Tag: Lost Tribes

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LOST TRIBES: Reconnecting the Pashtun to Israel Has Now Begun

Something is happening.  After thousands of years of disconnection, the Lost Tribes of Israel are beginning to come back and reconnect with the “remnant of Judah.”  Whether it is the Igbo in western Africa or Bnei Menashe of east India, no where can this be seen more clearly than the awakening amongst the Bani Israel in southern Afghanistan.  Tribally called the Pashtun, the Bani Israel are made up of tens of millions of people that have many customs very close to those of Jews.

Some of these customs include the circumcision on the eighth day, a four cornered shawl with fringes, lighting Shabbat candles on Friday night, family purity laws, and many more. The Pashtun place their laws called the Pashtunwali above that of the Koran. The Pashtunwali appears to be ancient Biblical Law.

The Pashtun themselves have a strong internal tradition that they are in fact the descendents of the Lost Tribes of Israel arriving in Afghanistan around 700 CE, which is shortly after the ten tribes were exiled to what is today Kurdistan.  From there many anthropologists say the Lost Tribes would have moved east concurring with the timeline the Pashtun present.

This Thursday the first ever conference between Israel and the Pashtun is taking place in Jerusalem.  The conference, titled the Conference for the Ten Lost Tribes of Afghanistan is being organized by The Association for the Bani Israel of Afghanistan and iTribe.

Persecution of the Bani Israel

The Pashtun or Bani Israel dwell in the mountains of southern Afghanistan and Pakistan, on both sides of the Durand line.  This is the artificial boundary drawn up by British colonialists, seemingly on purpose to split the indigenous Pashtun population.  Over the years this division has weakened the Pashtun handing many younger Pashtun into the hands of radical Islamists thus destorying their ancient Israelite customs.

With the new awakening amongst the Pashtun, there is a chance that Israel can forge a pathway back to its lost brothers and restore the full house of Israel. It won’t be easy. Many of todays Pashtun believe in Islam and have forgotten their old traditions.

This Thursday’s conference is a powerful opportunity to break the neo-colonial attempt by the Western World to divide the descendents of Jacob and reunite the 12 Tribes under a renewed Kingdom.

 

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LOST TRIBES: Islamists in Nigeria Continue to Oppress Igbo Israelites

The growing movement of the Igbo tribe’s return to its Israelite heritage is nothing short of miraculous.  What started out as a small percentage of Igbo interested in returning to the pratices of their ancestors as they were before the slave trade was brought to the Gold Coast of Africa is now a wide spread movement.  This of course is part of the larger Lost Tribes movement we are witnessing around the world.

The Igbo in particular, as well as many of the smaller tribes nearby have been hunted and oppressed by Western backed Islamists from the Northern Hausa tribe in control of Nigeria.  The Igbo, considered dilligent businessmen with one of the richest African diaspora communities, are held back from controlling the lucrative oil trade that originates in their area.  Instead the Hausa backed by oil companies have for years been sucking the Igbo oil wealth from their region and forced the region into direct poverty.

The question is: why?

When the British came to what is today Nigeria or more specific the Biafra region, actually known as Igboland, they noticed a bizarre sight.  The Igbo were keeping the Sabbath on the same day as the Jews.  The Igbo also held strongly to many other Israelite practices.  The British, as they did in so many other places went ahead and forcibly stamped this out.  The pratice that was done in Iraq, India, Afghanistan, and other British colonies was to place non-indigenous peoples over the indigenous owners of the lands they conquered.  In many places it is surfacing that these tribes are actually connected to the Lost Tribes of Israel.

The Igbo are said to be related to the tribe of Gad as well as a mixture of other tribes.  Their tradition leads them to practice Shabbat, Kashrut, family purity, and more. The ongoing oppression of the Igbo is a microcosm, of the wider war that the Judeo-Israelite world is fighting against the global left and the Islamists it is using as footsoldiers to try stopping the ultimate return of G-D’s children in all its myriad colors from the far reaches of the world.

BUY TODAY: The Igbos and Israel: An Inter-cultural Study of the Oldest and Largest Jewish Diaspora

The Buhari administration in Nigeria is a British backed and Islamist infused mini-caliphate which has kept down one of the most obvious of the Lost Tribes and has sucked out their wealth and spread an extreme form of Islamic adherence to what should be a propsperous and free country.

I personally have always struggled with the truth of the coming home of many of our brothers and sisters from the four corners of the world.  It is apparent to me that it will not occur in way that the first stage has occured.  There is a great awakening happening across the world that is spreading a tremendous light.  The Igbo are part of this, but due to corporate and Islamic meddling they have been prevented from realizing their desires to practice freely and build up Israelite institutions where they have live for 2000 years.

The coming war is a war of truth versus the spreading of Islamo-Facist ideology.  The return of the Lost Tribes from around the world can start with the Igbo if we realize that the best way to fight the coming war is simply by fulfilling the biblical prophecy as it is simply stated. Of course we must make sure this return is on the ne hand as smooth as possible and yet meets the standards that the People of Israel have kept to for the last 2000 years.

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Have the Lost Tribes Already Returned?

The search for the 10 Lost Tribes has been part of the Western World’s fascination with Judaic culture for the better part of the last 1800 years.  However, in modern times after the return of the Jewish people to their historic and divinely promised homeland, this fascination has turned from an interest to an active movement.

The yearning to identify and bring home the lost tribes is not merely a curiosity. Many groups both Jewish and Christian see it as a fulfullment of biblical prophecy at the End of Days.  In the past decade or two numerous movements around the world have popped up claiming their nation or tribe are one of the lost tribes.  Some have more evidence and others less.  Jewish interest has clearly grown in this subject, with organizations like Shavei Israel and Kulanu pushing for more inclusion for these groups from the main stream Torah observant world.

With all of the noise surrounding the search for the lost tribes, could it be we are looking in all the wrong places? When we peel away the claims and yearnings of many of those proporting to be from the lost tribes, we are left with conjecture, inference, and yes some evidence pointing to a few groups.  Before discussing these groups, we must face the very sobering conclusion that a majority of the lost tribes already walk amongst us here in Israel and many of the Jewish communities around the world.

What Does it Mean to be Lost?

There are really two types of lost when dealing with the tribes.  The first kind is that they as groups are lost to the rest of Israel and the Jewish people and the second is that they are known, but their specific tribal identification has been lost.  The latter means they self identify as Jews but their tribal affinity is lost.  This differentiation is key.

2 Kings 17:6: “In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.”

 

This verse seems to make it clear that the Israelites were indeed taken away, but lets bring in some surrounding verses in order to understand this.

The first is the following verse in the time of Hezkiyahu and clearly points to tribes of northern Israel spared by the Assyirians coming to Jerusalem:

2 Chronicles 11 Nevertheless the people of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem.

Backing up the movement of the northern refugees to Judea is the fact that we know according to archeology that Hezkiyahu expanded Jerusalem five fold at the time of the destruction and expulsion of the Northern Tribes.  The expansion happened across many of the villages in Judea as well turning them into cities.

Rav Yitzhak Levi says the following:

“In his archeological digs in the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem, Prof. Avigad found a wall which he identified as the wall built by Chizkiyahu. He based this claim on several arguments. First of all, the ceramics found at the site fit the period of Chizkiyahu (eighth century, BCE). Second, he argued that with the fall of the Kingdom of Israel, some of the refugees arrived in Jerusalem and it was necessary to expand the city in order to absorb.”

Yet, this is not the first instance involving members of the Northern Tribes relocating south to Judea. Two centuries earlier in the time of King Asa, a righteous King of Judea, members of the Norther Tribes relocated to Judea.

Chronicles 2 15:8 And when Asa heard these words, even the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the detestable things out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from the hill-country of Ephraim; and he renewed the altar of the LORD, that was before the porch of the LORD.

Chronicles 2 15:9 And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and them that sojourned with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon; for they fell to him out of Israel in abundance, when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.

These verses clearly indicate that the lost tribes are not lost, but rather their tribal identification was lost as they became merged into the broader Jewish population.  In fact by the time of the Purim story the word for Jew was adopted by every tribe under the kingship of the Judean kings.

Esther 2:5 There was a certain Jew in Shushan the castle, whose name was Mordecai the son of Jair the son of Shimei the son of Kish, a Benjamite,

Esther 2:6 who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captives that had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away.

The biblical commentator Rashi states that all Israelites became known as Jews in the time of the Babylonian exile because the king was from the tribe of Judea.

In the book of Ovadia the following is stated:

 

19 And they of the South shall possess the mount of Esau, and they of the Lowland the Philistines; and they shall possess the field of Ephraim, and the field of Samaria; and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.

20 And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel, that are among the Canaanites, even unto Sarphant, and the captivity of Jerusalem, that is in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the South.

We are within the unfolding of the above prophecy now.  Sarphant is France and Sepharad is Spain. However, there will be many more Jews that are meant to come from the four corners of the world as prophesized in Isaiah 11:11:

Then it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea.

This prophecy also is clearly underway as Jews returned from Assyria, Egypt, Cush, and Shinar.  These returnees are never mentioned as belonging to a particular tribe, but rather individual members of the Jewish nation.  At the end of the process one’s personal tribal identification will be revealed as an outer expression of their internal ancestry.

So What of the Various Claims?

At the same time it is pretty clear most of the Jews at the time of the Babylonian exile were actually a mixture of all the tribes, there is much indication that those tribes that were exiled were bought east.  There is a drive to connect these tribes to the Pashtun in Afghanistan as well as other people’s in the region. However, it says the following in 2 Kings 17:34:

“To this day they persist in their former practices. They neither worship Yahweh nor adhere to the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands that Yahweh gave the descendants of Jacob, whom he named Israel.”

The proof that many bring for the Pashtun is that many of their laws mirror ours.  The very following of the Torah seems contradictory to the verse above rendering the claim problematic.

When we come across communities that seem to have an echo of Jewish ritual there is a far greater chance that these communities were at one time part of a far richer Jewish diaspora than a lost tribe. Afterall, these communities whether in Asia, Africa, or even in South America have some sort of connection to Judaism, albeit far changed and assimilated.

At the end of the Purim story there is proof in connection to a worldwide Jewish civilization that existed in Persian times. We know that the Persian empire spanned from India to the Sudan and probably had direct influence well beyond that.  We also know the Jews lived throughout the empire and probably just beyond.  When it was clear the Jews were going to win, many non-Jews throughout the empire became Jews themeselves.

Esther 8:17 And in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had gladness and joy, a feast and a good day. And many from among the peoples of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews was fallen upon them.

And then we have this verse:

Esther 9:27 the Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, so as it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to the writing thereof, and according to the appointed time thereof, every year.

It is clear that Jewish civilization has found itself around the world.  Whether these are the tribes doesn’t matter as the tribes by now have lost their seperate identity within the Jewish people.

So where are the lost tribes? The lost tribes are us and we have come home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Jewish Revival of Papua New Guinea – Part One

The real and tangible occurrence of the Jewish Revival in Papua New Guinea represents a unique opportunity for both the Jewish people and the State of Israel to both clarify and explore its own roots, priorities, history and religious direction. For on this small island just a few miles above northern Australia there are the rumblings of both a Jewish renaissance and a Zionist mission; there are Jews that had lost their Judaism and now desire to return to their Mosaic roots and tribal peoples that claim their Judaism to stem from the Ten Lost Tribes. There are ancient peoples that anxiously await their return to the Land of Israel and modern Rabbis that have taken upon themselves the task of teaching these tribes modern Judaism in its chiefly Ashkenazi and Sephardic forms. The Israeli government has established relations with the government of Papua New Guinea and Israeli high tech companies have aided the indigenous peoples of this still largely untouched and virgin land.

The story of “Jewish” Papua New Guinea, and how we as Jews and Israelis relate to it, will affect the ancient Jews of Africa and of India, of South America and of the Native Americans in the United States that also claim Jewish ancestry. For this is a story of lost lands and lost peoples, of both ancient and modern Jewish history, of conquests and intermarriage, of polytheism (re)turned to monotheism, of cannibalism turned to humane practices under the influences of modern religion. It is a story of hope and dialogue and fundamentalist Christianity and ancient Judaism, a story of prayer for a better future and a future based on the teachings of the past.

This saga in many ways reflects the struggles of the tribes of Africa that claim ancient Jewish roots or at the very least desire to become one with the Jewish people through identification with the bible and its people. It mirrors the aspirations of groups of peoples from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas that, while not always yearning to come home to Israel, most definitely identify with the Jewish people and want to unite with its renewed spirit.
For me, as a Jew, it represents fundamental questions of identity, of an entire history unknown to the average Jew, of a need for renewed definitions of who we are as a people, of empathy for an entire globe of nations that have found empathy towards us with barely a mutual nod back in their direction. It is a type of tshuva – repentance – for ignorance and perhaps even prejudice and it is an opportunity that must not be missed and that has only become possible with the creation of the modern State of Israel.

The Jewish journey back to Papua New Guinea begins only tens of thousands of years after the original establishment of humans on the island, when the first Europeans landed in 1526.  Ironically, it was the Portuguese explorer, Jorge de Menezes, himself a Jew forced into secrecy after the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, who discovered the islands and began its exploration. Other Jews forced from Spain and Portugal during the late 1400s and the 1500s would soon arrive at the island, Jews that had been followed by the Inquisitors from Europe to Peru and on to Japan. From Japan, some made their way to Papua New Guinea.  The Jewish Diaspora includes cousins of distant geography but of shared historical experience. It is entirely possible that some of the Jews of Peru share common Jewish heritage with the modern Jews of New Guinea. There may be ancient Jews in New Guinea as well, but this will be discussed in Part Two.

A member of the Gogodala tribe of Papua New Guinea. The tribe claims to be of Jewish origin. Credit: Tim Long, Florida International University.
A member of the Gogodala tribe of Papua New Guinea. The tribe claims to be of Jewish origin. Credit: Tim Long, Florida International University.

These Jews of Papua New Guinea eventually intermarried and found their way to missionary Christianity, with its messianic Message. It is, perhaps, this message that burned within them to find salvation’ albeit not Christian salvation, through a return to their Jewish roots hundreds of years later. But not all became outwardly Christian – some intermarried with native tribes and indeed carried the harsh lessons learned from the Inquisition. To this day, many feel that it is forbidden to enter a church for “it is an evil place”. Some even give their children the name of Sukkot, Torah and Menorah, as recalled in a fascinating article by Rabbi Yossi Serebryanski.

In 2007, then Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, stated that his people would always worship the God of Israel and the entire country is full of Israeli flags during the Israel Day of Independence. This is indeed and incredible phenomenon that requires far more study.

The story of the Jewish Return in Papua New Guinea, however, is far more complicated and far more subtle. In Part Two we shall take up the exploits of Professor Tudor Parfiit, known as the “British Indiana Jones”. Professor Parfitt has been exploring ancient Jewish tribal communities for many years and indeed was one of the first to show a Jewish historical link to the Lemba tribe in Africa.

The Jewish Diaspora has left bits and pieces to be slowly and carefully fit together, with waves of Jewish immigration from the times of King Solomon’s trading ships and the later forced migration from Israel of the Ten Lost Tribes, through the Inquisitions, the Dutch East India Trading Companies, the Jewish immigration to America and the modern return to Israel. The Papua New Guineans, both ancient and new, represent a small but significant piece of this puzzle and the modern Jewish confrontation with those that are truly descended from Israel and those that clearly want to become associated. This is a story of ancient and modern, and thus a fitting narrative for the new Jewish Return.