This study examines the problem of ethnic suffering and moral evil in Black Judaism. Black Judaism has been traditionally studied along anthropological and sociological lines, as a result, the core beliefs and theological issues which animate the faith tradition have not been the subject of critical study. This dissertation uses an African-American centered theoretical perspective and a black theology methodological approach to produce an autoethnography of my experiences living as a member of the Hebrew Israelite community. This study suggests that Black Judaism is best understood through an examination of the problem of black theodicy meaning the belief in an omnipotent and benevolent deity while acknowledging the historical oppression of African Americans. Black Judaism articulates a belief in black theodicy which asserts that African Americans are victims of divine punishment and must "repent" in order to experience liberation from ethnic suffering and moral evil in the form of anti-Black racism and white supremacy. This belief in deserved punishment has led Black Judaism into a state of mis-religion. By engaging in the process of gnosiological conversion I will identify the oppressive features of Black Judaism and offer corrective measures. Finally, this dissertation will discuss ways in which Black Judaism can conceive of liberation without the need for appeals to redemptive suffering. Concomitantly I will discuss the articulation of a Hebrew Israelite ethno-religious identity which is not predicated on the belief of redemptive suffering. Instead, I propose the basis for a restructuring of the core beliefs of Black Judaism based on humanocentric theism. / African American Studies

In this essay, I examine the ways in which new myths were made of Barack Obama in the months leading up to, and immediately following, the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election at three sites of cultural production: a UFO-based religious movement historically grounded in the black Israelite religious tradition, TIME magazine’s 2008 “Person of the Year” edition, and Sean Hannity’s “The Real Barack Obama” airing on the FOX News network. I argue that, while the content of these three Obama-myths varies considerable, the ways in which these myths are constructed, and function, are in fact rather similar.

The present dissertation is a case study in applied phenomenology, specifically the postcolonial phenomenology of racism theorized by Lewis Gordon and applied to scholarly studies conducted on African American Jews and their kinfolk. My thesis is the following: Presumptively ontological human natures cannot function axiomatically for humanistic research on African American Jews. A humanistic science of Africana Jews must foreground the lived social worlds that permit such Jews to appear as ordinary expressions of humanity. The basic premise here is that subaltern (or denied) humanity exists in a neocolonial social world by virtue of an ordinariness that supervenes on humanity. For example, the more historians consider Africana Jews as ordinary, the more Africana Jews' humanity will appear. And the more human Africana Jews appear, the more inhuman their extraordinary appearance appears. This symbiosis constitutes a basic existential condition. When research on Africana Jews ignores this condition, it succumbs to ontological Jewishnness and other concepts rooted in what postcolonial theorist Frantz Fanon calls the "colonial natural attitude. / Religion

Seizing the Power to Define!" Afrocentric Inquiry and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem Miciah Z. Yehudah Doctoral Dissertation Doctoral Committee Advisory Chair: Iyelli Ichile; Ph.D. Temple University, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, United States of America This dissertation critically examines the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, a group of African American Hebrews from Chicago that migrated to Liberia in 1967 and Israel in 1969. The greater part of the scholarship engaging the group since 1967 has consistently labeled them along four lines: as a people seeking constant external acceptance; as a cultic or "new religious movement"; as an oppressed and downtrodden people seeking success in any way in which it could be achieved; or as a people with a strange affinity towards Jewish people so extreme that they intend not only to emulate and eradicate them but to serve as their replacements. In the literature reviewed it was rare that the actual philosophy of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem was interrogated. In the rare cases in which their philosophies were examined they were situated only in regards to their relationship with an already assumed universal White normativity. In studying the group, methodological concerns arise, as do questions with regards to who the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem truly are. To investigate the methodological parameters of studying the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem the Afrocentric Paradigm is employed. Afrocentric inquiry's focus on agency and the privileging of the voice of the African subjects within its own narrative differs drastically from the methodology underlying those scholars that have studied the group previously. In order to explore who the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem identify with (orientation), how they navigate the issue of epistemology as both a people of African and Israelite heritage (grounding), and how they define freedom and its parameters in conversation with the larger African world they claim to be amongst (location) this dissertation analyzes major publications of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem since the 1980s. This work challenges the argument that the Afrocentric Paradigm is ill suited to appropriately study the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. / African American Studies

This project seeks to determine, to what extent the culture of early Israel (1250-1000 BC) is similar to African cultures, more specifically, to that of the Lemba. However, a comparison between the cultures of early Israel and those of certain African tribes is not the primary objective in this case. This project is neither an anthropological study nor does it intend to mainly focus on the Lemba as such -though this may appear to be the case. This endeavour primarily fits into the ambit of Old Testament Studies. The investigation into the Lemba is meant to be subsidiary to the point of contingence between their culture and Old Testament customs and traditions, and how this information affects the interpretation of the Old Testament and its teaching in Africa. A number of comparisons between the early Israelite religion as reflected in the Old Testament and the Lemba are drawn. Though the qualitative research (inductive approach) is employed in the field work, the greatest part of the data on religious perspectives and practices is mediated by the theory of a phenomenological approach as advocated by Ninian Smart on matters of experience, mythology, ritual, and ethical/judicial dimensions. Therefore, the approach is also deductive. The Lemba is a very specific group with claims about Israelite/Judaic origins. Their early departure from Israel (according to them ca 586 BC) can mean that there are remnants of a very ancient type oflsraelite religion, now valuable when juxtaposed to that of early Israel. This study takes Lemba traditions seriously, but finally does not verify or falsify Lemba claims - but the outcomes in this thesis may take this debate a step further. Their claims make them special and extremely interesting to study from the point of view of oral cultures. Their oral culture is constitutive of their world-view and self-understanding or identity. It incorporates the role of oral traditions, history and historiography and parallels are drawn between orality in early Israelite and Lemba religions. The reciprocity between orality and inscripturation of traditions, yielding valuable information on what may have happened in the developent of traditions in Israel, are also attended to in this project. Nevertheless, this project is primarily a search for the understanding and relevance of the Old Testament in Afiica and is, therefore, a selective and not an exhaustive comparison between the Lemba and early Israel. And so, taking cognisance of the hermeneutic of contextualisation in Africa in particular, a teaching module syllabus for Old Testament Studies is developed, of which the very strands of religion among the Lemba and early Israel are constitutive for teaching Old Testament Studies in present-day African cultures (and perhaps elsewhere). / Biblical and Ancient Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Biblical Studies)

This project seeks to determine, to what extent the culture of early Israel (1250-1000 BC) is similar to African cultures, more specifically, to that of the Lemba. However, a comparison between the cultures of early Israel and those of certain African tribes is not the primary objective in this case. This project is neither an anthropological study nor does it intend to mainly focus on the Lemba as such -though this may appear to be the case. This endeavour primarily fits into the ambit of Old Testament Studies. The investigation into the Lemba is meant to be subsidiary to the point of contingence between their culture and Old Testament customs and traditions, and how this information affects the interpretation of the Old Testament and its teaching in Africa. A number of comparisons between the early Israelite religion as reflected in the Old Testament and the Lemba are drawn. Though the qualitative research (inductive approach) is employed in the field work, the greatest part of the data on religious perspectives and practices is mediated by the theory of a phenomenological approach as advocated by Ninian Smart on matters of experience, mythology, ritual, and ethical/judicial dimensions. Therefore, the approach is also deductive. The Lemba is a very specific group with claims about Israelite/Judaic origins. Their early departure from Israel (according to them ca 586 BC) can mean that there are remnants of a very ancient type oflsraelite religion, now valuable when juxtaposed to that of early Israel. This study takes Lemba traditions seriously, but finally does not verify or falsify Lemba claims - but the outcomes in this thesis may take this debate a step further. Their claims make them special and extremely interesting to study from the point of view of oral cultures. Their oral culture is constitutive of their world-view and self-understanding or identity. It incorporates the role of oral traditions, history and historiography and parallels are drawn between orality in early Israelite and Lemba religions. The reciprocity between orality and inscripturation of traditions, yielding valuable information on what may have happened in the developent of traditions in Israel, are also attended to in this project. Nevertheless, this project is primarily a search for the understanding and relevance of the Old Testament in Afiica and is, therefore, a selective and not an exhaustive comparison between the Lemba and early Israel. And so, taking cognisance of the hermeneutic of contextualisation in Africa in particular, a teaching module syllabus for Old Testament Studies is developed, of which the very strands of religion among the Lemba and early Israel are constitutive for teaching Old Testament Studies in present-day African cultures (and perhaps elsewhere). / Biblical and Ancient Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Biblical Studies)