Chosen People

The Rise of American Black Israelite Religions

Bibliographic Data

ID19977544
AuthorsJacob S Dorman (corresponding author)
Year2013
Pages307
Publication date2013-01-11
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueChosen people (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195301403.001.0001
OpenAlexW4232936207
Open LibraryOL25260058M
ISBN9780195301403
LanguageEN
Citations received28

This book offers new insights into the rise of Black Israelite religions in America, faiths ranging from Judaism to Islam to Rastafarianism, all of which believe that the ancient Hebrew Israelites were Black and that contemporary African Americans are their descendants. The book traces the influence of Israelite practices and philosophies in the Holiness Christianity movement of the 1890s and the emergence of the Pentecostal Movement in 1906. An examination of Black interactions with white Jews during slavery supports the contention that the original impetus for Christian Israelite movements was not a desire to practice Judaism but rather a studied attempt to recreate the early Christian church, following the strictures of the Hebrew Scriptures. A second wave of Black Israelite synagogues arose during the Great Migration of African Americans and West Indians to Northern cities. One of the most fascinating of the Black Israelite pioneers was Arnold Josiah Ford, a Barbadian musician who moved to Harlem, joined Marcus Garvey's Black nationalist movement, started his own synagogue, and led African Americans to resettle in Ethiopia in 1930. The effort failed, but the Black Israelite theology had captured the imagination of settlers who returned to Jamaica and transmitted it to Leonard Howell, one of the founders of Rastafarianism and himself a member of Harlem's religious subculture. After Ford's resettlement effort, the Black Israelite movement was carried forward in the U.S. by several Harlem rabbis, including Wentworth Arthur Matthew, another West Indian rabbi, who creatively combined elements of Judaism, Pentecostalism, Freemasonry, the British Anglo-Israelite movement, Afro-Caribbean faiths, and occult kabbalah. This book provides a vivid portrait of Black Israelites, showing them as part of the creative ferment of spirituality, art, and commerce that characterized African American life in the era of the Harlem Renaissance

Ancient history · Archaeology · Christianity · Hebrew · Islam · Israelites · Judaism · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Theology · White (mutation) · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society · Religious studies · Black Hebrews · united states

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