Edward Wilmot Blyden was an illustrious pan-African intellectual, and he echoed one of the most common themes in black religion - Ethiopianism. Ethiopianism is the prophesied redemption of Africa by black Americans. Although in his later years he became a passionate defender of Islam, Blyden had the implicit belief that the spiritual journey of Africans in the diaspora was similar to that of the Jews. He also hoped that one day African Americans would return to their motherland to restore her to her former glory. He argued that the significance of Zionism and how it related to the Jewish nation was beyond politics and more religious. He claimed that blacks and Jews could work together to fulfil the higher and nobler work to uplift humankind.
As the African Americans began to construct their religious identities, they pulled ideas and resources from Judaism. Their variation of Judaism was perfected during the 1790s to 1930s when new religious traditions and institutions were being introduced by the Africans into America. These encounters created a varied result as the black Christians identified with the enslaved “Hebrew Children” of the 18th and 19th century. Judaism, therefore, contributed immensely to the character of African American religious life.
There are two themes to be considered with regards the religious variety of African Americans and Judaism. The first was the analogies in the experience of African Americans and the Jewish people with regards bondage and facilitated how black religion adapted Judaism. It affected the language and symbols and the unique formation of rituals within Afro Jewish practices. The second theme had to do with the self-delineation of black people as Jews. This theme could either be as a result of inherited bicultural heritage or an appropriation of Jewish accoutrements’. These themes, therefore, acknowledge experiences that are more complex to the delineation “black Jews”.
We can find parallels in the language that describes the respective histories of these two groups. The term diaspora is also used to describe the migration of blacks from Africa to Asia, Europe, Middle East and America. Although Africans and Jews faced persecution and exile in this modern period, the Africans who were brought to North America did not possess a unified spiritual heritage like the Jews. In The Negro Church, E. Franklin Frazier said a new “basis of social cohesion” was available for enslaved Africans who were taken from their kin and indigenous religions in the face of Christianity. This Christianity was able to give meaning to African Americans in their ordeal of slavery as they compared their ordeal to that of the biblical Jews. African American Christianity had an affinity for Hebrew texts as they studied the account of Israel’s formative history.
These slaves saw themselves to be similar to another Israel toiling in the “Egypt” of North America and guided by the same God that led the Jews to the Promised Land. African Americans not only claimed the Jewish history to be theirs, but they also picked up the vernacular of the Old Testament sources as they expressed their most ardent beliefs. Even after slavery, African Americans continued to add persons and events from the Old Testament in their vernacular tradition. One of the most common was Moses as we see Harriet Tubman valorised as the “Moses of her people”. We also have “Black Moses” in the legacy of Marcus Garvey.
Martin Prosser organised slaves at funerals and secret religious meetings, employing the biblical story of the Israelites escaping Egyptian bondage to justify rebellion (Slave Rebellions). African Americans who held status and pillar in the slave community spearheaded these slave rebellions and uprisings. As was common during the time of slavery, most of the up risers and blacks that participated in these rebellions were caught and executed in order to pass across a message to would be up risers. Nat Turner, who orchestrated one of the most celebrated slave rebellions in American history, was something of a mystic and a slave preacher. Religion was used to play a significant role in the uprising. Before execution, Turner was asked if he regretted his actions and he replied thus, “was not Christ crucified?”
Black Judaism is a difficult movement to explain as it comes in many varieties. Ethiopianism, which incorporates the story of Exodus with the black people’s history, is the greatest common ground for black Jews. Psalm 68:31 is a verse that black Jews have held on to. The verse states, “Ethiopia shall stretch forth its hands to God”. F. S. Cherry and William S. Crowdy established some of the earliest organisations and the later founded the Church of God and Saints in Christ. His form of Judaism practiced the circumcision of new-born boys, use of the Jewish calendar, the wearing of skullcaps, observance of Saturdays as the day of Sabbath and the celebration of Passover. All these Jewish traditions also existed side by side with Christian traditions like consecration of the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ, baptism and foot washing.
These African Americans liked to compare their notion of selection with that of the Israelites. They however did not believe that their sufferings came as a result of their unfaithfulness, and they used Psalm 63:31 as an explanation (Chireau and Deutsch, 20). Unfortunately, the denial of the veracity of the traditions of the white Jews led to the creation of a racialized religious identity for the African American Jews.
Looking through this chapter, I have come to reassess my thoughts on the black Jews. While it is true that their traditions were somewhat different from that of the Jews, there are so many similarities between the black and white Jews. The parallels between their exodus and sufferings are clear for all to see. It also further buttresses the fact that people can always find a connection with each other irrespective of their racial affiliations.
References
History.com Staff, "Slave Rebellions." History.com. A E Networks, n.d. Web. 19 Oct 2014. http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery-iv-slave-rebellions
Yvonne Chireau and Nathaniel Deutsch. Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism (Religion in America). New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. E-Book.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nI7etop2E6YC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=Black+Culture+and+Black+Zion&source=bl&ots=OvlRLxmUKr&sig=UgzC11oy8vSd9ToLzCJ4u--J2pc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yDVAVOuVFOGa7gbkxYCoBA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Black%20Culture%20and%20Black%20Zion&f=false
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