Already Black…and proud, and righteous: the African Hebrew Israelite community in the state of Israel

The social and political life of the American-born blackness that the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC; also Black Hebrews) brought with them to the Holy Land differs dramatically from the blackness attributed to many non-European Jewish olim after having arrived in Israel. Concentrating on the implications of the Black Hebrews’ “power to define”, this chapter reviews their decades-long struggle to attain rights and recognition from the Israeli state. Despite ultimate success, the chapter ends by suggesting that Israel’s bestowal of residence rights to members of the AHIC as an exception to the Law of Return has done very little to expand Jewish inclusiveness or to change Israelis’ attitudes about blackness. Instead of revising the law to include people(s) expressing identification with the Jewish people in its variety of names and instantiations, the strategy of exceptionalism has only reinforced Orthodox law and popular belief that most African and African-descended black people are not Jews and unless they can prove otherwise, hold no place in the Jewish state.