Customer Reviews

Hebrewisms of West Africa: From Nile to Niger With the Jews

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This book is a goldmine of information that uncovers Hebrewisms in African rituals and history all over Africa. It is also connected with some very recent research by antoher Amazon.com writer, Dr. Linda Thomas of Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. As an anthropologist/theologian, she studied water purification rituals among Africans in Uguleto, South Africa. These rituals are very close to those in the Old Testament. The content in Dr. Williams' book further connects these types of rituals as they occur throughout the continent Africa. It is an amazing breakthrough in research.

I have used the contents of this book in many interesting ways. Just the other day, I was talking with an 80-year old woman at church, whose mother came from Madagascar, as a slave. I was able to share with her some of the information in the book about the Hebrewisms found in the Africans of Madagascar (some of whom were brought to South Africa as slaves by the Dutch). I was able to tell her that it may be possible that her ancestors might have descended from the ancient Black Jews of Canaan, who migrated down through Africa at various points in their history, and whose Jewish rituals were discovered by various historians at various periods. She is an African American. This is not the first time that I have presented this information in order to establish the fact that Jesus Christ, and the Jews of the Old Testament in many ways, were ancestors of the Africans who were brought here, from all over the continent of Africa as slaves.

It should be in the collection of every researcher into the history of Africans on the continent and throughout the Diaspora.

For several years I had been trying to find some books of valid and substantial merit dealing with Jews who had made their way into West Africa. Often there are books written on the topic that essentially prove nothing or do not provide sources for their assertions. Hebrewisms of West Africa is far different, especially since it was written in the 1930's. Truly, this books is a very good collection of various accounts of people who professed to believe that various ethnic groups in Africa were of mixed African, Semitic, and Israelite ancestry. I was also able to get a 1931 first edition copy of the book, which I treasure.

Many of the accounts center around a question of whether the Ashanti are of Israelite ancestry. Though today this may be questionable since from what I understand the Ashanti don't assert such a claim of themselves. The book covers a number of sources from various explorers and authors who had been either searching or writing on the issue of possible Jewish traces in West Africa. On a side note though a friend of mine asked an Ashanti scholar if they had Jewish ancestry and the scholar avowed that the Ashanti have never circumcised.

This book really helps my research in this area. It is interesting that once I got this book, other sources started to open up to me, and to think this book was published in 1931! How has this book been overlooked for so long? More than likely it is due to the fact that there no longer exists a continuous Jewish presence out of West Africa. It is good that the book also pushes forth the hope that future scholarship will further the topic of Jewish migrations into Africa.

The book also does not go down the path of claiming that all Africans are Hebrews or Israelites, and does not get into a racist flare either. (since it was written iin 1930's before any of the Hebrew Israelite movements had picked up steam). This book goes down the path that some Africans are of a mix of African and Jewish ancestry, and others could be of earlier mixes with Semitic peoples. The conclusion is very interesting also.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is seriously researching this subject of early accounts of Semitic peoples and Jews in Africa.