Black and Jewish doesn’t normally go together so well in people’s mind but did you know that there have been Black Jews in Africa, particularly Ethiopia all along. And concerning Israel, these Jews of Ethiopian descent have been resettling since 1934, in 2011 there were around 125k Jews of Ethiopian descent living in Israel.

Now, the Ethiopian Jews have been living relatively trouble free for modern history of Israel but the recent history of Black Jewish people in the country gets interesting due to the settlement of a group of heavily religious black people from the USA who claimed to descend directly from a lost tribe of the Israelites.

While the original 39 “Black Hebrews” were rejected as Jews the community has grown close to 3000 over the years. Accused of crimes from drug dealing to anti-semitism over the years these deeply religious people have finally found a place in modern Israel and could even be said to be “loved” by many. Part of their deep religion also involves at completely vegan diet and they have been a big part of veganism growing in the country, Israel may well be the most vegan country in the world now!

Absolutely fascinating and definitely worth more reading!

More can be read about the Beta (Ethiopian) Jews here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Jews_in_Israel

Further reading on the more controversial Black Hebrews can be read in the resources below:
http://www.ajlmagazine.com/content/032007/blackhebrews.html
http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/the-black-vegan-cult-finally-loved-israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hebrew_Israelites