Edith Bruder
Biographic Data
| ID | 678869 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Edith Bruder |
| GIVEN NAMES | Edith |
| FAMILY NAME | Bruder |
| SIGNATURE | BRUDER E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of London UK |
| ORCID | 0009-0007-5018-8119 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 20 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 22 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Jews from Elsewhere
Western readers, whether casual or specialist, including those who have a specific interest in the study or Jewish history, are generally only aware of the two main branches of Judaism: the Ashkenazim of European origin and the Sephardim, the latter being often lumped together with a vaguely defined group of Middle Eastern—“Mizrahi”—Jews. Very few of them are familiar with the history of geographically dispersed diasporas such as the communities …
The Abayudaya of Uganda
In the early twentieth century, a community spontaneously practicing a self-acquired Judaism in a remote part of Africa would seem highly unusual. This chapter examines how a small ethno-religious group in the east of Uganda chose to practice Judaism, without having any previous knowledge of Judaism or contact with a Jewish community. Samei Lwakilenzi Kakungulu, the instigator of the phenomenon, compiled a book of laws and prayers in the Luganda …
From Diaspora to Religious Pluralism
The origin of this article lies in the concurrent existence of multiple religious groups in the United States and the interactions between them. This essay examines the dynamics of religious pluralism through the interaction of two religious groups-African Americans and Jews-in the realms of religion, society, and politics. Among the diverse religious groups in the United States, the growing presence of Jews, bolstered by migration from Germany i…
Jews from Elsewhere
New Children of Israel
Reviewed by: New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization by Nathan P. Devir Edith Bruder Nathan P. Devir. New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2017. 310 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419001028 Nathan Devir's survey refers to a remarkable phenomenon in recent decades: a vast number of individuals or groups in Africa, India, and els…
New Jews” in contemporary Kenya
The current attraction to Judaism throughout the world has become quite a remarkable religious phenomenon of the twentieth century: in Africa and India, there has been a global surge of millions of people identifying themselves as Jews or Israelites and positioning themselves as being part of the Jewish Diaspora.In this article, after examining the various sources of inspiration of Judaism in Africa and drawing the outlines of African philo-semit…
Philo-Semitism and Affiliation to Judaism in Africa
A contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium on xenophilia, this article examines the ethnic groups (more than a dozen) on the African continent that have proclaimed their connections to ancient Israel and have developed versions of their tribal histories that place them as a part of the worldwide Jewish Diaspora. Members of these communities may number in the hundreds of thousands and have been striving for Jewish recognition. These developm…
Introduction
In his introduction to part 2 of the Common Knowledge symposium on xenophilia, the journal's editor tours the reader through two private apartments (T. S. Eliot's in London and the anthropologist Jeannette Mirsky's in Princeton) and through two public art collections (the Michael Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Ménil Collection in Houston) in an effort to establish that aesthetically coherent mixtures of apparently…
Tracing the Hebraic-Judaic origins of the Beit Avraham of Kechene (Ethiopia)
From 2004, in an area known as Kechene in northern Shewa region, south of the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a group of descendants of craftsmen claim Jewish heritage. They assert descent from Beta Israel-Falasha who were converted to Christianity, but they claim a distinct identity. The members of this community call themselves Beit Avraham. Via the establishment of the 'Ethiopian North Shewa Zionist Organisation' they wish to unify and to gain …
Epilogue
This final chapter examines the cultural, social, and political factors that could have led African religious traditions mingled with Christianity, and sometimes with Islam, to be superseded by a new Jewish cultural identity. It presents some hypotheses of the meaning and the benefits that these groups derive from their affiliation with Judaism.
Encountering and Reinventing the Africans and the Jews in the Colonial Era, Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries
This chapter focuses on the Hamitic hypothesis and its influence on both Europeans and Africans. This theory claims that anything of value found in Africa was brought there by the Hamites, who were allegedly a branch of the Caucasian race. It is shown that by the beginning of the 19th century, Hamitic hypothesis theories were widely accepted as authoritative among missionaries. Native religions were interpreted by Europeans according to similarit…
African Jews in Eastern and Southern Africa
This chapter surveys various groups in eastern and southern Africa that self-proclaimed a Jewish identity. These include the Abayudaya of Uganda; the Lemba of South Africa and Zimbabwe; Zionist and Israelite churches in South Africa; the Jews of Rusape, Zimbabwe; and the “Descendants of David” of Madagascar.
The Lost Tribes of Israel
This chapter explores the prehistory of African Judaism, focusing on the lost tribes of Israel. According to the Bible, the tribes of the kingdom of Israel's northern part were exiled in the 8th century BC, at which time they disappeared from the stage of history. Over time, a belief based on the Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel prophecies took hold of the Jewish imagination, whereby the idea developed and survived: one day the Ten Tribes would be r…
The Legend of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
This chapter focuses on how the biblical episode of Solomon and the queen of Sheba played a major role in the Western perception of Africa, not only the country and its history but also its inhabitants. It argues that the connection between the Ten Tribes and Ethiopia and the lineage established by the legend of Solomon and the queen of Sheba made consistent the use of biblical imagery in the African oral cultural milieu. The convergence of these…
Jewish Accounts and Christian Traditions
This chapter focuses on the myth of the Lost Tribes. It argues that from the earliest times to the first conquests, the myth of the Lost Tribes and its plasticity gave weight to the world of interrelated representations, commonplace and stereotyped images, for laying out supposedly historical realities. The mental perception that resulted divided the world into categories in terms of these stereotypes. The myth gave birth, throughout these centur…
Historical Narratives of a Jewish Presence in Sub‐Saharan Africa
This chapter provides a historical context for reconstructing the most ancient Jewish or Semitic influences on sub-Saharan Africa or to evaluate the extent of mythical realities. It argues that if we consider the mythic genealogies that recount an ancient presence of Jews in Africa and their progression into the interior of the continent as a whole, the dispersion from Egypt constitutes one of the major narrative patterns claiming a Jewish presen…
African Jews in Western and Central Africa
This chapter surveys various groups in western and central Africa that self-proclaimed a Jewish identity. These include the Zakhor Jews of Timbuktu, Mali; the Igbo of Nigeria; the House of Israel of Ghana; the The Tutsi-Hebrews of Havilah; and the Cape Verde-Israel Friendship Society.
The Mythography of Africa
This chapter argues that people in the early medieval times knew almost nothing Africa and Africans. Through geographical errors and confusion between India and Ethiopian Africa, biblical traditions about the presence of Jews in the land of the Son of Kush, the legend of Solomon and the queen of Sheba, and the location of Ophir in Africa came to be set pieces in the repertoire of Jewish and Christian ethnography of Africa.
Blacks and Jews the Archetypal “Others”
This chapter explores encounters between European and non-European that raises questions of “difference” and “otherness”. It argues that Europeans, when absorbing the newly discovered lands in America, Africa, and the Pacific, both shaped and distorted to their liking the image of the “other.” The long history of blackness as a common denominator of the inferiority of Africans as well as Jews in Western culture is discussed.
Appropriating Jewish History by the African Diaspora, Nineteenth to Twentieth Centuries
This chapter focuses on the theories of Afrocentrism that provided the theoretical basis for Africans to appropriate the Jewish history. By trying to restore the primacy of African influence in the world, the Afrocentrist ideology established a link of connivance with the most remote ancestors and asserted that Africans were the true original Jewish race. Following the history of these political texts, the precursors of African Diaspora identific…
The Black Jews of Africa
Over the last several decades, an astonishing phenomenon has developed: a Jewish rebirth of sorts occurring throughout Africa. Different ethnic groups proclaim that they are returning to long forgotten Jewish roots and African clans trace their lineage to the Lost Tribes of Israel. This book addresses the elaboration and the development of Jewish identities by Africans. Africans have encountered Jewish myths and traditions in multiple forms and u…
Noirs et Juifs
Blacks and Jews : Black Jews In the United States. Genesis of a Judaic Movement in the 20th Century. In the America of the Great Depression in the 1930s, several thousands of Blacks from the ghettos self-claimed that they were Jews. This article will follow the process through which these societies gradually came to identify themselves with the historical, religious and ethnical background of Judaism. It examines how this identity change, linked …
La construction d'identités juives en Afrique subsaharienne (Thèse préparée sous la direction de Tudor Parfitt )
Bruder Édith. La construction d'identités juives en Afrique subsaharienne (Thèse préparée sous la direction de Tudor Parfitt ). In: Diasporas. Histoire et sociétés, n°5, 2004. Généalogies rêvées. pp. 183-186
The Black Jews of Africa
Over the last several decades, an astonishing phenomenon has developed: a Jewish rebirth of sorts occurring throughout Africa. Different ethnic groups proclaim that they are returning to long forgotten Jewish roots and African clans trace their lineage to the Lost Tribes of Israel. This book addresses the elaboration and the development of Jewish identities by Africans. Africans have encountered Jewish myths and traditions in multiple forms and u…
Philo-Semitism and Affiliation to Judaism in Africa
A contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium on xenophilia, this article examines the ethnic groups (more than a dozen) on the African continent that have proclaimed their connections to ancient Israel and have developed versions of their tribal histories that place them as a part of the worldwide Jewish Diaspora. Members of these communities may number in the hundreds of thousands and have been striving for Jewish recognition. These developm…
New Jews” in contemporary Kenya
The current attraction to Judaism throughout the world has become quite a remarkable religious phenomenon of the twentieth century: in Africa and India, there has been a global surge of millions of people identifying themselves as Jews or Israelites and positioning themselves as being part of the Jewish Diaspora.In this article, after examining the various sources of inspiration of Judaism in Africa and drawing the outlines of African philo-semit…
La construction d'identités juives en Afrique subsaharienne (Thèse préparée sous la direction de Tudor Parfitt )
Bruder Édith. La construction d'identités juives en Afrique subsaharienne (Thèse préparée sous la direction de Tudor Parfitt ). In: Diasporas. Histoire et sociétés, n°5, 2004. Généalogies rêvées. pp. 183-186
Noirs et Juifs
Blacks and Jews : Black Jews In the United States. Genesis of a Judaic Movement in the 20th Century. In the America of the Great Depression in the 1930s, several thousands of Blacks from the ghettos self-claimed that they were Jews. This article will follow the process through which these societies gradually came to identify themselves with the historical, religious and ethnical background of Judaism. It examines how this identity change, linked …
Epilogue
This final chapter examines the cultural, social, and political factors that could have led African religious traditions mingled with Christianity, and sometimes with Islam, to be superseded by a new Jewish cultural identity. It presents some hypotheses of the meaning and the benefits that these groups derive from their affiliation with Judaism.
Encountering and Reinventing the Africans and the Jews in the Colonial Era, Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries
This chapter focuses on the Hamitic hypothesis and its influence on both Europeans and Africans. This theory claims that anything of value found in Africa was brought there by the Hamites, who were allegedly a branch of the Caucasian race. It is shown that by the beginning of the 19th century, Hamitic hypothesis theories were widely accepted as authoritative among missionaries. Native religions were interpreted by Europeans according to similarit…
African Jews in Eastern and Southern Africa
This chapter surveys various groups in eastern and southern Africa that self-proclaimed a Jewish identity. These include the Abayudaya of Uganda; the Lemba of South Africa and Zimbabwe; Zionist and Israelite churches in South Africa; the Jews of Rusape, Zimbabwe; and the “Descendants of David” of Madagascar.
The Lost Tribes of Israel
This chapter explores the prehistory of African Judaism, focusing on the lost tribes of Israel. According to the Bible, the tribes of the kingdom of Israel's northern part were exiled in the 8th century BC, at which time they disappeared from the stage of history. Over time, a belief based on the Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel prophecies took hold of the Jewish imagination, whereby the idea developed and survived: one day the Ten Tribes would be r…
The Legend of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
This chapter focuses on how the biblical episode of Solomon and the queen of Sheba played a major role in the Western perception of Africa, not only the country and its history but also its inhabitants. It argues that the connection between the Ten Tribes and Ethiopia and the lineage established by the legend of Solomon and the queen of Sheba made consistent the use of biblical imagery in the African oral cultural milieu. The convergence of these…
Jewish Accounts and Christian Traditions
This chapter focuses on the myth of the Lost Tribes. It argues that from the earliest times to the first conquests, the myth of the Lost Tribes and its plasticity gave weight to the world of interrelated representations, commonplace and stereotyped images, for laying out supposedly historical realities. The mental perception that resulted divided the world into categories in terms of these stereotypes. The myth gave birth, throughout these centur…
Historical Narratives of a Jewish Presence in Sub‐Saharan Africa
This chapter provides a historical context for reconstructing the most ancient Jewish or Semitic influences on sub-Saharan Africa or to evaluate the extent of mythical realities. It argues that if we consider the mythic genealogies that recount an ancient presence of Jews in Africa and their progression into the interior of the continent as a whole, the dispersion from Egypt constitutes one of the major narrative patterns claiming a Jewish presen…
African Jews in Western and Central Africa
This chapter surveys various groups in western and central Africa that self-proclaimed a Jewish identity. These include the Zakhor Jews of Timbuktu, Mali; the Igbo of Nigeria; the House of Israel of Ghana; the The Tutsi-Hebrews of Havilah; and the Cape Verde-Israel Friendship Society.
The Mythography of Africa
This chapter argues that people in the early medieval times knew almost nothing Africa and Africans. Through geographical errors and confusion between India and Ethiopian Africa, biblical traditions about the presence of Jews in the land of the Son of Kush, the legend of Solomon and the queen of Sheba, and the location of Ophir in Africa came to be set pieces in the repertoire of Jewish and Christian ethnography of Africa.
Blacks and Jews the Archetypal “Others”
This chapter explores encounters between European and non-European that raises questions of “difference” and “otherness”. It argues that Europeans, when absorbing the newly discovered lands in America, Africa, and the Pacific, both shaped and distorted to their liking the image of the “other.” The long history of blackness as a common denominator of the inferiority of Africans as well as Jews in Western culture is discussed.
Appropriating Jewish History by the African Diaspora, Nineteenth to Twentieth Centuries
This chapter focuses on the theories of Afrocentrism that provided the theoretical basis for Africans to appropriate the Jewish history. By trying to restore the primacy of African influence in the world, the Afrocentrist ideology established a link of connivance with the most remote ancestors and asserted that Africans were the true original Jewish race. Following the history of these political texts, the precursors of African Diaspora identific…
The Black Jews of Africa
Over the last several decades, an astonishing phenomenon has developed: a Jewish rebirth of sorts occurring throughout Africa. Different ethnic groups proclaim that they are returning to long forgotten Jewish roots and African clans trace their lineage to the Lost Tribes of Israel. This book addresses the elaboration and the development of Jewish identities by Africans. Africans have encountered Jewish myths and traditions in multiple forms and u…
Tracing the Hebraic-Judaic origins of the Beit Avraham of Kechene (Ethiopia)
From 2004, in an area known as Kechene in northern Shewa region, south of the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a group of descendants of craftsmen claim Jewish heritage. They assert descent from Beta Israel-Falasha who were converted to Christianity, but they claim a distinct identity. The members of this community call themselves Beit Avraham. Via the establishment of the 'Ethiopian North Shewa Zionist Organisation' they wish to unify and to gain …
Philo-Semitism and Affiliation to Judaism in Africa
A contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium on xenophilia, this article examines the ethnic groups (more than a dozen) on the African continent that have proclaimed their connections to ancient Israel and have developed versions of their tribal histories that place them as a part of the worldwide Jewish Diaspora. Members of these communities may number in the hundreds of thousands and have been striving for Jewish recognition. These developm…
Introduction
In his introduction to part 2 of the Common Knowledge symposium on xenophilia, the journal's editor tours the reader through two private apartments (T. S. Eliot's in London and the anthropologist Jeannette Mirsky's in Princeton) and through two public art collections (the Michael Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Ménil Collection in Houston) in an effort to establish that aesthetically coherent mixtures of apparently…
New Jews” in contemporary Kenya
The current attraction to Judaism throughout the world has become quite a remarkable religious phenomenon of the twentieth century: in Africa and India, there has been a global surge of millions of people identifying themselves as Jews or Israelites and positioning themselves as being part of the Jewish Diaspora.In this article, after examining the various sources of inspiration of Judaism in Africa and drawing the outlines of African philo-semit…
New Children of Israel
Reviewed by: New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization by Nathan P. Devir Edith Bruder Nathan P. Devir. New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2017. 310 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419001028 Nathan Devir's survey refers to a remarkable phenomenon in recent decades: a vast number of individuals or groups in Africa, India, and els…
Jews from Elsewhere
From Diaspora to Religious Pluralism
The origin of this article lies in the concurrent existence of multiple religious groups in the United States and the interactions between them. This essay examines the dynamics of religious pluralism through the interaction of two religious groups-African Americans and Jews-in the realms of religion, society, and politics. Among the diverse religious groups in the United States, the growing presence of Jews, bolstered by migration from Germany i…
Jews from Elsewhere
Western readers, whether casual or specialist, including those who have a specific interest in the study or Jewish history, are generally only aware of the two main branches of Judaism: the Ashkenazim of European origin and the Sephardim, the latter being often lumped together with a vaguely defined group of Middle Eastern—“Mizrahi”—Jews. Very few of them are familiar with the history of geographically dispersed diasporas such as the communities …
The Abayudaya of Uganda
In the early twentieth century, a community spontaneously practicing a self-acquired Judaism in a remote part of Africa would seem highly unusual. This chapter examines how a small ethno-religious group in the east of Uganda chose to practice Judaism, without having any previous knowledge of Judaism or contact with a Jewish community. Samei Lwakilenzi Kakungulu, the instigator of the phenomenon, compiled a book of laws and prayers in the Luganda …
History (17 works) · Judaism (15 works) · Archaeology (12 works) · African history and culture analysis (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Ancient history (9 works) · Ethnology (9 works) · Art (8 works) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation (7 works) · Gender Studies (7 works)