Jewish History in the Land of Israel: The Israelite Diaspora The "Unknown Hebrews" (Part III) Conclusion

The Israelite Diaspora

The "Unknown Hebrews"

(Part III)

Conclusion

What has already been written concerning the peoples that have a possible Hebrew origin according to some relevant elements related to their history, culture and spirituality has been done crediting only reliable historical accounts and scientific proofs, rejecting speculative theories based only on mythology and fables. There are many so-called researchers who try either to deny the Jewishness of the Jews or to ascribe Israelite origin to completely unrelated peoples, or both deceptions together. Such individuals or organizations are inspired by a deep anti-Semitic feeling, a fanatical religious conviction, a political bias or any other illegitimate purpose. Their claims are confuted by science, archaeology, history and by the Bible.
Here we present a summary of the preceding chapters:

The Jewish people belong to the Semitic stock. It is a fact confirmed by history, by their culture, spirituality and the language in which Torah is written. Yet, language should not be taken as the main reference, since Hebrew was not currently spoken for centuries during the Diaspora and was preserved almost solely in the written Torah.
The Israelites have been a wandering nation along most of their history ; only those acknowledged as Jews have maintained their identity but there are some other peoples that share with them the essential principles of the Jewish belief and Law, a common history -at least for a definite period of time in the same geographic area-, and some other elements that lead to assert, with more or less certainty, their Israelite or pre-Israelite Hebrew origin. These are the main features that must be taken into consideration in order to establish the origin of any people, rather than less relevant elements which may change according to historical circumstances or geographic location.
There is a tendency to ascribe any likely Hebrew origin to the mythical "Lost Tribes" of Israel, but as it has been already shown, only some of them may belong to the descent of the Northern Kingdom of Israel sent to exile by the Assyrians, and they are to be found primarily in India and other lands in Asia. Since the division of the Israelites according to their former kingdoms vanished during the exile, the tribal division became less relevant to Jewish identity and most Jews from all Tribes did not return back to their homeland but remained in their land of exile, in the East beyond the Euphrates. Many of them may have lost the Israelite identity, no matter the Tribe to which they belonged. In this sense, there is part of all twelve Tribes that is "lost" or better, as the title of this chapter, they remain "unknown Hebrews".
Indeed, there are other migrations, previous and subsequent to the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. Some African peoples may even originate in the pre-Mosaic period, when the Hebrews were sojourning in Egypt, from groups that settled southwards and that did never reach the Promised Land. Others belong to the earlier Israelite settlements outside Canaan during the Davidic/Solomonic period, mainly in Yemen, India and the eastern coast of Africa. All these migrations occurred before the division of the Kingdom, and have no relation at all with the alleged lost Tribes.
After the deportation of both Kingdoms, it is known by reliable historical documents and other evidences that in Roman times the large mass of the exiled Israelites were still dwelling in the very lands where the Assyrians placed them, as attested by historians like Philo and Josephus. Further scattering of Hebrew people in Europe and Africa regards mainly the "western" Jews; many of them lost their identity because of intermarriage, persecution, forced conversion and so on.
On the other hand, it happened that some entire tribes or a consistent part of them embraced Judaism: such is the case of the Assyrians of Adiabene, the Khazars, the Amazigh (Tuareg) and some Sub-Saharan African tribes. Regarding the Khazars, some researchers suggest that they indeed chose Judaism because their rulers were aware of being descendants of the Northern Tribes and that they wished to return back to their ancestors' belief. This would make of them genuine Israelites by bloodline and not only Gerim, but even though such hypothesis might be likely, it is honest not to confirm it without further proofs.
In order to conclude this chapter, here we present a summary of the likely unknown Hebrew peoples mentioned in this essay:
The largest number of these peoples arise from the Indian sub-continent and neighbouring lands (mainly from the northwestern regions of India), some of them have already been officially acknowledged as Israelites, others not yet. They are:
·The Kochin Jews, settled in the area of Kerala probably since Solomonic times, as a result of the trade with the land of Ophir (likely Southern India);
·The B'ney Yisrael, whose Israelite origin has been recognized recently;
·The Roma (including Sinti groups), whose culture and spirituality clearly point out to an ancient Israelite origin before they reached Rajasthan and the Indus Valley, these are the only groups that migrated en masse to Europe and are scattered almost worldwide;
·The Kashmiri tribes, whose laws, traditions, geographic names, tribe names and other features qualify them as probable Israelites in origin, from the exiled of the Northern Kingdom;
·Some Afghan tribes, whose characteristics quite resemble those of the Kashmiris.
·There are other groups from the Indian region; some of them are being recognized as Israelites, like the B'ney Ephrayim and others.
Besides India, Hebrew peoples have been found in China. There are no doubts concerning the Jews of Kaifeng, but there are other groups as well: The Chiang-Min and the Shinlung or "B'ney Menasheh".
There are some hints to support the hypothesis that Hebrews reached also Japan and may be among the early population of that land. Of course, it is plainly clear that present-day Japanese people are not to be considered of Hebrew origin if not in a very small amount. Israelites may well have been an original stock that was overwhelmingly outnumbered by many other migratory flows from different origins, yet, having left some important influence as to witness their presence in early Japanese history.
While in Asia we can find some peoples that may be entitled to claim any descent from the exiled of the Northern Kingdom besides others from preceding and subsequent migrations, in Africa the outline is different: even though the Hebrew presence is proven by evidences and some peoples have been recognized as true descendants of ancient Israelites, the circumstances that led them to settle in Africa are not certain. It is a fact that an important Jewish community existed in Ethiopia since Roman times and even before, and the most plausible hypothesis is that their origin was the Jewish settlement of Elephantine, in Egypt.
Other groups might descend from the Hebrews when they were still dwelling in Egypt and that emigrated southwards, to the land known as Havilah before the Exodus to Canaan: that is the case of the Watutsi.
The Lemba have been acknowledged as legitimate Jews of probably Yemenite origin.
Many other African peoples claim Hebrew ancestry, some of them being worthy of consideration, yet, most of them belong to tribes that embraced Judaism as their own belief, like the Amazigh, some Ashanti tribes as the Sefwi Wiawso and Sefwi Sui, and others.
Adoption of Jewish belief happened also in Eurasia:
·The Assyrian kingdom of Adiabene, whose royal house embraced Judaism and their descent was largely assimilated within the Babylonian Jewry. A lesser part might be still found among some Kurdish tribes that keep some hints of a Jewish past.
·The Khazars, that became object of speculative controversies owing to the fact that their rulers adopted Judaism – but not the largest majority of the Khazar people. Their descendants are primarily Hungarian peoples and part of the Hungarian Jewry, yet without significance in the total figure of the Ashkenazic Jewish community (and none at all within the other Jewish groups).
It is beyond dispute that ascribing Israelite background to Western European peoples, namely Celtic, British, Anglo-Saxons and other fully Aryan races belongs to the realm of demential fables, supported by some organizations whose goal is preaching counterfeit stories.

"Unknown Hebrews in Asia"

"Unknown Hebrews in Africa"

"History"