In the Shadow of Moses: New Jewish Movements in Africa and the Diaspora presents original research by an international group of twelve scholars who have been conducting fieldwork on historic and emerging Jewish communities in Africa as well as on the interaction of Jews and Africans (and their descendants) in precolonial Africa and modern day Israel. These “New Jewish Movements” are an addition to the “New Religious Movements” that have intrigued sociologists and historians of religion for some time; now, the book argues, the phenomenon contains a global Jewish component as well. Case studies include Cameroon, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, France, Gabon, Ghana, Jamaica, Madagascar, Nigeria, Uganda, and African immigrants in Israel. Illustrated by original drawings by graphic-novel artist Jérémie Dres, the volume will appeal to scholars and general readers in African as well as Jewish studies. In the Shadow of Moses is dedicated to the late Professor Ali Mazuri, an early proponent of scholarly synergies between the study of Africa and the study of the Jews.
Preface
Chapter 1. African Judaism and New Religious Movements: Repainting the “White House” of Judaism by William F.S. Miles
PART I:EURO-AFRICAN ENCOUNTERS
2. Race and History: The Black Jews of Loango 1500- 2016 by Tudor Parfitt
3. “They were looking for Christians and what they got were Jews”: The Basel Missionary Factor in the 19th century and Jewish identity constructions in Ethiopia, Ghana and Nigeria by Daniel Lis
4. The Color of Judaism: Black Jews in France by Aurélien Mokoko Gampiot and Cécile Coquet-Mokoko
PART II:NEW AND RENEWED JEWS AND JUDAISM
5. Making Visible the Invisible: Evoking Memory and Constructing Identity in Sefwi Wiawso, Ghana by Janice Levi
6. The “Internet Jews” of Cameroon: Inside the Digital Matrix of Globalized Judaism by Nathan P. Devir
7. Judaism in Uganda: A Tale of Two Communities by Isabella Soi
8. A Matrix of Jewish Phenomena in Sub-Saharan Africa: Cote D'lvoire and Gabon by Marla Brettschneider
PART III :NEWLY INVENTED DIASPORAS
9. “Ye Shall not Oppress the Stranger”: Sudanese and Eritrean Asylum Seekers in Israel by Sheldon Gellar
10. Building Bridges: Ethiopian Israelis Take a Second Look at Ethiopia by Len Lyons
11. Who opened the Seven Seals? Rastafarians and African Hebrew Israelites by Martina Könighofer
Index