Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Genetics, History, and Identity: The Case of the Bene Israel and the Lemba

  • Published:
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The paper examines the impact of genetic research on the religious identity of the Bene Israel Indian Jewish community and the Lemba Judaising group of southern Africa. It demonstrates how DNA tests which happened to support the possibility of the communities' legends of origin affected their self-perception, the way they are viewed by their neighbors, and their image in the West. It is argued that in both cases what accounted most for the Bene Israel and Lemba responses to the tests was the way the results were portrayed in the mass media, the history of the development of Judaism in their communities, and the local realities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Corinaldi, Michael (1998). Jewish Identity: The Case of Ethiopian Jewry. Jerusalem: Magness Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eisenstadt, Samuel Noah (1967). Israeli Society. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Enthoven, R.E. (1920). Tribes and Castes of Bombay, Vol. 1. Bombay: Government Central Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ezekiel, Moses (1948). History and Culture of the Bene-Israel in India. Bombay: J. and J. College of Science.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency (1883). Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. 11. Kolaba and Janjira, Bombay: Government Central Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency (1885). Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. 18. Poona, Bombay: Government Central Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilman, Sander (1991). The Jew's Body. New York and London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilman, Sander (1999). Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton: Princeton University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstein, Jonathan, ed. (1998). The Jews of China, Vol. 1. Historical and Comparative Perspectives. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halkin, Hillel (2000). Jewish Genetics. Commentary, September.

  • Halkin, Hillel (2002). Across the Sabbath River. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hammer, M.F., A.J. Redd, E.T. Wood, M.R. Bonner, H. Jarjanazi, T. Karafet, S. Santachiara-Benerecetti, A. Oppenheim, M.A. Jobling, T. Jenkins, H. Ostrer, B. Bonne-Tamir (2000). Jewish and Middle Eastern Non-Jewish Populations Share a Common Pool of Y-chromosome Biallelic Haplotypes. Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences 97(12): 6769–6774.

  • Hindu (1997). Indian Jews Face Identity Crisis in Israel. Hindu, November 20.

  • Hindu (2002). Indian Jews Resist DNA Tests. Hindu, November 11.

  • Hindustan Times (2002). Linking Jews to Afridi Pathans. Hindustan Times, November 14.

  • Isenberg, Shirley B. (1988). India's Bene Israel. Bombay: Popular Prakashan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Israelite (1919). Israelite, September–October 3(9–10): 118–119.

  • Israelite (1920). Israelite, July–August 4(7–8): 96.

  • Jaques, A.A. (1908). Notes on the Lemba Tribe of the Northern Transvaal. Anthropos 19:245–251.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, T. Broadwood (1909). Tramps Round the Mountains of the Moon. Boston.

  • Kaplan, Steven (1987). The Beta Israel (Falasha) Encounter with Protestant Missionaries: 1860–1905. Jewish Social Studies 49(1): 27–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, Steven (1992). The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia. New York and London: New York U.P.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, Steven (2003). If There are No Races How Can Jews Be a Race? Modern Jewish Studies 2(1): 79–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, Steven, and Shoshana Ben-Dor, eds. (1988). Ethiopian Jewry: An Annotated Bibliography. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kehimkar, Haim Samuel (1937). The History of the Bene Israel of India. Tel Aviv: Dayag Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kessler, David (1996). The Falashas. London: Cass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koestler, Arthur (1976). Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and its Heritage. London: Hutchinson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kulanu (2000). Levi returns from South Africa in Kulanu, 7(1), 1.

  • Kulanu (2003). Abayudaya. Electronic document, http://www.kulanu.ubalt.edu, accessed January 15.

  • Mourant, A.E., with Ada Kope'c and Kazimiera Domaniewska-Sobczak (1978). The Genetics of the Jews. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  • NOVA (2000). NOVA online. Lost Tribe of Israel. Tudor Parfitt's Remarkable Journey. Electronic document, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/parfitt.html.

  • Numark, M. (2001). Constructing a Jewish Nation in Colonial India: History, Narratives of Descent, and the Vocabularly of Modernity. Jewish Social Studies 7(2): 89–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oded, A. (1974). The Bayudaya of Uganda: A portrait of an African Jewish Community. Journal of Religion in Africa 6: 167–186.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olson, Steve (2002). Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parfitt, Tudor (1997). Journey to the Vanished City. London: Phoenix.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parfitt, Tudor (2002). The Lost Tribes of Israel: The History of a Myth. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parfitt, Tudor, and Emanuela Trevisan-Semi, eds. (2000). The Beta Israel in Ethiopia and Israel: Studies on the Ethiopian Jews. London: Curzon SOAS Near and Middle East Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parfitt, Tudor, and Emanuela Trevisan-Semi, eds. (2002). Judaising Movements: Studies in the Margins of Judaism. London: Routledge Curzon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patai, Raphael, and Jennifer Patai (1989). The Myth of the Jewish Race. Detroit: Wayne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pollack, Michael (1980). Mandarins, Jews and Missionaries: The Jewish Experience in the Chinese Empire. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pory, John (1600). A Geographical Historie of Africa written in Arabicke and Italian by John Leo a More, borne in Granada, and brought up in Barbarie. London: Impensis G. Bishop.

  • Primack, Karen, ed. (1998). Jews in Places You Never Thought of. New Jersey: KTAV Publishing House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quirin, James (1992). The Evolution of the Ethiopian Jews: A History of the Beta Israel (Falasha) to 1920. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roland, Joan (1998). The Jewish Communities of India: Identity in the Colonial Era, 2nd ed. New Brunswick and London: Transaction.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubin, Zeev (2000). Judaism and Rahmanite Monotheism in the Himyarite Kingdom in the Fifth Century. In Israel and Ishmael: Studies in Muslim Jewish Relations. Tudor Parfitt, ed., pp. 32–52. London: Curzon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salamon, Hagar, and Steven Kaplan, eds. (1998). Ethiopian Jewry: An Annotated Bibliography 1988–1997. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shulman, F.D. (2000). Chinese Jews and the Jewish Diasporas in China from the Tang Period (A.D. 618–906) through the Mid-1990s: A Selected Bibliography. In The Jews of China, Vol. 2. A Sourcebook and Research Guide. Jonathan Goldstein, ed., pp. 157–183. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe.

  • Smith, M. Van Wyck (1986). Waters Flowing from Darkness: The Two Ethiopias in the Early European Image of Africa. Theoria 68: 67–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spurdle, A., and Trefor Jenkins (1996). Origin of the Lemba “Black Jews” of Southern Africa: Evidence from p12F2 and other Y-Chromosome Markers. American Journal of Human Genetics 59: 1126–1133.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Srinivas, M.N. (1966). Social Change in Modern India. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stayt, H.A. (1931). The Bavenda. London: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strizower, Shifra (1971). The Children of Israel. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, Mark G., Tudor Parfitt, Dcborah A. Weiss, Karl Skorecki, James F. Wilson, Magdel le Roux, Neil Bradman, and David B. Goldstein (2000). Y chromosomes travelling south: The Cohen Modal Haplotype and the Origins of the Lemba: The “Black Jews” of Southern Africa. American Journal of Human Genetics 66(2): 674–686.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, Louis C. (1942). The Ba-Lemba of Southern Rhodesia. NADA (The Southern Rhodesia Native Affairs Department Annual): 76–86.

  • Times of India (1886). Times of India, September 8.

  • Times of India (1887). Times of India, April 11.

  • Times of India (2002). “Marathi Jews Are Moses' Kin” Says Study. Sunday Times, July 21.

  • Trautman, Thomas R. (1997). Aryans and British India. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Twaddle, Michael (1993). Kakungulu and the Creation of Uganda. London: Currey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warmelo, N.L. Van, ed. (1940). The Copper Miners of Musina and the Early History of the Zoutpansberg. Pretoria.

  • Weil, Shalva (1977). Bene-Israel Indian Jews in Lod, Israel: A Study in the Persistence of Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity. PhD dissertation, University of Sussex, England.

  • Weingarten, M.A. (1992). Changing Health and Changing Culture, The Yemenite Jews in Israel. Westport, Connecticut, London: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Joseph J. (1930). Hebrewisms of West Africa: From Nile to Niger with the Jews. New York: The Dial Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, Xun (2001). Chinese Perceptions of the ’Jews’ and Judaism: A History of the Youtai. Richmond: Curzon.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, UK

    Tudor Parfitt & Yulia Egorova

Authors
  1. Tudor Parfitt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yulia Egorova
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tudor Parfitt.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Parfitt, T., Egorova, Y. Genetics, History, and Identity: The Case of the Bene Israel and the Lemba. Cult Med Psychiatry 29, 193–224 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-005-7425-4

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-005-7425-4

Key Words

Search

Navigation