston visited them in Dimona.[70][71][72] In 2006,Eddie Butler, a Black Hebrew, was chosen by the Israeli public torepresent Israel in theEurovision Song Contest.[61][67]
TheOne West Camp is amessianic subdivision of Black Hebrew Israelite groups that believe in theOld Testament, theNew Testament and the exclusive identification of the Twelve Tribes of Israel with ethnic communities of Black, Latin American, and Native American descent in the Americas.[73] The camp is named after its first grouping, which was located at One West 125th Street in Harlem in New York City, then known as the 'Israeli School of Universal Practical Knowledge'. The movement has since splintered into numerous "camps", including the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ and the Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge. Other notable groups descended from the One West Camp include the Gathering of Christ Church,[74] Masharah Yasharahla,[75] and Israel United in Christ.[76][77]
A 1999FBIterrorism risk assessment report stated that "violent radical fringe members" of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement hold "beliefs [that] bear a striking resemblance to theChristian Identity theology practiced by manywhite supremacists".[78][79] The 1999 assessment concluded that "the overwhelming majority of [Black Hebrew Israelites] are unlikely to engage in violence."[78]
In late 2008, theSouthern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) wrote that "the extremist fringe of the Hebrew Israelite movement" has aBlack supremacist outlook. It wrote that the members of such groups "believe thatJews are devilish impostors and ... openly condemnWhites asevil personified, deserving only death or slavery". The SPLC wrote that "most Hebrew Israelites are neither explicitly racist noranti-Semitic and do not advocate violence".[80]
As of December 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center "lists 144 Black Hebrew Israelite organizations as black separatist hate groups because of their antisemitic and anti-white beliefs".[20] The groups the SPLC has categorized as Black supremacist hate groups include theIsraelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge (ISUPK),[81] and theNation of Yahweh (NOY).[82]
TheAnti-Defamation League has written that the 12 Tribes of Israel website, which is maintained by a Black Hebrew group, promotes Black supremacy.[83] The ADL has also described several extremist BHI sects as hate groups, including the House of Israel (HOI), the Israelites Saints of Christ, the True Nation Israelite Congregation, and the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ (ICGJC).[84] The ADL summarized some of the commonly used BHI terms:[84]
Some sects of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement employstreet preaching to promote their ideology. Sidewalk ministers may employ provocation to advance a message that is often antisemitic, racist, and xenophobic.[86][87][88] In January 2019, street preachers purportedly targeted students ofCovington Catholic High School (Kentucky) at aconfrontation at Lincoln Memorial. One student reported that extremist Black Hebrew Israelites called students slurs, and told an African American student that white classmates would "harvest his organs".[89]
Alberta Williams King, the mother ofMartin Luther King Jr., was shot and killed on June 30, 1974, at age 69, byMarcus Wayne Chenault, a 23-year-old Black man from Ohio, who had adopted the theology of a Black Hebrew Israelite preacher, Hananiah E. Israel of Cincinnati, and had shown interest in a group called the "Hebrew Pentecostal Church of the Living God".[90] Israel, Chenault's mentor, castigated Black civil rights activists andBlack church leaders as being evil and deceptive, but claimed in interviews not to have advocated violence.[91] Chenault did not draw any such distinction, and first decided to assassinate Rev.Jesse Jackson in Chicago, but canceled the plan at the last minute.[citation needed]
On December 10, 2019, two people who had expressed interest in the Black Hebrew Israelite movement were killed in ashootout with police. They had killed a police detective atBayview Cemetery, and three people at the JC Kosher Supermarket inJersey City, New Jersey: the Jewish co-owner of the grocery store, an employee, and a Jewish shopper. Authorities treated the incident as an act ofdomestic terrorism.[92]Capers Funnye, who had been therabbi for 26 years of the 200-memberBeth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, condemned the attack and said that his community was "gripped by sadness" over "the heinous actions of two disturbed individuals who cloaked themselves in anti-Semitism and hate-filled rhetoric". He criticized the media reports for using "the term 'Black Hebrew Israelites' without distinction as if the description is a one size fits all and it is absolutely not". Funnye said: "we don't want to be seen as some radical fringe group with a false narrative because we are black and profess Judaism; we are Torah-oriented Jews."[93][94][95]
On December 28, 2019, a man with a macheteattacked several Orthodox Jewish people duringHanukkah celebrations in a house inMonsey, New York. Authorities revealed that his journals included references to Black Hebrew Israelites, stating that "Hebrew Israelites" have taken from "ebinoid Israelites".[96]
African AmericanChristian apologetics organizations, such as the Jude 3 Project, have critiqued the theological and historical claims which have been presented by various Black Hebrew Israelite sects.[97] Zimbabwean novelistMasimba Musodza says the Black Hebrew Israelites have made historical revisionist claims and that their doctrine "force[s] their own ideas onto the text to promote their own agenda", engendering "antisemitism in Black communities in western countries".[d]
Fran Markowitz, a professor ofCultural Anthropology at theBen-Gurion University of the Negev, writes that the Hebrew Israelite view of thetransatlantic slave trade conflicts with historical accounts, as does the Hebrew Israelite belief thatSocrates andWilliam Shakespeare were black.[14]
TheAnti-Defamation League andSouthern Poverty Law Center have designated some extremist sects of Black Hebrew Israelites as hate groups. The ADL said "Some, but not all, [Black Hebrew Israelites] are outspoken anti-Semites and racists".[98][99][100]
Shais Rishon, a BlackOrthodox Jewish writer and activist, objects to the common conflation of Black Hebrew Israelites and Black Jews, which he says amounts to erasure of the "mainstream normative Black Jewish community". He says that Black Hebrew Israelites are not a denomination of Judaism, and that Black Hebrew Israelites do not share the same identity, community, or issues as Black Jews.[101]
...he accepted the collection of Jewish law known as the Talmud as the ultimate authority on religious matters. Like many black Israelites and black Muslims, Cherry stigmatized Southern black culture, forbidding his followers to eat pork, drink heavily, or observe Christian holidays. He also separated himself from African American Christianity by forbidding pianos, public collections, emotional expression in worship, or speaking in tongues. ... Services began and ended with a prayer said while facing east ... Prophet Cherry's theology was strongly millenarian, black nationalist, and idiosyncratic. He emphasized strict adherence to the Ten Commandments, and his followers believed in a square earth surrounded by three layers of heaven. He claimed that Jesus was black and would return in the year 2000 and raise all the saints who obeyed the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Prophet Cherry. Cherry denigrated white Jews as interlopers and frauds and vilified them for denying the divinity of Jesus. Prophet Cherry passed away in 1963 and was succeeded by his son Prince Benjamin F. Cherry.
The first was the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations founded by F.S. Cherry in 1886 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Cherry preached that Adam, Eve, and Jesus were black and that African Americans lost their Hebrew identity during slavery. Later, William S. Crowdy founded the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896 in Lawrence, Kansas. Crowdy taught that blacks were heirs of the lost tribes of Israel, while white Jews were descendants of inter-racial marriages between Israelites and white Christians.
One of these groups, Prophet Cherry's Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of Truth for All Nations is the oldest known Black Judaic sect. It was originally established in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1886. Prophet Cherry argued they were part of the original Israelite tribes chased from Babylonia (and, they claim, into Central and Western Africa where they were later sold into slavery) by the Romans in 70 CE.
In 1893, Crowdy had a vision that resulted in the establishment of the Church of God and Saints in Christ.
Crowdy claimed to be the recipient of a series of revelations in which, among other things, he was told that Blacks were descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel.
The ICUPK starts with a premise about the Middle Passage that isn't all that dissimilar from the one that grounds the AHIJ's historical revisionism, a reading of the transatlantic slave trade that is fairly cut-and-dried: African pagans and Arab Muslims sold Hebrew Israelites into European slavery. Anything else, the ICUPK argue, is a lie, a conspirational rewriting of history. The rest of ICUPK's arguments (about the "lost tribes," about the Bible's true meaning, about figures like Socrates and Shakespeare actually being black) stem from that central interpretation of the transatlantic slave trade, and they are unflinching in their commitment to its paradigmatic purpose.
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