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Eric J. Greenberg
But once you put the hyperbolic title aside, one can get caught up in
this Indiana Jones-like story of British anthropologist Tudor Parfitt and
his efforts to trace the origins of a black African tribe called the
Lemba, who claim to be Jews descended from the biblical patriarchs.
Parfitt mixes good old-fashioned detective work with state-of-the-art
genetic research to try and solve the mystery of the Lemba’s claim to
Jewish ancestry — even though they live 4,000 miles from Israel near
Zimbabwe.
Parfitt’s 12-year quest tries to figure out how the Lemba came to wear the tallis and kipa, prohibit eating
pork, and use a shofar or ram’s horn for rituals. The British anthropologist even tries to locate Sena, the
paradise-like lost homeland where the Lemba say they lived before coming to a remote sector of Africa.
“The fact that we found this in such high concentrations in one of the Lemba subclans ... seemed finally to
provide a really usable link between the Lemba and Jews,” Parfitt says in the documentary.
But make no mistake, the Lemba are definitely not one of the “lost tribes,” states Shaye J.D. Cohen,
Ungerledier professor of Judaic studies at Brown University and a consultant on the program.
Cohen is referring to the 10 tribes that made up the northern kingdom of Israel, conquered by the
Assyrians in 722 BCE, and taken into exile, apparently disappearing into history. There has been much
speculation over the last 2,500 years about what happened to them. Every so often explorers come
across a native people who have some trait in common with ancient Jewish custom, and believe they
have found a “lost tribe” of Israel.
“There’s something romantic about this, which is why it has never disappeared,” explains Cohen, author
of the acclaimed new book “Beginnings of Jewishness.” “It’s very attractive and powerful, and it makes
us feel good.”
But he quickly adds: “As a historian, I find the whole enterprise rather silly. Are the Lemba descendants
of the lost tribes who disappeared from the face of the earth? The answer, of course, is no.”
If the genetic testing is accurate, says Cohen, “then we have an interesting historical problem: How did
Jewish genetic material wind up in the genes of the Lemba tribe? The obvious, plausible response is some
Jewish adventurer got to this tribe and lived among them and sired sons with the native women. We have
no idea when or where or how.”
Program writer and producer David Espar agrees that many unresolved questions arise from the genetic
testing.
“It’s so hard to say anything really definitive,” says Espar, who inherited an existing English documentary,
and its title, about Parfitt’s quest and reformulated it for Nova, adding new scenes and the genetic testing
data.
One key unknown, Espar notes, is the lack of information about how widespread the “Kohen
chromosome” is in the world population, because not every ethnic group has been tested. He said
scientists hope to provide more answers in the future.
“What I hope people take away from this is some understanding about how genetics can reveal
something about history that can’t be known any other way. Genetic archeology is a whole new
burgeoning field.” Cohen says the show should raise questions about Jewish identity and how Jews define themselves.
“These questions are not simple.”
As for the Lemba, Cohen says they will be accepted as Jews “if the Jewish people want them to become
Jews. And that’s the way it’s been since Moses and
Kohens In Unlikely Places
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
DON’T LET THE TITLE fool you. If you hope to learn the fate of Gad,
Zevulun or Naphtali, or for that matter any of the 10 lost
biblical tribes of Israel, from tonight's edition of PBS’ Nova series, Lost Tribes of Israel, think
again.
Most fascinating is the discovery that about half of the men in an Lemba elite family contain the same
genetic marker on the Y chromosome as the one found in a study of Kohanim — male Jews who descended from the Jewish priestly line of Aaron, brother of Moses.
But Cohen says that doesn’t mean the Lemba are not a kind of modern lost tribe — “a group of people
unbeknownst to us and to themselves carrying Jewish genetic material.”
