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From: "Richard Allicock" <>
Subject: Slave Immigrants from West Africa/ Jews
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 21:16:35 -0700


Is it so impossible a notion, to "entertain" the possibility that certain African tribes may have practised Judaism, when the Jews themselves hold Africans to have been descended from a son of Noah, namely Ham. Cannot these descendants of Ham have practised Judaism? Cannot Jewish traders or literate Africans themselves either in the Greek or Roman empire and even before those times, have sought to practise Judaism?

Hannibal of Carthage in North Africa attacked Rome with elephants. Has any-one bothered to think where these elephants came from? The statue of Zeus in Olympia, was made of Gold and Ivory. Has any-one bothered to think where the ivory came from?

And what about the Assyrian/Persian empire, with its vanquishing of Arabs and Jews, and the transport of the Jews into Babylonian captivity. What about the captivity of the Jews in Egypt? Given ancient trading between Africans and Arabs, including the trade of African slaves, and the presence of Africans in Ancient Egypt and Assyria/Persia, could these not have been points at which African and Jew came together, outside and inside of West Africa? Is it impossible that Jews may have headed for safety in Africa and spread Judaism? We know that Judaism was spread to China and India in pre-Christian times, is it impossible that Judaism spread to Africa in the same times? Jews trace their history back to over five thousand years, do they or do we know all of that history, that we can exclude Judaism from Africa?

Is not this point of common Fatherhood of Noah, a possible point of affinity between Jewish traders and Africans, as well as vice versa, and a foundation upon which either may have sought to continue or re-introduce Judaism, before Christianity and then Islam arrived on the scene to force its disappearance or transformation?

And yet we have the Falashas in Ethiopia and the Malembas in South Africa. The former proven to be Jews from their ritual practices, (said to date from a time before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem), and the last proven to carry the priestly or Kohanic Genes. The Malembas still have rituals that are hardly recognisable as Jewish, while the Yoruba and many other tribes exhibit certain practices that are considered Jewish. Is it impossible to conceive that with the passage of time that there would be a watering down of Jewish practices, and an incorporation of non-Jewish practices?

Unlike, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions which leave physical evidence (statues, architecture etc.) of their practice wherever they go, Judaism is one that militates against evidence for itself, unless placed on material that lasts or in a climate that helps to preserve the evidence, as in the case of the Dead Sea scrolls on vellum and copper plates in an arid environment.

Then there is the factor of institutionalisation of a religion, with its functionaries having to be constantly reproduced, generation after generation.

Is this why the Falashas survived in Ethiopia? Was the history of the Falashas not as disruptive, that they managed to reproduce enough functionaries? Did the climate also help to maintain enough Jewish writings? Was the reverse the case is sub-saharan Africa, disruptive histories which mitigated against the reproduction of functionaries (except in the case of the Malembas), and its wet and humid climate proved destructive to the written word? Is this why, that kind of evidence is lacking, and one has to consider ritual practices instead?

And yet there is a Jewish Film-maker/documentarian who is willing to entertain the notion that one of the lost tribes went to Afghanistan, and modern day Afghanis may be descendants of that tribe even though now they are all Islamic. But even commentators on Islamic practices have always considered Afghani Islam a very peculiar one. Could this be because it is a mixture of "pagan" practices which was overlaid by Judaism and then over-laid with Islam?

We should all remember how fragile a culture is. It takes one or or two generations to transform to a different culture or make new practices stick, and just as many generations to lose elements of a new or old culture. It is equally the case that a culture can appear to be transformed, either by Islam and Christianity, and yet pre-existing cultural and religious practices continue, as in the case of Egypt, where multitudes still flock to certain sites and perform certain rituals that their ancestors practised before Christianity and Islam. Cannot the same situation be the entertained for those tribes in Africa for which Jewish practices are claimed?

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