thumb|Black Hebrew Israelites [[proselytizing in New York City, 1995]]
Black Hebrew Israelites (also called Hebrew Israelites, Black Hebrews, Black Israelites, and African 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, 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. 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.
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 (ADL): "Some, but not all, [Black Hebrew Israelites] 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.
Some sects of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement employ street preaching to promote their ideology. Sidewalk ministers may employ provocation to advance a message that is often antisemitic, racist, and xenophobic. In January 2019, street preachers purportedly targeted students of Covington Catholic High School (Kentucky) at a confrontation at Lincoln Memorial. One student reported that extremist Black Hebrew Israelites called students slurs, and told an African American student that white classmates would "harvest his organs".
Attacks
Alberta Williams King, the mother of Martin Luther King Jr., was shot and killed on June 30, 1974, at age 69, by Marcus Wayne Chenault, a 23-year-old Black man from Ohio, who had adopted the theology of a Black Hebrew Israelite preacher, Hananiah E. Israel of Cincinnati, and had shown interest in a group called the "Hebrew Pentecostal Church of the Living God". Israel, Chenault's mentor, castigated Black civil rights activists and Black church leaders as being evil and deceptive, but claimed in interviews not to have advocated violence. Chenault did not draw any such distinction, and first decided to assassinate Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago, but canceled the plan at the last minute.
On December 10, 2019, two people who had expressed interest in the Black Hebrew Israelite movement were killed in a shootout with police. They had killed a police detective at Bayview Cemetery, and three people at the JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey: the Jewish co-owner of the grocery store, an employee, and a Jewish shopper. Authorities treated the incident as an act of domestic terrorism. Capers Funnye, who had been the rabbi for 26 years of the 200-member Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, condemned the attack and said that his community was "gripped by sadness" over "the heinous actions of two disturbed individuals who cloaked themselves in anti-Semitism and hate-filled rhetoric". He criticized the media reports for using "the term 'Black Hebrew Israelites' without distinction as if the description is a one size fits all and it is absolutely not". Funnye said: "we don't want to be seen as some radical fringe group with a false narrative because we are black and profess Judaism; we are Torah-oriented Jews."
On December 28, 2019, a man with a machete attacked several Orthodox Jewish people during Hanukkah celebrations in a house in Monsey, New York. Authorities revealed that his journals included references to Black Hebrew Israelites, stating that "Hebrew Israelites" have taken from "ebinoid Israelites".
Responses
African American Christian apologetics organizations, such as the Jude 3 Project, have critiqued the theological and historical claims which have been presented by various Black Hebrew Israelite sects. Zimbabwean novelist Masimba Musodza says the Black Hebrew Israelites have made historical revisionist claims and that their doctrine "force[s] their own ideas onto the text to promote their own agenda", engendering "antisemitism in Black communities in western countries".