Igbo Jews

Igbo Jews

Igbo Jewish Community presented with a plaque.
Total population
Over 40,000 by religion (est.)
Regions with significant populations
Nigeria
Languages
Traditionally, Igbo and Hebrew as a liturgical and common language
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Igbo, African Jews

Igbo Jews are members of the Igbo people of Nigeria who practice Judaism. Most claim descent from ancient Israelite migrants into Nigeria.

Migration theory

Igbo Jews are said to have originated from Syrian, Portuguese and Libyan Israelite migrants into West Africa.

Certain Nigerian communities with Judaic practices have been receiving help from individual Israelis and American Jews who work in Nigeria, out-reach organizations like the American Kulanu, and African-American Jewish communities in America. Jews from outside Nigeria founded two synagogues in Nigeria, which are attended and maintained by Igbos. Because no formal census has been taken in the region, the number of Igbo in Nigeria who identify as either Israelites or Jews is not known. There are currently 26 synagogues of various sizes. In 2008 an estimated 30,000 Igbos were practicing some form of Judaism.

Historical scrutiny

Stories affirming relationships between peoples now widely separated in spatial, historical, and cultural terms persist today, not only in Igboland but throughout Nigeria, in other parts of Africa, and in Europe, the United States, and beyond. This example is based on the application of a Judeo-Christian (and Islamic) Biblical framework to all of human history. In reference to West Africa, Europeans believed that Africans were descended from Noah's progeny, as the Bible was the basis for their understanding of the world. In this model, West African history began in the Near East rather than in West Africa.

An early (and widely influential) statement of this point of view came from an Igbo man, Olaudah Equiano, a Christian-educated freed slave who remarked in his autobiography of 1789 on

"the strong analogy which... appears to prevail in the manners and customs of my countrymen and those of the Jews, before they reached the Land of Promise, and particularly the patriarchs while they were yet in that pastoral state which is described in Genesis — an analogy, which alone would induce me to think that the one people had sprung from the other." For authoritative support, he gives reference to "Dr. Gill, who, in his commentary on Genesis, very ably deduces the pedigree of the Africans from Afer and Afra, the descendants of Abraham....

His essay has since been discarded as speculation. Critical historians have carefully reviewed the historical literature on West Africa during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They have clarified the diverse functions (quite aside from questions of validity) which such histories served for the writers who proposed them at various times in the colonial and post-colonial past.

Knowledge from sources broader and more self-critical than the Biblical — from contemporary historians, archaeologists, historical linguists, and other scientifically based disciplines — have argued against these claims. There is no doubt that Jews were present in Saharan trade centers during the first millennium CE, but the proposition that Jews were directly involved with Igbo-speaking people in prehistoric times is controversial.

Contemporary outreach

Part of a series on
Jews and Judaism
Etymology Who is a Jew? Jewish peoplehood Jewish identity
Religion God in Judaism Names Principles of faith Mitzvot 613 Halakha Shabbat Holidays Prayer Tzedakah Land of Israel Brit Bar and Bat Mitzvah Marriage Bereavement Philosophy Ethics Kabbalah Customs Synagogue Rabbi
Texts Tanakh Torah Nevi'im Ketuvim Targum Talmud Mishnah Gemara Rabbinic Midrash Tosefta Mishneh Torah Tur Shulchan Aruch Zohar
Communities Ashkenazi Sephardi Italkim Mizrahi Bukharan Kurdish Mountain Ethiopian Romaniotes Related groups Lemba Khazars Karaim Krymchaks Samaritans Crypto-Jews Mosaic Arabs
Population Land of Israel Israeli Jews Palestinian Jews Europe Russia Poland Estonia Lithuania Germany Netherlands Austria Hungary Romania United Kingdom France Portugal Spain Italy Greece Bulgaria Asia Indonesia Iraq Yemen Syria Lebanon Iran Turkey Georgia India Pakistan China Africa Morocco Algeria Tunisia Libya Egypt Ethiopia South Africa Zimbabwe North America United States Canada Latin America and Caribbean Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Cuba Dominican Republic El Salvador Mexico Jamaica Puerto Rico Suriname Uruguay Venezuela Oceania Australia Fiji New Zealand Palau Judaism by country Lists of Jews Historical population comparisons
Denominations Alternative Classical Reform Conservative Humanistic Haymanot Karaite Liberal Orthodox Progressive Reconstructionist Reform Renewal Traditional
Culture Minyan Wedding Niddah Pidyon haben Music Cuisine Hiloni Shidduch Zeved habat Conversion to Judaism
Languages Hebrew Biblical Yiddish Juhuri Judæo-Iranian Ladino Judeo-Aramaic Judeo-Arabic
History Timeline Leaders Ancient Kingdom of Judah Temple in Jerusalem Babylonian captivity Yehud Medinata Jerusalem in Judaism timeline Hasmonean dynasty Sanhedrin Schisms Pharisees Jewish–Roman wars Christianity and Judaism Islamic–Jewish relations Diaspora Middle Ages Golden Age Sabbateans Hasidism Haskalah Emancipation The Holocaust Aliyah Israel history Arab–Israeli conflict Land of Israel Baal teshuva Persecution Antisemitism history
Politics Politics of Israel Zionism Labor Revisionist Religious Green General World Agudath Israel Bundism Feminism Jewish left / right
Category Portal WikiProject

A Western rabbi visited the community in 2006 and members of "Tikvat Israel", a Jewish community in the West, support those in Nigeria by sending books, computers, and religious articles. The State of Israel has not officially recognized the Igbo as one of the Lost Tribes.

Religious practices

Religious practices of the Igbo Jews include circumcision eight days after the birth of a male child, observance of kosher dietary laws, separation of men and women during menstruation, wearing of the tallit and kippah, and the celebration of holidays such as Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. In recent times, the communities have also adopted holidays such as Hanukkah and Purim, which were instituted only after many of the tribes of Israel had already dispersed from the homeland.

See also

• Jews and Judaism in Africa
• Lost Tribes of Israel
• Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa)
• House of Israel (Ghana) - Jews of Ghana

External links

• Hebrew Karaite Community Igbo Bene Israel
• Re-Emerging: The Jews of Nigeria
• Jews of Nigeria and Uganda
• Kulanu
• Packing for Nigeria