In Nigeria, a Fight Over the Souls of Jewish ‘Lost Tribe’
The Igbo of Nigeria have long believed themselves to be descended from the Israelites of the bible, an oral history passed on for generations.
Perhaps because of this story, in more recent years, many Igbo have begun looking to a Jewish root, some stripping their religion of Christian elements and seeking conversion. This end has been helped by both Orthodox groups like those in the story and by Rabbi Capers Funnye, the leader of the African American Israelite movement who also work’s with Israel’s 100,000 Ethiopean Jews to resotre their heritage.
Shavei Israel, a Zionist organization that seeks “lost” and “hidden” Jews worldwide, often assisting with their conversion to Orthodox Judaism and immigration to Israel, began sending emissaries to Nigeria this year seeking convert who want to emigrate to Israel. Kulanu a smaller non sectarian American Jewish organization, has also been providing rabbinic Jewish resources to in Nigeria not directed at emigration but at helping non Jews who identify with us to become Jews. Capers Funnye, Michelle Obama’s first cousin and a rabbiin Chicago has also reached ot to the Nigerians.
Rabbi Funnye Selye
Now there is a competition from a fundamentalist Christian sect that claims ot be Jewish. Jewish Voice Ministries International, seeks to “share the Messiah with the Jewish People” and conducts medical outreaches specifically to “Lost Tribes of Israel” in South Africa and Ethiopia, among other countries Missionaries from JVMI , have been travelling to Nigeria.
What Nigerians may not understand is that the “Messianic Jewish” movement is an anathema ot Judaism itself. The movement teaches that an “in gathering” of Lost Tribes to Israel is a sign that the biblical Messiah is returning. The Messianics are supported by and closely affiliated with fundamentalist right wing Christians, especially the supporters of Donald Trump. These groups see the Israeli settler movement not only being God’s will but a step toward the return of Jesus and, … eventuality … Armageddon where all non converted Jews would die in fire and brimstone.
Onwukwe Alaezi, a well-known Nigerian author who writes about the Lost Tribe origin story of the Igbo, supports Jewish Voice. He says many Igbo want to be recognized as part of the lost tribes, a claim also made in the US by Mormons whose bible asserts that Native Americans were slots tribes came to the Americas led by Jesus. Alaezi says of Jewish Voice, “I am convinced that they are working towards identifying the Lost Tribes,” and “maybe finding a way to reconnect them to world Jewry.”
The irony here is that Alezi is supporting Israel’s very chauvinistic settler movement and the contradiction arising from Mesianic Jews beliefs that Jesus replaced Judaism with Christianity. Michael Freund, chairman and founder of Shavei Israel, called Jewish Voice’s work in Nigeriaa a “threat” to the types of emerging Jewish groups that he himself seeks out. Freund charged that members were “misrepresenting themselves” as Jews. “They are, based on everything I’ve heard, a group that aims to convert people to Christianity while calling themselves Jewish.”
The story is especially horrid, because the Igbo, like the Jews, have had a hard fight for their very existence. Because the Igbo lands had oil, the colonial Brits constructed “Nigeria” out of the Igbo and neighboring opil poor, Muslim rich Yoruba and Hausa lands. In the 1960s, more than 2 million Igbo were killed in a war for Igbo independence that and some Igbo see this as an attempted genocide b, their own Holocaust.