From The Promised Land

"From the Promised Land to Exile and from Exile to the promised Land" deals with different issues about Black-Jewish identity within the African Diaspora. The author focuses in his study on examples of African-Jewish communities settled in Diaspora and in Israel. An examination of the case of the Lemba community from Southern Africa, and of the black Hebrews who emigrated from the USA to Israel in the 1970s, will shed light on the "Black- Jewish phenomenon" in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indeed, modern approaches have given rise to much discourse about African Jewry. A significant concern is the way some scholars define "Black Judaism" knowing that people most often connect Jewishness to Whiteness. What kind of debates does this discourse raise within Judaism today? Jonas Zianga is a Graduate in Education (M.Ed.) and Sociology (Ph.D) from Strasbourg University (Alsace-France). His field of specialty concerns Black-African Jewry in Israel and in the Diaspora (history, identity, culture and traditions). Dr Jonas Zianga is a lecturer in the inter-University program for African Studies, Department of Politics and Government, Ben- Gurion University of the Negev (Israel).