I know what you’re thinking, “The First Palestinian Exodus?” Well, we’re not quite talking about 1948 and all the sensitivities surrounding the Nakba. Long before that we had an ancient superpower, better known as Assyria, that led the first exodus of the native inhabitants of this forever contested land.
The State of Affairs Before the Palestinian Exodus
Unfortunately, when we leave the complete adherence to the Torah, we inevitably seem to commit cultural suicide. Parallel to today’s conflict within those who would dilute our religion, there have been many throughout history with this design. Without exception they have disappeared.
From 422 BCE back to 840 BCE, there were the tragic four centuries following Solomon’s death in which many were led to try new, up-to-date versions and vaporized.
Many later books of the Prophets cover this period and tell the sorry tale of our Later Kings. Their unruly period finally ends with the destruction of the First Temple, built 400 years before by King Solomon.
In 840 BCE, he had left a powerful country to his son, who then created division. The North split off and the two dynasties – Israel and Judah – vied with one another. These were disunited and terrible times with a swath of temporary monarchs.
The Assyrian Superpower: The Palestinian Exodus Begins
After about 300 years, in 555 BCE the Assyrians swept in and razed the north of the Land, Israel. This had always been the home of ten of the tribes who were then exiled and scattered across the Assyrian Empire. They were lost to history and are, of course, ‘The Ten Lost Tribes’. Your family was not lost.
Our history of this time reads like the ultimate self-destruction of the Jews. And included in the Biblical books recounting this, are the scorching and embarrassing rebukes that most of the kings received very publicly. These were from the fiery prophets who battled for the old values and higher standards set by – those earliest Five Books of the Torah. They are castigated for worshipping idols and numerous acts contradicting – you guessed – those earliest Five Books of the Torah.
Why did they not edit them and expunge the need for monotheism from them? You already know. Too late. Far, far too late. Every child knew them off by heart.
A Nation Built to Endure The Hardships of Exile
It is essential to state that the vast majority of the population, ordinary village-dwelling Jews, clung fervently to their laws and customs. It was the political classes, the wealthy and powerful who disgraced our nation – just like today. Your forebears kept every law and minute custom that they had learnt from their parents. Those that gave these up had no Jewish descendants.
However, even if unknown figures wrote the Later Books of Kings, Chronicles and Prophets describing all this, still those original Five Books must have been there. On what grounds were these kings judged good or bad? There is only one answer.
The entire canon – all the Later Books following the Five Books – were entirely dependent on the ancient authority and detailed contents of those Five Books. How can we doubt that the Torah was extant?
Each and every verse in the Later Books – Judges, Kings and Prophets, all the sins, all the meritorious deeds, all the laws, all the history – absolutely all are predicated on thousands of details in the Torah itself. Innumerable quotations occur. It can only have been that the Torah existed and the accounts of each era were set down as its history unfolded. If it had been possible to change the Five Books – and many a naughty later king would have liked to have done so – it would have been a very different and watered down version by now.
Perhaps some sort of genius sort of wrote the entire fable some time …. sort of …..then …. Sure – and imposed it on kings whose behavior it had forbidden or on the people who never heard of it before or on the hobbits who really were the original Jews? (Yes, you guessed – we secretly shave our feet.) Sorry, please read on.
The Ten Lost Tribes: Palestinian Exodus in Ancient Records
The traumatic defeat and deportation of the Ten Tribes in 555 BCE by the Assyrians is very fully recorded in non-Jewish sources. It took about 20 years in all, and it annihilated nearly 80% of the Jews in the Holy Land – just like assimilation today. Only the Southern Kingdom around Jerusalem remained.
We find many non-Jewish texts discussing the Division of the Kingdom and loss of the Ten Tribes. In addition, the Samaritans’ state that these tribes all claimed to keep ‘the Jews’ Torah’ and were punished for breaking it. And the Talmud agrees.
Assyrian inscriptions of that period record, during the fifth year of the reign of Tiglath Pileser III, a victory over Azariah (Uzziah), king of Judah, whose achievements are described in 2 Chronicles 26. Tiglath Pileser III also subjugated King Menachem of Israel who paid him tribute. The Assyrian Annals verify details in the Torah precisely. These campaigns were the run up to the destruction and seizing of the Ten Tribes.
Mystery Surrounding The Ten Lost Tribes
There are innumerable fantastical tales about the ‘Lost Ten Tribes’ who have become a sentimentally-attractive irrelevancy. Indeed, those of the Ten Tribes that were not slaughtered in the time-honored fashion were forced to settle thousands of miles away.
Yes, they may have got as far as to the end of the Silk Route into ancient China (– Kaifeng et al), the spice routes through India, in the Punjab, Afghanistan, the Himalayas, Ethiopia and the equatorial areas of Africa. But all this sheds but little light on our subject.
Indeed, minorities amongst almost every nation claim to be descended from them – except of course the Germans and the Poles. Many follow a number of specific practices and have suffered horrendous, unremitting anti-Semitism and clung tenaciously and nobly to their traditions.
Claims of Descent from the Ten Lost Tribes
The claims are wide spread – a few entirely credible. We have the Beta Israel [Ethiopian Jews] of Ethiopia, Igbo Jews, Yoruba, Lemba, Bene Israel and Bnei Menashe (Kuki) of India but also Pashtuns, Kaifeng Jews – even Japanese Shinto, Kurds, Irish and American Indians.
There is a group of Caucasian British/Americans who also stake a claim and a powerful Black brotherhood who claim to be the real Jews.
What is interesting is that some of these claimants really do have some Jewish-style rituals, ceremonial dress and other tantalising traits post-dating the Division of the Kingdom. However, many are more than tenuous, and a vanishing few have any DNA connections to Jews or a clear tradition of chicken soup on Friday night.
Real Judaism’s rejection of all unsubstantiated claims proves perfectly the vast difference between such stories and our own history. No one whatsoever even begins to regard unsubstantiated Lost Tribe claims as anything other than vague supposition. We have no evidence, no proof, and we therefore completely reject these claims.
Scrutinizing Lost Tribe Jewish DNA Claims
If DNA evidence is now provided, often all that this proves is that a very small number of male Jews seem to have converted local women and created an exclusive tribe with some customs similar to the Jewish laws at the relevant point in history. No group has DNA which clarifies their claims of any link to the Lost Tribes.
Otherwise, we would be able to embrace the Pashtun Taliban as our brothers, which may solve one or two problems – and create a few. It is undeniable however that millions of descendants are alive today across the world who may trace their lineage from the millions of Jews who, over 2500 years, have fled to every part of the globe.
Even the lost Kaifeng Jewish/Chinese claimants astonishingly show a clear Middle-Eastern connection to Kurdish-Kaifeng Bukharan-Kaifeng lineages. While some lineages reflect their Chinese assimilation, other lineages directly connect them to established Jewish communities in Central Asia and the Middle East, supporting their historical narrative of foreign Jewish origin.
There are traces of Jewish DNA in almost every population. This merely records the extinction of that line of Jews. This has not yet happened to your family.
The Remnants of The First Palestinian Exodus
There are however distinct groups whose narratives are worthy of examination in pursuing our brief because they establish the ancient existence of the Torah and the unbroken following of the Jewish Law.
And indeed, two may be descendants of the Lost Tribes – the Lemba and the famous Ethiopian Jews.
A third group date back to Joshua’s time and are rooted in the period of conquest of the Holy Land 2500 years ago. They are the Samaritans. In Hebrew – the ‘Shomronim’ – those from Shomron (Samaria) in Northern Israel). This was ignorantly translated as the ‘Samaritans’ by the Christian clerics. However, because the Samaritans are now called ubiquitously ‘Samaritans’ we shall here begrudgingly use that term.
The Yemenites: The Most Authentic Jews
Finally, we have the honor and privilege of meeting by far the most noble and authentic Jews on the planet – very much a none-lost tribe who nonetheless secreted themselves by choice from the world’s eyes 2700 years ago – the truly great Yemenite Jews. Their DNA is twice as purely Jewish as any Ashkenazi Jew.
Let us set the ‘purity’ of the DNA of the Yemenites at a value of say 10 with respect to the DNA of individuals of 2700 years ago from whom they descend. Applying the same criteria, we find that the Sephardim score 6 -7 and the Ashkenazim come in at 5 – 6. Obviously this is only in relation to biological links and completely irrelevant to an individual’s ‘Jewishness’. However, there is a real association between whether a family married strictly only Jewish partners – and whether its survivors still practice Judaism, or even associate with being of Jewish heritage.
The Yemenites, as you will read, are practically unmixed but it is absolutely vital to note that your being a Jew depends on only your mother and that converts are completely accepted as fully Jewish. So, a convert is 100% Jewish but obviously DNA testing would pick this up as a non-Jewish strain.
DNA is important to our quest only in that it confirms a direct familial line through which our unbroken chain of testimony and practices can be justifiably traced. This has nothing to do with bloodlines or racial purity. However, quintessentially, if we have an unbroken DNA ‘heritage’ then our unbroken line of practising the self-same Judaism for 3000 years is powerfully corroborated.
Jewish Heritage Claims in African Communities
Groups of black Africans claiming to be Jewish and persecuted as such by their neighbors seem to exist in a number of entirely isolated, tiny communities. There are quite a few small villages in Africa today which keep some of the customs of a sort of pre-Babylonian Judaism and live lives of incredible hardship for their religion. No one questions their commitment.
However the nagging question is whether their original adoption of Judaism was through legally acceptable conversions. There is a process which must be followed. Merely adopting Jewish practice is not acceptable. The Sefwi Wiawso and Igbo communities specifically have no Jewish DNA but would seem to be groups who have honestly and with great self-sacrifice adopted many Jewish practices. The Igbo are a significant number which is growing and many are converting to mainstream Judaism according to some sources.
So, it seems certain that indeed some of these, often centuries old, were started by individuals – often isolated Christian missionary clerics. They created a homespun religion based on the literal texts of the Torah and the type of knowledge a Christian may have had of Judaism. A Christian priest may have thought he had found one of the Lost Tribes because of circumcision and other customs and had been determined to reintroduce them to their ‘original’ religion.
The problem in establishing their origins is that none have DNA evidence or written or even oral traditions of their acceptable historic conversions. Jewish Law requires from every Jew – including you and me – written evidence of your parents’ marriage, which in itself testifies to the previous generations’ marriages.
The Lemba: A Lost Tribe Rediscovered?
Parfitt, a renowned British academic, insisted that there is a solid and powerful core to the narrative of one group, the black Lemba people, and their indignant and persistent claims to have come from the Ancient Israelites.
Research established that, totally unlike their neighbours and in a uniquely Jewish manner, they most notably do not eat milk and meat together nor fish without scales and only use their own cooking utensils. They also circumcise males, ritually slaughter – draining all the blood, do not eat pork, keep the Sabbath, have a new year starting in September, bury their dead straightened out, observe the moon’s phases and shave their heads for purity.
In this region, the local Bantu tribes sing carefully passed-down songs or lays relating their ancient history. Research has proved these to be truly old and unchanging, and the migrations and events they portray are usually authenticated. But those of the Lemba are completely different from any of those surrounding Bantu. Rather than telling of their local history, they delve into the ancient past and recount their Hebraic descent. They speak of the journey from ancient Palestine to Sana (Yemen) and then down the eastern side of Africa.
This is extraordinary content for such lies, especially as they had to be composed, if untrue, as some sort of scam and then imposed on the tribe.
The Modern Status of The Lemba
Parfitt carried out extensive research on the Lemba which was achieving much – until the media smelt them out. Then they tragically became a ‘story’ and a ‘cause’ and were instantly adopted and colonized by the Americo-Israeli do-gooders and media do-badders. Such interference has polluted their traditional customs. So, there they sit, draped in utterly foreign, brand new blue and white prayer shawls, Israeli flags and other Jewification paraphernalia with which they have been drenched since their ‘discovery’. Some probably have little plastic models of Ben Gurion.
Worse, they have been drowned in irrelevant Jewish kitsch and customs. It can be difficult to establish those which were authentically their ancient ones. They naturally showed great interest in Israel and regular exchange visits take place but we can presume they never kept Israeli Independence Day until perhaps 1000 years ago.
Slowly, they have thus grown more and more visible although few outsiders believed their narrative. As their lies recount, they claim to descend from a few hardy men from the Lost Tribes fleeing down to Yemen, with the Ark of the Covenant, and then across to Africa and southwards. The establishment raised its eyebrows at this and smiled knowingly. However, for reasons of political rectitude, they were eventually DNA tested – just to humor them.
The DNA Shock of The Lemba
The results of these tests in 2000 initially sent shock waves across the globe. The male line of the Lemba and particularly their ‘priestly’ Buba family apparently had distinct DNA traceable to the descendants of Aharon the High Priest. This ‘Cohen modal haplotype’ was found amazingly clearly amongst this family clan of the Lemba. From where could it have come but a Cohen who ended up founding that family? However a number of recent tests have seriously questioned the original findings and more research seems necessary.
Nonetheless, this group claims that they are descendants of small group of Jews that escaped the Assyrian conquest and converted local people.
The founding group included at least one Cohen and perhaps other men who were descendants of those who had stood at Sinai.
Some Lemba are not interested in being dubbed ‘Lost Jews’. They agree that they have a distinct culture with several ancient, distinctly Jewish customs but Islam has many similar customs. The DNA tests taken together do suggest a Jewish component however, this could be accounted for by Cohanim previously spreading their haplotype through a non-proto-Lemba group by intermarriage. Then, following that, the Bantu could have married into that same population centuries later producing the unique Lemba line.
It may possibly be that the Lemba carry no more of such Cohen haplotypes than other populations with some Middle East heritage. There may never have been any direct contact between Jews and Lemba ancestors.
A Lost Tribe or Just a Tribe?
But we do remain with a very real conundrum. Can they be deemed to be the result of some delusional Christian priest creating a lost tribe or is their narrative accurate?
As above, they have no record of births, marriages and deaths and no Jewish Courts, and for centuries at least have had no Hebrew, detailed practices or knowledge of the Torah, so in Jewish Law they would need full conversions to be recognised by the religious as ‘Jewish’. Obviously, the non-religious are outraged at this and would embrace their claims as evidence. Nonetheless, many seem to presume that at best, they come from a very few Jewish men with one Cohen amongst them who married Bantu women.
Thus, although there is a dispute about the Lemba lineage the consensus is that their DNA is indeed distinctly traceable back over two millennia. They have had their Torah laws which they kept probably from that date. Why and how could they otherwise have adopted these?
Even a disputative DNA study of 2013 accepts their ancient origin. Essentially for our case, it is clear that the Lemba – in absolute isolation – followed Torah laws probably from about 400 BCE. But there is more.
The Lemba Following Jewish Oral Torah?
The Lemba also, as mentioned, have many laws unique to the Jewish Oral Law. That was not written down until 900 years after the Lemba ancestors started their journey. Milk and meat and the special, ritual slaughtering knife each man carries with him are not mentioned directly in the Torah. The Lemba must have had these laws from earlier dietary laws not written and only carried down orally. Where else could these come from? They therefore prove that there was obviously an Oral Law complementing the Written precisely as we claim. And no Christian priest would have even dreamt of these laws.
The number of Lemba is officially 70,000 but most now practice a sort of mix of Islam and Christianity with Jewish customs. It seems unanimously agreed that this is the work of recent missionaries.
The Ethiopian Jews: A Lost Tribe or Lost Jews?
The first people who come to mind when the phrase ‘black Jews’ is used are the renowned Ethiopian Jews. This group, of noble and aristocratic appearance and bearing, have origins even more mysterious than those of the Lemba.
Proudly black, they are gracile and have sharp, distinctive features. This and their DNA argue a ban on intermarriage from their most distant past. Their lifestyle and customs are without question entirely drawn from the Old Testament and Oral Law. All that they practised in Ethiopia predates the Talmud. In accordance with these they circumcised on the eighth day; they bathed ritually precisely when stipulated; they kept very high moral standards; men and women were divided for prayer; priests were called ‘Kahan’; sheep and goat and bovine offerings were common; the Sabbath and most dietary laws were extremely strictly observed – preventing social mixing and travel; the laws of marital relations and the care of the post-partem mother are directly from the Oral law (as discussed in the as-yet unwritten Talmud); all the festivals and pre-Babylonian fast and festival days were practised.
In effect, in 1946 when early descriptions began to emerge, they were far more loyal as Jews than most Ashkenazi communities.
Enduring the Ethiopian Exile
They held to their religion through terrible and prolonged persecution until nearly all survivors were eventually flown to Israel where their descendants number approximately 200,000. They had no Hebrew but used their version of the Torah and Joshua, Judges and Ruth translated into Ethiopian and they also have a number of otherwise unknown holy books centered on the Torah.
Resolving a Color-blind Conundrum
They seem also, like the Lemba, to have first appeared and become isolated shortly after the Destruction of the First Temple which event they commemorate. Their preoccupation with these writings as well as practice suggests an unquestionable Judaism and thus they seem far closer to us than the Lemba who have no writings.
Just to show that we are not racialist, their color and biological background was dismissed as irrelevant by the religious courts in Israel concerning the validity of their Jewish identity!
The only question was whether they had written or other evidence with true legal probity as to their marriages or conversions. If they had had any records, then they would have been treated as unquestionably Jewish.
However, despite a complete lack of such evidence, these noble, aristocratic people were indeed accepted by the religious authorities as Jewish as early as 1973 – provided that they underwent a formalized ‘mini-conversion’ ceremony. This is because of the mass of evidence as to innumerable uniquely Jewish practices that they followed. More recently they have been accepted without any conversions.
The Ethiopian Jewish Mystery Continues
Yet, they remain a fascinating and impelling mystery because the biological lineage of the Ethiopian Jews remains less certain. Again, although of no concern to the Rabbinical authorities, their DNA seems slightly less specifically linked to other Jews.
Strangely this supports their narrative. This is because they quote historic roots dating back to King Solomon and state that they are descended from Menelik, the non-Jewish son of King Solomon and the non-Jewish Queen of Sheba who returned to his mother’s land, Ethiopia. This would be circa 840 BCE. His Jewish DNA would have disappeared after nearly three millennia of marriage within Ethiopian lines.
This would explain perfectly the fact that their DNA – which dates to that period – reflects this line which is different from the various mixed haplotypes of other Jewish communities. And note that their own specific DNA reflects little intermarriage with African populations.
Again, this is not a racial point, but rather supports the purity of their ancient practices and unchanging religious loyalty. So the Ethiopian Jews are almost certainly not from the Ten Lost Tribes, but may be from King Solomon’s time.
But one thing is absolutely obvious and incontestable, we see that the Yemenites who were sent by King Solomon, 2700 years ago, and the Assyrian ethnic cleansing some 2500 years ago establish – at those times – our adherence to all the Torah and Oral Laws.
That these scattered remains of exiles seem to have independently followed a set of very similar only- Jewish laws, in the face of persecution is an important factor in establishing their antiquity and similarity one to another, even from over 2500 years ago.
Your family reflects exactly this. They and those separated from them and now living in, for example, Bukharan and Kurdish Jewish communities were once neighbours.
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