In Nigeria, the Igbo tribe, numbering in the vast millions of people, claim to be descendants of Israelite slaves sold into Africa. Many of the slaves brought to America were from the Nigerian ports. Community activists such as Amar’e Stoudemire of the New York Knicks are very vocal about the roots of the many descendants of the slaves in America. Mr. Stoudemire and other groups collaborate to educate and return exiled communities to their ancestral heritage.
The phenomenon of hidden Jews also stretches into Arabic-speaking communities in Israel, who claim to have been the descendants of forced converts to Islam. They sometimes have tefillin and mezuzot hidden under floorboards from hundreds of years ago, as documented by Tsvi Misinai and written about by the first prime ministers of Israel. They are actually antagonized today by other Arabic-speaking communities, which call them “musta arabim,” the Arabic version of a Marrano.
We pray on the Holy Days for an “agudah achat,” a united community. As well, the prophecies speak of a time when the borders of Israel will greatly extend themselves. The Jewish people regularly chant a song whose lyrics speak about the anticipated time of the stretching of Israel’s borders. We know these expansions will not happen through military conquest, but rather when nations raise their hand asking to be included in the people of Israel. Whether these groups are Jewish or not may be irrelevant. Having hundreds of millions of people identifying with Israel is something that deserves the attention of the Jewish people and forces us to figure out how to best elevate this desire towards global peace and sustainability.
Amid all this discovery and networking, our crew found a wonderful plot of land in the lower Galilee, in the location where Reish Lakish states in the Talmud (Tractate Eiruvin) the entrance to the Garden of Eden might be located. Acquiring it was difficult, but, believing strongly in the promise of Rabbi Teichtel, we decided to move ahead.
When it came time to make the down payment, our team was still empty-handed. With just days left, a descendant of Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines heard about the struggle and was inspired to lend the money, interest-free. This was miraculous, but we still needed to secure the final payment. With only days left before the payment was due, the pressure was on.
Meanwhile, a tribal leader was elected by the heads of the Afghan Israelite tribes to reach out to the Jewish people and to declare that the time had come for the two groups to begin working together after centuries apart. This message was brought to the Amishav organization—founded at the request of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef—with which our team was already in discussions about building a social network called iTribe to identify these groups across the globe.
Humbled by the magnitude of this development, we called Rabbi Shimon Kessin, who called an emergency meeting that night. We mentioned to the rabbi that we were having trouble making the final payment on the farm in Israel.
Rabbi Kessin introduced us to an investor and philanthropist who greeted us with open arms and allowed me to make our “elevator pitch.” Thirty seconds in, we were met with a smile and an assurance the deal would close in time. We were graciously granted an additional no-interest loan.
And there it was! A tribal leader from the house of Joseph reached out to the tribe of Judah, and directly stimulated the needed financing to purchase a beautiful farm in the location of the Garden of Eden.
Ezekiel prophesied: “And you, son of man, take for yourself one stick and write upon it, ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel his companions’; and take one stick and write upon it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel, his companions.’ . . . And say to them, ‘So says the Lord God: Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side, and I will bring them to their land’” (Yechezkel 37:16–21).
Written by Harry Rozemberg
Harry Rozenberg is a social entrepreneur who heads iTribe.us, a global platform to connect the Israelite tribes scattered across the world. Harry is considered one of the leading voices backing the reconstitution of a global Israelite family. He also teaches a course on the Lost Tribes (http://www.trio.academy/). All proceeds from the course go to financing Harry's work on the Lost Tribes.
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