Black Hebrew Israelites


Black Hebrew Israelites are a new religious movement claiming that African Americans are descendants of the ancient Israelites. Some sub-groups believe that indigenous peoples of the Americas and Latin Americans are descendants of the Israelites, as well.
Black Hebrew Israelite teachings draw on a wide range of sources. They incorporate their own interpretations of Christianity and Judaism, and their beliefs are influenced by Freemasonry and New Thought, too. Black Hebrew Israelism is a non-homogenous movement composed of numerous groups with varying beliefs and practices. Many choose to identify as Hebrew Israelites or Black Hebrews rather than as Jews. Black Hebrew Israelites are a distinct group that is not affiliated with the mainstream Jewish community or normative Judaism, as they do not meet the established criteria—such as matrilineal descent or formal conversion—that are used to identify someone as Jewish. Additionally, they operate outside the doctrinal and organizational boundaries of Nicene Christianity, which forms the core of mainstream Christian denominations.
The Black Hebrew Israelite movement originated at the end of the 19th century, when Frank Cherry and William Saunders Crowdy claimed to have received visions that African Americans are descendants of the Hebrews in the Hebrew Bible. Cherry established the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations, in 1886, and Crowdy founded the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896. Subsequently, Black Hebrew groups were founded in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from Kansas to New York City, by both African Americans and West Indian immigrants. In the mid-1980s, the number of Black Hebrews in the United States was between 25,000 and 40,000.
Academics have criticized various sects of Black Hebrew Israelism for their theology and historical revisionism due to the lack of evidence supporting their claims. Some sects are considered black supremacist and antisemitic. According to the Anti-Defamation League : "Some, but not all, are outspoken anti-Semites and racists." The Southern Poverty Law Center designates several extremist sects as hate groups that support racial segregation, Holocaust denial, homophobia, and race war. The SPLC refers to these extremist groups as "Radical Hebrew Israelites" to distinguish between "extremist and non-extremist sects" and because not all Hebrew Israelites are black.

History

The origins of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement are found in Frank Cherry and William Saunders Crowdy, who both claimed that they had revelations in which they believed that God told them that African Americans are descendants of the Hebrews in the Christian Bible; Cherry established the "Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations" in 1886, and Crowdy founded the "Church of God and Saints of Christ" in 1896. Cherry taught that the Talmud was authoritative, that Jesus would return in the year AD 2000, and in a "square earth surrounded by three layers of heaven." The playing of the piano and the collection of tithes during Black Hebrew Israelite worship was forbidden by Cherry, who also taught the eastward direction of prayer and "denigrated white Jews as interlopers." The Church of God and Saints of Christ, originating in Kansas, retained elements of a messianic connection to Jesus. Another early key figure was William Christian. The pioneers of the movement were Freemasons, and it was strongly influenced by Masonic traditions. In the late 19th century, Cherry's and Crowdy's followers continued to propagate the claim that they were the biological descendants of the Israelites. During the following decades, many more Black Hebrew congregations were established. Similar groups selected elements of Judaism and adapted them within a structure similar to that of the Black church. After Frank Cherry's death in 1963, his son Prince Benjamin F. Cherry took over leadership of the movement.

Groups

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dozens of Black Hebrew organizations were established. In Harlem alone, at least eight such groups were founded between 1919 and 1931.
Some of these include:
The oldest known Black Hebrew organization is the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations. The group was founded by Frank Cherry in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1886, and it later moved to Philadelphia. Cherry, who was from the Deep South and had worked as a seaman and for the railroads before his ministry, taught himself Hebrew and Yiddish. Theologically, the Church of the Living God mixed elements of Judaism and Christianity, counting the Christian Bible—including the New Testament—and the Talmud as essential scriptures.
The rituals of Cherry's congregation incorporated many Jewish practices and prohibitions alongside some Christian traditions. For example, during prayer, the men wore skullcaps and congregants faced east. In addition, members of the church were not permitted to eat pork. Prayers were accompanied by musical instruments and gospel singing. Cherry died in 1963 when he was about 95 years old; his son, Prince Benjamin F. Cherry, succeeded him. Members of the church believed that he had temporarily left and would soon reappear in spirit in order to lead the church through his son.

Church of God and Saints of Christ

The Church of God and Saints of Christ was established in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1896 by African American William Saunders Crowdy. The group established its headquarters in Philadelphia in 1899; Crowdy later relocated to Washington, D.C., in 1903. After Crowdy's death in 1908, the church continued to grow under the leadership of William Henry Plummer, who moved the organization's headquarters to its permanent location in Belleville, Virginia, in 1921.
In 1936, the Church of God and Saints of Christ had more than 200 "tabernacles" and 37,000 members. Howard Z. Plummer succeeded his father and became head of the organization in 1931. His son, Levi Solomon Plummer, became the church's leader in 1975. The Church of God and Saints of Christ was led by Jehu A. Crowdy Jr., a great-grandson of William Saunders Crowdy, from 2001 until his death in 2016. Since 2016, it has been led by Phillip E. McNeil. As of 2005, the church had fifty tabernacles in the United States and dozens more in Africa.
The Church of God and Saints of Christ describes itself as "the oldest African-American congregation in the United States that adheres to the tenets of Judaism." The church teaches that all Jews were originally Black and that African Americans are descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes. Members believe that Jesus was neither God nor the son of God, but rather an adherent of Judaism and a prophet. They also consider William Saunders Crowdy, their founder, to be a prophet.
The Church of God and Saints of Christ synthesizes rituals from both normative Judaism and Christianity. They have adopted rites drawn from both the Old and New Testaments. Its Old Testament observances include the use of the Hebrew calendar, the celebration of Passover, the circumcision of infant males, the commemoration of the Sabbath on Saturday, and the wearing of yarmulkes. Its New Testament rites include baptism and footwashing, both of which have Old Testament origins.

Commandment Keepers

In 1919, Wentworth Arthur Matthew, an emigrant from Saint Kitts, founded a Black Hebrew Israelite congregation in Harlem, the Commandment Keepers of the Living God. In 1930, Matthew established the Ethiopian Hebrew Rabbinical College in Brooklyn. He ordained more than 20 rabbis, who went on to lead congregations throughout the United States and the Caribbean. He remained the leader of the Commandment Keepers in Harlem, and in 1962 the congregation moved to a landmark building on 123rd Street.
Matthew died in 1973, sparking an internal conflict over who would succeed him as head of the Harlem congregation. Shortly before his death, Matthew named his grandson, David Matthew Doré, as the new spiritual leader. Doré was 16 years old at the time. In 1975, the synagogue's board elected Rabbi Willie White as its leader. Rabbi Doré occasionally conducted services at the synagogue until the early 1980s, when White had Doré and some other members locked out of the building. Membership declined throughout the 1990s, and by 2004, only a few dozen people belonged to the synagogue. In 2007 the Commandment Keepers sold the building while various factions among former members sued one another.
Matthew was influenced by the non-black Jews he met as well as by Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. Garvey used the Biblical Jews in exile as a metaphor for black people in North America. One of the accomplishments of Garvey's movement was to strengthen the connection between black Americans and Africa, Ethiopia in particular. When Matthew later learned about the Beta Israel—Ethiopian Jews—he identified with them, teaching that the Commandment Keepers were descendants of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Matthew taught that "the Black man is a Jew" and "all genuine Jews are Black men", but he valued non-black Jews as those who had preserved Judaism over the centuries. Matthew maintained cordial ties with non-black Jewish leaders in New York and frequently invited them to worship at his synagogue.
Today, the Commandment Keepers follow traditional Jewish practices and observe Jewish holidays. Members observe kashrut, circumcise newborn boys, and celebrate Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and their synagogue has a mechitza to separate men and women during worship.
Besides the Harlem group, there are eight or ten Commandment Keeper congregations in the New York area, and others exist throughout North America as well as in Israel. Since 2000, seven rabbis have graduated from the Israelite Rabbinical Academy founded by Matthew.