Black Hebrew Israelites, Netzarim, Quasi-Jews, Khazars and Jews of Sub-Saharan African Descentby Mikhayah ben David

בשם יהוה הרחמן הרחם/بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Recently a gentleman professing to be a “rabbi” was brought to my attention by a friend. I was intrigued and even delighted to see that this was an African-American rabbi. Of course, I was aware that there are African descended rabbis; an African-American woman – the first ever – Alysa Stanton was recently ordained at Hebrew Union in Cincinnati; Michelle Obama is related to the African-American Rabbi Capers Funnye who leads a predominantly African-American Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago. Many non-African Jews (Ashkenazīm, Sefardīm, most Mizraḥīm, non-African Gerīm, etc) are unaware of the presence of African-descended Jews, for the simple fact that most of these Jews are not always greeted with the warmest reception. Growing up in the home of Reform Judaism, this didn’t seem to be as big of a problem to me – at first – as it actually is. In large centers of very “old-school” Judaism, we see Old World attitudes tend to prevail when it comes to racial politics. Translation: Whether we are comfortable admitting it in public or not, there are a lot of racist Jews.

That, however, is not the immediate point. Try not to get hung up on that concept, and if you are hung up on it, you might want to just save yourself a lot of frustration and stop reading right now. So back to this “rabbi” and the original aim of this commentary… The gentleman caught my attention in that he seemed somewhat open-minded to the concept of pluralism and Universal prophethood (i.e. the notion that Buddha, Laozi, or Muhammad could be prophets, without this contradicting our adherence to Judaism or the mitzvot). He had dreadlocks to boot, almost as if he had all of the Jewish - even Nazīrite - attributes that the Rastas and Coptic Christians have, yet none of the Jesus or Selassie-worship business. Let’s be honest, apart from all the theological weirdness, Rastas are pretty cool.

Now I am all too aware of groups like the Black Hebrew Israelites and this guy didn’t appear to be coming from the same perspective. He was, after all, a rabbi... and his website would come to inform me, a Medical Doctor too! I was impressed, as this Rabbinical Neil Patrick Harris couldn’t have been much older than his early thirties. I began to investigate more. He seemed to be blanketly “Anti-Zionist,” which perplexed me, since I don’t exactly know what this monolithic ideology of “Zionism” is, so I haven’t quite figured out what being “Anti-Zionist” (across the board) could possibly mean either.

With a little prodding, the usual Black Hebrew Israelite rhetoric rose to the surface: the real Jews are black (and only black). That is, if you aren’t black you can’t be a “real” Jew. He was a little different in that he seemed open to allowing “goy” white Jews to make gerūt. Still, he seemed to think Jewishness was about race even more than secular, racialist Jews like Menachem Begin or Ze’ev Jabotinsky... The absolute final deal breaker was an article I found by him describing how the real God of the Bible is not “Yah.” Yah, he explained was merely a pagan deity. Okay, now there was no doubt. You see, unlike this gentleman’s internet credentials, my knowledge of early Mesopotamian religion comes from the University, not from conspiracy websites, overloaded with animated gifs. He might as well have been a Christian saying “Allāh” is a moon god.

Okay, so fine. I get it and I really didn’t feel like getting into it further. Yes, all Jews were always black Africans and there was a big Khazar conspiracy to cover up the fact that Jews were all black until the Khazar tribe. This issue, however, is particularly interesting to me, as a self-described `Īṣunī Jew.  B. Z. Dinur asserted in Yisrael baGolah that the `Īṣunīyīm, under the then leadership of `Ovadyah, aka “Abi `Īsā al-Iṣfahānī,” proselytized the Khazars. Their aim was “to preach the word of God” beyond the legendary Sambatyon river, beyond which the Lost Tribes were commonly said to be found. (pt. 1, book 2, p. 274 n. 47.) Okay, so let’s pretend that there were no Jews in Europe before the Khazars became Jews. Let’s pretend that the Jewish community in those days somehow saw Jewishness as a “race” and didn’t accept the Khazars as full, regular Jews. Let’s pretend that the `Īṣunīyīm didn’t target the Khazars for missionizing because they believed that they were descended from the Lost Tribes...

So if this guy wasn’t a Black Hebrew Israelite, then what was he? After some prodding, I discovered that he called himself a Nazerene Jew. The guy called himself a Netzri, that means he is adopting the designation of “Nazerene” to describe what he is calling Judaism. Okay, so might we then consider that in the Nag Hammadi codexes we read that the famous Mary Magdalene migrated to the existing First Century Jewish community in France with her brother Philip. She wasn’t taken there as a captive, like some earlier generations. Thus, there was something else going on. There were Jews who could fit in, maybe even pass, in Europe before the rise of Christianity. The history of European Jewry, pre-dated the Khazar tribal gerūt by centuries. I couldn’t – or rather wouldn’t – get into the many, varied descriptions of Jews throughout the world, throughout history. I dare not burst his bubble and tell him that Jews have come in all colors right from the start. I knew he wasn’t going to listen. Why? He was too invested in his racial ideology which had been grafted onto Judaism.

His simkhah, which he claimed he obtained in Jerusalem, was from a Nazerene Yeshivah. In other words, from a non-Jewish Yeshivah. Now I don’t want to make this about him, because really it is not. It’s not about his Yeshivah being completely unheard of, him later explaining it was closed down, after a rabbi that no one has heard of died. It’s not about his dozens of fabricated and exaggerated credentials, ranging from Massage Therapy, to Oriental Medicine, to Western Medicine. He’s just an example, a symptom of something underlying. He’s an example of what happens when the mainstream Jewish communities do not embody the hospitality that we are supposed to as Jews. It is about the princess Timnah wanting to become a Jew. It is about her being turned away, only to later give birth to the arch-enemy of the Jewish people with the son of Esau, who might be thought of as a quasi-Jew of sorts. Thus, the Gemara records the attitude of princess Timnah: “It is better to be a maidservant with this people than to be a lady with another.” The Torah warns us right from the start against turning people away, and about the negative results that occur when we do. Thus, the Gemara tells us “From this union came Amelek, Israel's tormentor. Why? Because they should not have rejected her.” (Sanhedrin 99b) Those we turn away, overtly or through ostracizing and standoffishness, will often turn to the next closest thing they can find to Yahadūt. They’ll then blend their own animosity with that quasi-Jewish identity and produce something not only non-Jewish, but ultimately anti-Jewish.

Akin to this quasi-Jewishness is the term Nazerene. The rabbis have long used Esau and Edom as designations for Christianity and the Church. It is ironic then that we see such a thing here, in the African royalty, the earliest of all societies being found in Africa, and the ancient, pre-Sumerian Nubia. We see this princess wants to embrace Yahadūt just the same as anyone else, and yet in many cases we see rejection. Thus, the Black Hebrew Israelites emerge from a marriage to the progeny of Esau, of Christianity. We can hear the Christian theology, and even the Christian impression of what Judaism from the mouths of the Black Hebrew Israelites and these Nazarenes. In other words, we created our own antithesis by failing, failing in the late 19th century and failing today in many Jewish communities, to welcome African Jewish Gerīm and would-be Jews. Despite what you may have heard Judaism is about welcoming people into the fold; so much so that the term proselyte comes from our convert-making of Greek Jews.

Who Are the Nazarenes?

With the aforementioned borne in mind – a lengthy, but necessary preface of sorts – let’s look at this term Nazerene that is being adopted now by Black Hebrew Israelite types. Let us examine its origins and its misuse by so-called “Messianics” as well. Indeed, Nazarene, or Netzari Judaism has been a term used for almost 1,900 years. Muhammad used it to speak to quasi-Jewish tribes who fixated on Jesus, instead of the popular transliteration used for non-Jewish-affiliating Kristīyan.

In the reign of the Sāssānid dynasty from 205 CE until the conquest of 651, the Zoroastrian King Bahram II (276-293 CE) persecuted Jews, which he called Yahūd, like we find in the Qur’ān, Buddhists (Shaman), Hindus (Brahman), as well as others. But most interesting to this discussion is that he also oppressed two groups associated with Jesus, the Naṣāra and the Kristīyan. Centuries before Muhammad and the Qur’ān, we see widespread usage of the differentiation between Nazarenes and Christians, though they are mentioned together. The Qur’ān never mentions Kristīyan, because it is addresses as Ahl al-Kitāb sects within Arabian Jewry only. We might thus recall the third party historical reference from Mesopotamian Christian monk John Bar Penkaye (151/179, ca. late 7th century), that during the life of Muḥammad, “there was no distinction between pagan and Christian, and the [Muḥammadī] Believer was not differentiated from a Jew.”

This term Netzarīm, of course, was the name that the early Christians were known by. It’s not as simple as saying that this was the name of Jesus’ sect, because that’s not really the case historically. Jesus was Galīlī, born in some region thereof, which the proto-Christians called Nazareth. There is no really strong evidence for a First Century Nazareth, though I don’t know of a single scholar of Christian Origins who is worth his salt who believes the guy was born in Bethleḥem. In any event, the early group he led was probably called nothing at all. Some suggest that they called their theology “the Way,” but this would simply be ha’derekh, the regular term used for the Jewish religion. He was almost certainly working within a more or less Essenic and post-Essene context. John the “Baptist” was almost certainly an Essene – pretty much the scholarly consensus in Christian Origins – and the Gospel authors go to great lengths to show Jesus being initiated by him. The authors also mention every other Second Temple Era sect except for the Essenes… which makes sense if you are writing to Essenes, or if Jesus was at least talking to Essenes.

James the much more famous brother of Jesus (at least more famous in the First Century CE) would probably have been the head of the Jerusalem “branch” of Essenes. This is likely where the usage of Netzar comes from. Eventually, as more and more Greeks who didn’t know Hebrew came into the fold, they likely took this slang of Netzarī – of the [Jerusalem] branch – literally as “Netzarite” or “of the Netzar.” Being, by this time, followers of the interloping outsider Paul, they would have taken this and run with it: “Ohhh, Netzar must be the town in Galilee where Jesus lived.”

This conclusion would have thus probably been both true and not true. It was probably what the area was called, possibly only within certain circles. Where exactly Jesus lived in the Galīl is uncertain. He may have lived on the outskirts of the highly Hellenized Sephoris, where First Century Nazareth is thought to have been. However, this assumes he was poor (because the Christian Testament wants to present his family as poor). In reality, a family of construction workers would have been what we think of as Upper Middle Class. He could have lived in Sephoris for all we know, and this may well have been the “branch” referred to in the circles of the sectarian movement he was a part of.

The term netzar was a particularly Messianic form of “branch” and it had a custodial implication. It drew from Sefer Yeshayahu, which of course was key for the Essenes, from what the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate... but like I said, this is may not have ever been the name of a town and certainly not the name of a sect contemporary with Jesus. It’s sort of like how “Al-Qā'idah” was the name of Abu Ebeida El-Banashiri’s house, which had training facilitates on the attached property. Bin Ladin admitted that the name just “stuck” in association with them; that it was never a group named this. Later, this got misunderstood by outsiders as the name of the group. Ever wonder why there is no “Al-Qā'idah” website? It was invented by outsiders and then people who associated their ideas and actions rallied around the name... so too with netzar.

So what quasi-Jews mean when they call themselves Netzarīm is that they are basically Christians who want to associate themselves with Judaism in the time of Jesus. They believe that Jesus was anti-Pharisee, which – again – very few scholars actually believe. Since he quoted Hillel and since there is an anomalous passage where he praises them, he was likely only critical of the Beyt Shammai. However, since they believe Jesus was anti-Pharisee, they have to paint a picture of “rabbinic” Judaism as being evil, corrupt, and somehow “not real” Judaism. Thus, they tend to stay away from the word “Judaism” and cling to “Israelite.” They fixate on myths that European Jewry descended from the Khazars. As demonstrated, this is both unhistorical and inconsequential, in terms of the Khazars having been both full Jews by gerūt and according to the `Īṣunī legends, being descended from the Lost Tribes in some manner. But in the highly-racialized form of Black Hebrew Israelitism, and the “Black” variety of Netzarīm that appears to be a modified form of it, demonstrating the racial corruption of light-skinned (“white” - whatever that means) Jews is theologically essential.

What’s the Point?

The main purpose and even target audience I am writing for is actually Christians, Rastas, Black Jews, and otherwise Black Quasi-Jews. You can and should be Jewish. You should not, however, imagine that you will find a Judaism closer to what Jesus practiced in pseudo-Jewish cults. Messianic, Jews For Jesus “translations” of the Bible that include the Christian Testaments are not Jewish, nor are the even actually translations. These people generally know neither Hebrew nor Greek. Calling Jesus “Yeshu`a” doesn’t turn Christian theology back into Judaism either. It similarly doesn’t even root you in history.

To recap, the Galīl had a huge Greco-Roman population. If Jesus was a construction worker, he probably worked in the Galilean city of Sephoris, near where Nazareth is assumed to have been. Sephoris was Greek-speaking and many Jews were named in Greek, just as many Jews today are named in the languages of the cultures that surround them, and just as many Medieval Jews had Arabic names. Translating the Medieval writings of various Gaōnīm into Hebrew does not make them “more Jewish” any more than them being in Arabic makes them “less Jewish.” These ideas and assumptions are imposed ideas; ideas that infiltrated Judaism, Jewry and the minds of those who are attracted to Judaism. These are not Jewish ideas and we must get them out of our heads.

In other words, Jesus might have really just been called “Jesus.” And in spite of that he would have still be Jewish because the words that we find attributed to him were Jewish – albeit a little liberal – ideas that were in circulation in his day. He was Jewish because his ideas were not Christian ideas, not Paulean ideas, and not Black Hebrew Israelite ideas. He was Jewish because he did Yahadūt, as Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi humorously says, being Jewish is about Jew-ing.

Were the ancient Jews black? Some of them were, no doubt. The Torah tells us very clearly Moshe married a black woman and his sister Miriam was upset about it. For this she was temporarily cursed. This sort of implies that she herself wasn’t black and that she saw herself as different, even if she wasn’t what people today call “white.” It sort of implies that Moshe wasn’t black too doesn’t it? But there is plenty of evidence for certain individuals in the Tanakh being black, and certainly Shlomo was head over heels for the Queen of Sh’va, who he calls “Black and beautiful” in Shīr ha’Shīrīm. The fact that we don’t find a lot of attention paid to the color of one’s skin in the Tanakh should remind us that when we talk about “race” or skin color and Judaism, we are speaking the language of our oppressors, we are speaking the language of the goyyīm.