The Children of Ephraim: being Jewish in Andhra Pradesh

Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 2005

The paper examines the impact of genetic research on the religious identity of the Bene Israel Indian Jewish community and the Lemba Judaising group of southern Africa. It demonstrates how DNA tests which happened to support the possibility of the communities' legends of origin affected their self-perception, the way they are viewed by their neighbors, and their image in the West. It is argued that in both cases what accounted most for the Bene Israel and Lemba responses to the tests was the way the results were portrayed in the mass media, the history of the development of Judaism in their communities, and the local realities.

Social Identities, 2006

The migration of the vast majority of Beta Israel (Falasha) to Israel has been accompanied by major shifts in the discourse regarding their 'Jewishness' and 'Ethiopianness'. This article discusses the adoption of traditions of Danite descent in place of traditions of Solomonic descent and the emergence of genetics as the most important identity marker, replacing reckonings of lineage. The first shift is connected to the migration of the Beta Israel from Ethiopia to Israel; the second to changing concepts of what represents 'proof ' of identity in the modern and post-modern world.

The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 2018

What do Ghana, Cameroon, and India have in common? For sure, the first two are both middle-sized West African nations, but even there the similarities end: Ghana, a former British colony, has experienced multi-party electoral democracy since 1992, while Cameroon, overwhelmingly Francophone (albeit with a significant Anglophone minority), has been ruled by the same strong-armed autocrat since 1982. Ghana enjoys a United Nations ranking of medium human development, while Cameroon is mired in low human development. India, of course, is in a class unto itself: the world's second largest populated country (on track to be number one by 2050), democratic since becoming independent, a significantly higher human development index ranking than anywhere in West Africa and, with its nearly one billion Hindus, home to the world's third largest religion. So, what do the societies of this unlikely trinity share, justifying the imprimatur of a university press volume? New Jews. More precisely, according to author Nathan Devir, associate professor at the University of Utah, all three nations are host to the phenomenon of emerging Jewish communities. (Two of these communities would claim that they are actually reemerging, as they recover their ancient Israelite heritage.) Is Professor Devir's unique West African/South Indian comparative study of New Children of Israel persuasive? Read on. Within the last two to three decades, throughout the developing world, there has been a veritable mushrooming of indigenous communities adopting or claiming Judaism as their own. The phenomenon links South America (with its descendants of forced conversos from the Spanish Inquisition) to the South Pacific (with Dutch Jewish descendants in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea) to Southern Africa (most notably, the Lemba of Zimbabwe and South Africa brought to public attention by Professor Tudor Parfitt). India and Ethiopia, of course, have experienced centuries of uninterrupted Jewish practice. The community that Nathan Devir focuses on in Southern India, the "Children of Ephraim," are detached both from the longstanding Bombay and Cochin Jewish communities as well as the "Children of Menashe" of northeastern India, who, in 2005, were recognized as such by the chief Sephardic rabbi of Israel. As Devir contextualizes, Ghana and Cameroon are not solo sub-Saharan repositories of emerging Jewish communities: his introductory discussion and useful map also acknowledge those of Gabon,

In this article a comparative study is presented of the Indian and the Ethiopian Jews in Israël, immigrant communities that went through similar expériences of intégration and accommodation in Israël, despite the time lag in their arrivai. Elements of their history and sociocultural background in the countries of origin are discussed in order to explain the émergence and status of ethnie identity in a complex new society with a shared background ideology of intégration (Zionism).

Priya Singh et al, ed., BEYOND STRATEGIES: CULTURAL DYNAMICS IN ASIAN CONNECTIONS, 2014

Developing World Bioethics, 2003

The Bene Israel is a Jewish community in western India whose origins are unknown from conventional sources. This paper discusses a genetic ancestry study that mapped Bene Israel geneaologies and the impact of the study on the Bene Israel.

A Touch Away from Cultural “Others”: Negotiating Israeli Jewish Identity on Television Miri Talmon Shofar 31.2 © 2013 This article discusses Israeli television culture as a site of identity negotiations, and in particular representations of cultural “Others” and minorities on the Israeli screen-film and television. The article focuses on the TV drama A Touch Away [Hebrew: Merkhak Negi’ah], which opens a window to a unique socio-cultural environment in Israel. It takes place in an Orthodox Religious Jewish neighborhood, Bnei Brak, where the unique culture of Orthodox Jews has been relatively out of sight for secular Israelis. On both film and television screens this world of orthodox religious Jewry has been a mysterious territory not yet charted. Religious Orthodox Jewry has traditionally banned the visual media from its everyday life in the domestic sphere as well as the communal public sphere. Secular Israeli society has treated the Orthodox Jewish community in Israel as a homogeneous minority, rather than a complex and diverse social sector, which is characterized by a rich repertory of life styles, ideologies and socio-cultural practices. The series, which tells the story of a forbidden love between an orthodox religious teen age girl and a young Israeli man whose family immigrated to Israel from Russia represents another cultural variant and minority: Russian-Israelis, who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union. The discussion focuses on identity politics and paradigms of representations of cultural “others” and minorities on the Israeli screen, and in particular the recent focus on representations of variants of religious Israeli Jews on Israeli film and television.

2009

Routledge eBooks, 2022

According to their tradition, the Jews of Ethiopia are descendants of the Tribe of Dan (one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel) who wandered away and settled in Africa sometime between the 9th and 12th centuries ce. They refer to themselves as Beta Israel (The House of Israel) or Falasha (Amharic: Strangers), that is, strangers to the Christian world in which they lived. Some lived far from the capital Addis Ababa, sufering from poverty and privation in all aspects of life. Most were illiterate and bore the brunt of civil wars and other battles waged in their somewhat underdeveloped country (Ben-Eliezer, 2008a: 130). In 1977, a revolution took place in Ethiopia that led to the fight of millions of Jewish and non-Jewish refugees to Sudan. For several years (until 1984), they gathered in refugee camps in Sudan at which they were compelled to hide their Jewish identity. Furthermore, they sufered from poverty, a high mortality rate and shattered family units (Kimmerling, 1998). The Ethiopian Jews sufered from a colonial-orientalist perception by Israel and Zionism, as elaborated in the next three chapters.

2023

Abstract: Since the 1970s, Zionist-motivated geneticists have used DNA genealogy research to try to prove that all Jews are related to each other and that their ancestors came from Palestine. This was to substantiate Zionists' claim of sole land rights between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This study explores the question of whether there is a gene-biological difference between Jewish and non-Jewish people beyond religion and culture. Recent research in history, linguistics and genetics research is cited. It emerges that the efforts of Zionist-motivated geneticists, especially after the turn of the century, have thoroughly failed. The result shows that there is no serious evidence that Jewish people are inherently different from non-Jews, which would give them any preference over non-Jews. Only ethics or ideologies can make people "better" or "worse". This results in serious consequences regarding the currently increasingly right-wing extremist policy of the Israeli state-in particular regarding the territories of the West Bank, which are permanently occupied by military means in violation of international law, and the "two-state solution" of the so-called "Middle East conflict", which has so far been demanded in vain by the international community of states. The inclusion of the final realization that there are neither historical nor religious reasons for a Jewish exclusive right (as right-wing extremist-ultranationalist politicians steadfastly claim) is urgently needed.

Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 1998

Judaism in Asia since the Founding of the State of Israel (Proceedings of the International Conference, held at the Department of Comparative Religion of the University of Bonn. May 30, to June 1, 2012), 2013

African Studies Review

Little-known communities in Africa and Asia that self-identify as Jewish have gained increasing attention in recent years. With his 2017 book New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization, Nathan P. Devir provides a fascinating insight into these communities. It all began when Devir, an associate professor at the University of Utah, spent a month in Ghana among ethnic Sefwi who claim to be the descendants of ancient Hebrews. The members of this Ghana community became interested in Judaism in the 1970s as a "kind of impromptu Old Testamentism" (xiii). In studying the scriptures and their own African traditions, the Sefwi noticed common elements between their cultural practices and religious Judaism: circumcision, Sabbath observance, and similar rules regarding food and burial practices. Based on these commonalities, the Sefwi self-identified as Jews and now call themselves the "House of Israel." Thanks to the Internet, they eventually connected to the wider Jewish world, particularly in the U.S., and asked for support and guidance. Soon it became clear that the Sefwi were by no means alone in their aspirations. Other self-defining Jewish groups exist not just in Ghana, but also in Brazil, Cameroon, India, Kenya, Madagascar, and Uganda. This list is by no means all inclusive, as the numbers of "new" children of Israel could be in the millions (xiv). The study of the Sefwi turned out to be only the beginning of Devir's larger scholarly project on so-called "neo-Jewish," "Judaizing," or "self-defining Jewish" communities in Africa and India. In his book, Devir provides an overview of various groups and developments, but mainly examines two other field-based case studies from the developing world: the "Internet Jews of Cameroon" in Africa and "the Children of Eprahim" in India. Most of these neo-Jews were formerly Christians who came from religious communities that focused on the Old Testament, but some went a step further and broke away from Christianity. A particularly fascinating chapter deals with the "Internet Jews" of Cameroon. For some rural Christian communities in that nation, their spiritual awakening came solely via online connections. Devir writes,

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2013

The Bene Menashe stem from a number of Christian groups of the Indo-Burmese borderland, some of whom back in the 1950s declared their descent from the Lost Tribes of Israel. In 2005 the Bene Menashe became recognized as people of Israelite descent by the then Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, and in 2011 were allowed by Israeli government to continue their migration through conversion. The paper will use the example of the Bene Menashe migration to cast analytical light on different ways in which race and religion co-constitute each other in processes of transnational migration. To do so, I will focus on one specific aspect of the Bene Menashe migration – the way the community has to construct and enact their religious affiliation to be able to become Israeli citizens and to be considered part of the Jewish people by their ‘hosts’. The paper argues that in the case of the Bene Menashe race and religion co-produce each other in ways that reinforce racialized understandings of Judaism and Jewishness, and will suggest that what accounts for this phenomenon is that the opportunities that the Bene Menashe immigrants had in defining their religiosity in Israel were limited by the conditions of their migration, which developed against the backdrop of multiple colonial contexts.