There is a rich tradition of Black supersessionism, where many claim to be the real Jews, but the media downplays it ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

There is a rich tradition of Black supersessionism, where many claim to be the real Jews, but the media downplays it

(This is a continuation of the series on my Unified Field Theory of Antisemitism, where I postulate that a major source of most forms of antisemitism is supersessionism. )

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Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel,

Then why not every man?

He deliver'd Daniel from the lion's den,

Jonah from the belly of the whale,

And the Hebrew children from the fiery furnace,

And why not every man?

I set my foot on the Gospel ship,

And the ship, it begin to sail,

It landed me over on Canaan's shore,

And I'll never come anymore.

This excerpt from an African American spiritual is typical of the genre. In the early 1700s, white evangelists preached to African slaves and taught them Bible stories, and the slaves naturally felt an affinity to the Jews of the Hebrew scripture. Most of all, they identified with the Jews enslaved in Egypt and their miraculous Exodus, hoping for a similar miracle to free them.

There is nothing wrong with identifying with Jews in the Bible. America's Founding Fathers certainly did. There is, however, something wrong with claiming, without any evidence, that your people are Israelites. And there is a great deal wrong with saying that the Jews of today are imposters.

In the late 19th century, at least two Black people started their own churches based on the idea that Black people were Israelites.

William Saunders Crowdy established the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896 after he claimed to have had visions telling him "that blacks were descendants of the twelve lost tribes of Israel." He does not appear to have been antisemitic.

But Frank Cherry, who also claimed that God told him that Blacks were Jews and established the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations in 1915, did preach both Black supremacy and antisemitism. Cherry preached that white Jews were not Jews, and moreover that white Jews as outside God’s favor, divinely cursed, echoing both Christian and Muslim supersessionism with a racial twist.

Other people with similar theologies gained some popularity through the 20th century. In the 1960s, these groups and offshoots proliferated, some of them rejecting both Judaism and Christianity and forming their own "Israelite" cults. They went beyond the supersessionism of Frank Cherry: these radical "Israelites" believe that they have been robbed of their identity as being “God’s chosen people" by the evil white Jews, who are referred to as “Edomites” or the “Synagogue of Satan.”

The hugely popular Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam is certainly not a Black Israelite, but he has adopted their claims. Farrakhan has been saying since the 1980s that “the real Jews are Black people,” and he has also spread the slander that “the Black man and woman of America are the real children of Israel, and the Jews have stolen their identity.”

The idea is not limited to the relatively small numbers of Black people who are actual members of these groups. These toxic ideas are mainstream.

Kendrick Lamar’s #1 2017 album DAMN included lyrics like “I’m an Israelite, don’t call me Black no mo’.” Kanye West said "Black people are actually Jews." Basketball star Kyrie Irving promoted a Black Hebrew Israelite film and book filled with both the supersessionist beliefs and blatant antisemitism like Holocaust denial. Nick Cannon and Professor Griff, two enormously popular celebrities, discussed at length during a 2020 podcast that Jews have taken the Black people’s birthright and are now scared because Jews know that Blacks know that they are fakes.

It is no coincidence that the belief that Black people are the real Jews is often paired with classic antisemitism, as with Farrakhan, Kanye West and Nick Cannon's rant in that same podcast about the Rothschilds. The murderers who attacked a kosher grocery in Jersey City in 2019 adhered to the Black Hebrew Israelite philosophy.

This is supersessionism happening today, in the US, almost completely under the radar of the media.

While the actual number of members of these groups is not known, their ideas have spread widely among the Black community. A 2023 Manhattan Institute survey found that 49% of Blacks in America strongly or somewhat believe that they are descended from Israelites, and 13.2% believe that Jews are not descended from Israelites - i.e., that Jews want to steal the Blacks' birthright. That translates to over 6 million Blacks in America holding antisemitic, supersessionist beliefs.

This is especially concerning since the Black Hebrew Israelites have been associated with violence, including one of the worst antisemitic attacks in US history, the 2020 murders at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City.

It is also significant that while the other forms of supersessionism that we've discussed so far are based on ideas that are not easily disproven by their nature, the claim that American Blacks descended from Israelites is easily debunked. In this case, the truth is not even on the radar. People believe what they want to believe, and when it comes to hating Jews, they will literally believe anything.

Supersessionism is not a historic curiosity. It is here, today, and it is being used as an excuse for attacking Jews.