Thesis. 1976. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Dewey. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 228-232. / by Morris Lounds, Jr. / Ph.D.

Our society has become more and more radicalized. For many people religion plays a vital role in this radicalization process, particularly for those who justify racial supremacy through religious tenets. The purpose of this study is to examine and compare two ideologies from which radicalized followers assume racial supremacy from a God given designation as the "true Israelites". The two ideologies interpret the Bible – and sometimes even the same passages – differently.  In this study I will examine the Christian Identity movement and the Black Hebrew Israelites by using a comparative method from a prototypical approach. My focus is how two different ideologies misinterpret the biblical myth about the Lost Tribes of Israel and how this misinterpretation inspires racial supremacy and Anti-Semitism. This is a study about the connection between race and religion. Keywords: racism, race, Christian Identity, Black Hebrew Israelites, Anti-Semitism, Lost Tribes of Israel

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

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

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