Among the 20 to 30 million Igbo people in Nigeria there is a widespread belief that the Igbo originated in ancient Israel. Recently a number of Igbo Jewish communities have been established in Nigeria. Although some Igbo have made their way to Israel, the Israeli public is largely unaware of the fact that that there are in addition of 20 to 30 million people in Nigeria that are called by some, 'the Jews of West Africa.' This book offers for the first time an in-depth study and a genealogical history of the Igbo's long term narrative of a possible Jewish origin.
Jewish Igbo scholar Remy Ilona presents and analyzes Judaic history, practices and concept within the Igbo culture of Nigeria. Remy has been honored and supported by Kulanu, an American Jewish organization that assists dispersed Jewish communities internationally.
The legend of The Lost Tribes of Israel remained for scholars, historians, archeologists, anthropologists and Hebraists a fascinating topic for millennia. When Israel faced an imperial conquest in the hands of the Assyrian empire in 722 B.C. as earlier warned by prophets Isaiah and Hosea, the nation also went on exile and into what seemed oblivion. A people who for penalty of apostasy became a dispersed people across the globe for nearly three thousand years creating a puzzle of identity and location for so long has suddenly began to emerge from the shadows of time. The account of their journey and experiences over this period had largely remained conjectures as they assimilated amongst foreign cultures. The Igbo, sojourned in the two sides of lower Niger, one of Africas great rivers second only to the Nile and like other exiled tribes of Israel was relatively unknown to those who never had any contacts with them. The era of trans-Atlantic forced migrations and European colonization opened this connection. The exposition of a peoples beliefs, behavior, attitudes and values within religious, cultural and political context had only affirmed their origin and identity.
"Hebrew Igbo Republics" sets out to demonstrate that the Igbos of West Africa, the group known and described as the Jews of Africa, and Biafrans by many, practice a culture and a religion that bring to life the culture and religion of the Israelites of the Bible. The author resurrects biblical characters by showing that they used idioms which correspond to idioms used by Igbos since immemorial times. Awesomely the Igbo expression for marriage "ima ogodo" was what Ruth told Boaz to do when she asked him to marry her through a Levirate arrangement. And we find in the book rock-solid evidence that the Igbos retain what could be the nearest name for Israel's biblical religion and culture. A translation of the Igbo phrase O me na ana leads us to Deuteronomy 6:1. You will be spell-bound when you see that the elusive name of the Hebrew God has a connection to "Chi" which is the Igbo word for God or personal God. And in this book the author shows that many Igbo and Hebrew words which are close in spelling mean the same things. Igbo urimmu and Hebrew urim both mean light. Igbo aru and Hebrew ar mean abomination, forbidden. DNA? The book gives us evidence sourced from MyHeritage DNA company that Igbo genes are in the Middle East gene pool. The reader should read and see for himself or herself what this monograph carries. The book says to all scholars in biblical, Jewish, Igbo, Middle Eastern, African, Christian and Religious studies, we have work to do! We need to go back to the drawing boards!
Black Jews in Africa and the Americas 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. Pursuing medieval and modern European race narratives over a millennium in which not only were Jews cast as black but black Africans were cast as Jews, Tudor Parfitt reveals a complex history of the interaction between religious and racial labels and their political uses. For centuries, colonialists, travelers, and missionaries, in an attempt to explain and understand the strange people they encountered on the colonial frontier, 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 blood-lines, and common traditional practices as proof of a racial relationship to Jews. Beginning in the post-slavery era, contacts between black Jews in America and their counterparts in Africa created powerful and ever-growing networks of black Jews who struggled against racism and colonialism. 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.
Africa's newest Jewish community of note is in Nigeria, where upwards of twenty thousand Igbos are commonly claimed to have adopted Judaism. Bolstered by customs recalling an Israelite ancestry, but embracing rabbinic Judaism, they are also the world's first 'Internet Jews'. William Miles has spent over three decades conducting research in West Africa. He shares life stories from this spiritually passionate community, as well as his own Judaic reflections as he celebrates Hanukka and a bar mitzvah with 'Jubos' in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.
"This book presents, one by one, the different groups of Black Jews in Western central, eastern, and southern Africa and the ways in which they have used and imagined their oral history and traditional customs to construct a distinct Jewish identity. It explores the ways in which Africans have interacted with the ancient mythological sub-strata of both western and African ideas of Judaism."--Résumé de l'éditeur.
This book looks at the trends in the development of the Igbo novel from its antecedents in oral performance, through the emergence of the first published novel, Omenuko, in 1933 by Pita Nwana, to the contemporary Igbo novel. Defining "Igbo literature" as literature in Igbo language, and "Igbo novel" as a novel written in Igbo language, the author argues that oral and written literature in African indigenous languages hold an important foundational position in the history of African literature. Focusing on the contributions of Igbo writers to the development of African literature in African languages, the book examines the evolution, themes, and distinctive features of the Igbo novel, the historical circumstances of the rise of the African novel in the pre-colonial, era and their impact on the contemporary Igbo novel. This book will be of interest to scholars of African literature, literary history, and Igbo studies.
This is a book about the Culture of Life of Igbo People the Chosen People of God. The Igbo people were Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, Kings of Ancient Israel, Phoenicians, Greeks, Etruscans, Iberians, Carthaginians, Ugaritians, Lemnians, Mayans, Olmecs, Ancient Chinese, Extraterrestrials in UFOs, Babylonians, and Jewish authors of the Holy Bible. The Igbo people built the pyramids and invented electricity, computer, automobile, airplane, helicopter, and submarine. Igbo Orie–Mediators of Almighty God. The Chosen People of God! YaHWeH, Ya IHo Wụ IHe, meaning, ‘God, the Divine Light that enlightens’.
