Roughly 3,000 Nigerian Igbos practice Rabbinic Judaism, and there are around twenty Nigerian synagogues. Long referred to as the “Jews of Nigeria” (though for their flexibility and business acumen), many in the wider Igbo tribe identify themselves as descendants of a Lost Tribe of Israel, one of ten tribes that constituted the Kingdom of Israel that scattered following the Kingdom’s destruction at the hands of Assyrians in 721 BCE.
Though there are no local rabbis, the Jewish Igbo are mentored by an American, Rabbi Howard Gorin. Jewish Igbo elders lead the two Nigerian synagogues in the place of official rabbis. These elders converted to Judaism from Christianity in the 1990s after encountering the faith through the Internet (learning Hebrew online, as well). Nigerian synagogues follow Sephardic and Edot Hamizrah customs blended with local tradition.
19th century Christian missionaries in Africa used the ‘Lost Tribe’ narrative that placed the native tribes which they contacted on a historical continuum—beginning with their expulsion from Israel—as a way to initiate the tribe’s return to Christianity. Though various communities have claimed descent, the State of Israel has yet to officially acknowledge any.
Sources
Shai Afsai, “Hanging Haman with the Igbo Jews of Abuja,” The Times of Israel, April 30, 2013, accessed September 3, 2013.
William F.S. Miles, “Among the “Jubos” During the Festival of Lights,” Transition, No. 105 (2011), pp. 30-45.
William F.S. Miles, Jews of Nigeria: An Afro-Judaic Odyssey (Princeton: Marcus Wiener Publishers, 2013).
Image Credits:
Untitled image of Jewish Igbo children, Jeff Lieberman, Re-Emerging Films.