Posted on 03/14/2005 6:53:09 PM PST by blam
T h e
L e m b a
The Black Jews of Southern Africa
Historical Introduction
Over 2,700 years ago, the Assyrians exiled the ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel. "In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and he carried them away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of Medes." In the years 722-721 BC (over 2700 years ago), the Ten Tribes who comprised the northern Kingdom of Israel disappeared. Conquered by the Assyrian King Shalmaneser V, they were exiled to upper Mesopotamia and Medes, today modern Syria and Iraq. The Ten Tribes of Israel have never been seen since. Or have they?
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Tudor Parfitt, the protagonist of the NOVA documentary "Lost Tribes of Israel," made a journey through southern Africa to study the unusual traditions of a black African tribe called the Lemba. This Bantu-speaking group claimed Jewish ancestry and observed many Semitic traditions such as kosher-like dietary restrictions and slaughter practices, male circumcision rites, strict rules against intermarriage, and Semitic-sounding clan names.
Once described as "a sort of British Indiana Jones," Parfitt spent many months with the Lemba, meeting their tribal and religious leaders and observing some of their most sacred rituals. He came to the conclusion that the origin of many of the Lemba traditions was indeed Semitic, not African. But whether these traditions came from Islamic or Jewish sources was impossible to discern from the historical and anthropological evidence available. It would take Y-chromosome studies to delve deeper into this question of origin.
A few years after his travels, Parfitt teamed up with a group from The Center for Genetic Anthropology at University College London to look for a genetic counterpart to the Lemba's oral tradition of Jewish descent. Using a relatively new technique in genetic studies, the team identified a particular series of genetic markers on the Y chromosome of Lemba males. They then compared these markers to other groups with whom the Lemba might have shared a common ancestor long ago.
The team collected DNA samples from Bantu (African), Yemeni (Arab), and Sephardic Jews and Azhkenazi Jews (including Cohanim from both communities) to compare the amount of similarity that existed between each of these groups. As we've seen, the more similar the Y chromosome, the more closely related are some individuals in the different groups to a common paternal ancestor. As a consequence, one can establish links between populations.
In an interview with NOVA, team member Dr. David Goldstein commented on the team's findings: "The first striking thing about the Y chromosomes of the Lemba is that you find this particular chromosomal type (Cohen modal haplotype) that is characteristic of the Jewish priesthood in a frequency that is similar to what you see in major Jewish populations. Something just under one out of every 10 Lemba that we looked at had this particular Y chromosomal type that appears to be a signature of Jewish ancestry. Perhaps even more striking is the fact that this Cohen genetic signature is strongly associated with a particular clan in the Lemba. Most of the Cohen modal haplotypes that we observe are carried by individuals of the Buba clan which, in Lemba oral tradition, had a leadership role in bringing the Lemba out of Israel."
What this study shows is that the Lemba, and more specifically some members of the Buba sub-clan, seem to have an ancestral connection to Judaic populations. Like an oral history, but written in the letters of their DNA, the Lemba Y chromosome hands from father to son a living record of the past.
The Journeys of Tudor Parfitt in discovering the Lemba's origin
Lembas believe their ancestors built the ancient city, Great Zimbabwe
B L A C K B L O O D I N I S R A E L?
* Genesis 12:16 – Not only Hagar, but many of Abraham’s servants were gifts from Pharaoh and in this period it is fairly likely that many were Nubians. (approx. 1921 BC) * Genesis 13: 6-8 – Abraham had a large number of herdsmen and 318 male servants who were born into his house. * Genesis 25 – Isaac, Abraham’s son and then Jacob inherited everything. * Genesis41:50 – Joseph fathered two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, by an Egyptian wife, automatically making Israel nearly 10 percent Egyptian. Joshua was from one of these half-African tribes, Ephraim; in later years this tribe became so dominant that the northern tribes of Israel were sometimes simply called “Ephraim”. When the Israelites were subjected to slavery under the Egyptians, they and their former servants were now all defined as Israel together; this means that much intermarriage must have taken place.
* Exodus 12:38 – After 400 years, a “mixed multitude” left Egypt during the Exodus.
We had a FReeper named 'LostTribe' (he got banned), who thinks the Celts were the Northern Tribe(s).
No, I am not saying, nor trying to imply, that. Post 30 was inadvertently sent to this thread. My mistake.
Unfortunately, it took several attempts through the afternoon to get it removed.
Lemba? Isn't that where the elves get thier grain for Lembas, the fabulous trail mix of the Middle Earth?
I'm not a big fan of "lost tribes" theories, but this is a better story than those people in Uganda (with the long name) who "converted" to Judaism in the Twenties. They are under the influence of "Reform" and subscribe to liberal Biblical theories--downright bizarre when you think of how alien their culture must be from that of Western liberals.
Hers are two more
http://www.cohen-levi.org/the_tribe/kohanim_forever.htm
http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts-cohen-levite.html
bttt
Very interesting, as Arte Johnson used to say. Here's what I said about the Lemba on an African history webpage I wrote last year:
Most of the West African kingdoms that came along after Ghana also gave their monarchs a foreign origin, usually declaring that an Arab or Berber founded the dynasty. Though possible, such stories should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism, since the Arabs and Berbers are white, while these kings and their people were always black by the time historical records about them appear. Likewise, the city-states on the East African coast, like Kilwa, claimed that their first kings were Arabs. They probably made such claims to give the royal family an impressive Islamic lineage, just as the Christian kings of Abyssinia claimed descent from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (see Chapter 4).
However, in at least one case such legends may be correct. In 1999 members of the Lemba, a small South African tribe that claims Jewish ancestry, submitted to DNA testing, and their men have the so-called "Cohanim gene," a structure on the Y chromosome that so far has only been found with Levites. White Jews are debating whether the Lemba are really Jewish as we go to press, just as they did when Ethiopia's Falashas moved to Israel in the 1980s.
Source: http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/africa/af05.html , footnote #8
Glad you did. . .very interesting; and a great break from the politics of the day.
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thanks!
Bump.
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I also heard about a group of Yemeni Jews that actually settled the East African coast called the Ha-Redeye. Some pages state that the Lemba come from them, which adds more plausability to the story.
Welcome to FRee Republic. I did a search on the Ha-redeye people and all I could find was thing about a guy named Omar Ha-redeye. Can you provide a link?
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