Tudor Parfitt -- Black Jews in Africa and the Americas -- Gables
Black Jews in Africa
and the Americas (Harvard
Univ, $29.95) tells the fascinating story
of how the Ashanti, Tutsi, Igbo, Zulu, Beta Israel, Maasai, and many other
African peoples came to think of themselves as descendants of the ancient
tribes of Israel. Tudor Parfitt
reveals a complex history of the interaction between religious and racial
labels and their political uses. For centuries, colonialists, travelers, and
missionaries, labeled an astonishing array of African tribes, languages, and
cultures as Hebrew, Jewish, or Israelite. Africans themselves came to adopt
these identities as their own, invoking their shared histories of oppression,
imagined bloodlines, and common traditional practices as proof of a racial
relationship to Jews. A community whose claims are denied by many, black Jews
have developed a strong sense of who they are as a unique people. In Parfitt's
telling, forces of prejudice and the desire for new racial, redemptive
identities converge, illuminating Jewish and black history alike in novel and
unexplored ways.
- Street:
- 265 Aragon Ave
- City:
- Coral Gables ,
- Province:
- Florida
- Postal Code:
- 33134-5008
- Country:
- United States

