The Phenomena of Israel’s Black Hebrew Community

It was a few weeks ago that Richard Allen, a former New Yorker and longtime activist on behalf of the State of Israel called and asked me to accompany him and visit the Black Hebrew community in the city of Dimona in southern Israel; Richard has been a longtime supporter of Israel’s Black Hebrew community way before making Aliyah. Knowing that I couldn’t resist what would become a mini version of what’s known as a “road trip” in American standards, we set out on our journey.

As we parked the car in the community’s entrance, a modest sign above greeted us: “Welcome to the Village of Peace”. Manicured tropical gardens, well-maintained pre-fab homes and wooden huts; no cars, no noise, no litter on the pathways between the homes interspersed among communal buildings, and were all a part of this unique urban kibbutz type community in the heart of a town in the middle of Israel’s vast desert in the Negev. Being a former Bronx boy myself and growing up on New York’s “mean streets”, I immediately sensed that these former Black Americans were very different from Black Americans that I had encountered during my childhood.

Elyakim, a leader and senior member of the community, greeted us and invited us to join a tour of the community that he was conducting with a group of high school students from the center of the country. Over the course of a typical year, hundreds of groups from Israel and from abroad visit the community. He shared with his visitors how his community began and developed over the years. What began as a black power movement in Chicago during the 1960’s, embraced a 19th century movement based on the premise that African Americans were the true descendants of the biblical Children of Israel. In 1966, their spiritual leader Ben Ammi Ben Israel had a vision instructing him to lead his followers back to the Holy Land, and that Israel was the Promised Land. Till then the Black Hebrew Israelites had sought self-rule in the United States. In 1967, a few hundred members of Ben Ammi’s splinter group moved to Liberia “to purge themselves of the negative attributes they had acquired in the captivity” (from slavery to the modern era in America) while making plans to come to Israel. In 1968, Ben Ammi visited Israel with Keskeyahu Ben Israel, who eventually became the first community member to be granted Israeli citizenship. In August 1969, five families arrived unannounced from Liberia and were allowed entrance into the country. Since their arrival, community members have received Israeli citizenship, largely in part to their patriotism and communal spirit they have exhibited over the years. Today, the community boasts of close to 3000 members with the majority living in Dimona. 98% of the children brought up in the community serve in the Israel Defense Forces, and the community has received official recognition by the central government and municipal agencies. These ultimate symbols of formal acceptance into Israeli society are presented as a culmination of the community’s journey.

Elyakim shared his own personal journey to the community. Why did he leave America? Despite his academic degree and his successful career at Bethlehem Steel, he never was able to free himself from the shackles of racism that he encountered. For him, and blacks in general, America is one big “maximum security prison”. Only in Israel, “I have discovered who I am as a person”. Elyakim, a very youngish looking 75 year old whole heartedly believes in the communal guidelines for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. English is the spoken language and community members are required to cleanse themselves of all vices. Tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, cannot be found here. Exercise is mandatory every other day, a full-body massage every week, and a colonic irrigation every month. There is no private ownership of vehicles nor homes. Strict veganism, as prescribed in the book of Genesis, is observed and community members fast one day a week on the Sabbath in the belief that the body itself should perform as little work as possible on the day of rest. Community members wear a four braided blue cords in their clothing—another biblical injunction—and many if not most of the community, do not wear synthetic fabrics. Lastly, Elyakim is proud of the fact that as opposed to the Black American experience, the Black Hebrews in Israel have experienced zero cases of murder, rape, drug abuse, and homelessness. These long terms social ills of Black Americans simply don’t exist in their community here in Israel.

Prince Immanuel, a member of the community council and religious leader, and also serves as a National Spokesman and the Director of International Affairs. He is the chief political liaison for the community, engaging with government officials at the local and international level. His clarity concerning the religious character of the community highlights their unique identity. Prince Immanuel stressed that the Black Hebrews do not practice Judaism and do not claim to be Jews, but see themselves as Judeans; tribal cousins in the same national family. They read the Holy Torah, and practice the circumcision ritual on the eight day after the birth of a newborn, yet they do not pray three times a day as is customary in Judaism. The Prince shared an interesting revelation related to the health and wellbeing of community members. Studies by researchers from Vanderbilt University and Meharry Medical College have shown that community members in Israel have an extremely low level of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and obesity. For Black Americans, fast food restaurants are nothing more than weapons of mass destruction. The research disproved accepted medical thinking that Black Americans had a genetic predisposition for these diseases, and the gene pool of the Black Hebrew community in Israel disproved this medical assumption. Life spans are increasing within the community and the Prince believes that they can continue this progression. Prince Immanuel believes in a “lifestyle of righteousness”, of perfecting yourself and your community while doing no harm to the environment. He sincerely believes that his community can be a beacon of light for the Black communities of America.

In sharp contrast to the language frequently used and heard from American Black Hebrew Israelites that the Jews are imposters and that they, the American Black Hebrew Israelites are the authentic Jews; Israel’s Black Hebrew community, promote an entirely opposing narrative that embraces the State of Israel and the Jewish people with all of their heart and soul. Israel’s Black Hebrew community, value their communal home that they have been given in Israel, and the equal opportunity to share alongside the rest of the nation in civil obligations such as serving in the Israel Defense Forces, and contributing to Israeli society in all of its diversity. What makes this very special community even more special is that they have always had a choice of returning to the United States but have opted to remain in Israel, making Israel their permanent home alongside the Jewish nation of Israel.

Prominent Black Americans like Marc Lamont Hill who have openly yearned for Israel’s nonexistence, while the Black Lives Matter movement accused the Jewish State of “genocide” and “apartheid”, and lets not ignore Louis Farrakhan who labeled the Jews as “termites” have all over the years made every effort to portray Israel as a fortress of American white supremacism. To counter this toxic dialogue and the poisonous expressions used by Black American activists and progressives, all one has to do is spend an afternoon at the “Village of Peace” in Israel’s southern city of Dimona, and meet with members of Israel’s Black Hebrew community. They will convey to you in their own words that only in Israel they have felt safe and wanted. The Black Hebrew Community in Dimona can showcase to the world how within Israel, “we are all brothers” does not remain an empty slogan but rather a true depiction of being black and living in the State of Israel.

“Carrying the burden”, a personal perspective

The underlying premise of the judicial reforms in Israel, is very simple; democratic accountability. Today’s judicial system led by the Supreme Court has absolute authority, no diversity, and answer to no one. The people of Israel have lost their ability to empower their elected political party to decide on the policies that directly influence the Jewish character of the State of Israel, our faith and how we observe that faith, nor the functioning of governmental institutions or how they impact the average citizen. The judicial system that claims to protect the individual rights of citizens has lost the trust and confidence of the people of Israel. This is the sad reality that the people of Israel have had to face due to the mass demonstrations led by anarchists funded by foreign European governments and NGO’s funded by progressive supporters from the United States and Europe. Israel’s democratically elected government will in the coming weeks formulate a path that will create the necessary public consensus that will allow the judicial reforms to move ahead, strengthening Israel’s Democracy, and enabling Israel to fulfill her historical role as the home of the Jewish nation irrespective of one’s political orientation.

A noticeable and far reaching development during this period has been the refusal of a small yet vocal group of reserve Air Force pilots who publically called for the judicial reforms to be halted and if not, they would refuse to continue and fulfill their flight missions including operational preparations for the Iranian arena. The Israeli Air Force and her pilots have for the past 75 years since the establishment of the State of Israel, have been one of Israel’s most cherished, and exemplary role models for all Israeli’s. The Israeli Air Force has always been a shining star of Israeli patriotism and enjoyed a wall to wall consensus from all Israeli’s. The attempt to condition one’s military service and the fulfillment of orders to political events or legislation proposed by Israel’s legally elected government not only crossed a “red line” that had yet to be crossed in Israel, but was a blatant act of subordination of the military code.

This refusal to serve one’s country and condition one’s willingness to “carry the burden” of protecting one’s nation reminded me of my own personal experience during my military service in the first Lebanon War during the early 1980’s. At the time, I had made Aliyah to Israel three years prior and was now stationed in the outskirts of Beirut in the Shouf mountain region, an area that reminded me of upstate New York with its high mountains, dense forests, and heavy snow during the winter months. When I would be in touch with my family back in the States or friends from New York City, they would express their concern about me being in a war zone; I would jokingly respond that for a kid that grew up in the South Bronx, Lebanon was a piece of cake. Actually it wasn’t, it was in fact a war zone with danger and live threatening risks everywhere.

As a divisional mental health field officer, my professional responsibility included making daily visits to front line positions and examine/treat soldiers having emotional difficulties of “carrying the burden” of military service in a war zone. As opposed to most Western armies where the mental health officers are based in rear-echelon hospitals or infirmaries, in the Israeli Army, mental health officers were up there literally on the front lines. Naturally, the danger was very real and immediate and one had to mentally ignore these threats as I traveled with my driver from one front line position to another. This was my daily routine and as we approached the Sabbath we would be on alert despite staying on base over the weekend; once every three weeks I would return home to my wife for a long weekend before returning to the front lines in the Shouf Mountains.

Returning home after being three weeks on the front always was an event in itself. The daily convoys and especially just before the weekends in which soldiers would travel south towards Israel became targets for improvised explosive devices (IED), roadside bombs that were very deadly. As an officer in the division, I had when available, the option of leaving base by helicopter to northern Israel and then catch a military flight to the center of the country. Whenever the helicopter crossed the international border between Lebanon and Israel, I would look down and become incensed that while I was coming out of a war zone, members of the kibbutzim and moshavim below, where playing tennis or enjoying their Olympic pool. It seemed incomprehensible that while I was risking my life to protect Israel and “carry the burden”, these guys below were having a good time and enjoying life. Upon reaching home, I shared with my wife born and raised in Israel and, a fountainhead of what life in Israel is all about, my anger at having to “carry the burden” while those below were having a good time at my expense. She responded in her very Israeli vernacular “ your such an idiot, don’t you understand, they can play tennis or swim in the pool only because you are on the front lines, today it’s you and tomorrow its them, we all “carry the burden” for one another”.

The reserve pilot’s refusal to “carry the burden” unconditionally, and then use this refusal as insubordinate blackmail to advance a political agenda is very different from my own personal journey and insight into the meaning of what “carrying the burden” truly means. For most of us in Israel, we willingly and proudly “carry the burden” for one another. Israel’s success in overcoming the existential challenges of the past 75 years since her establishment is living proof of our mutual commitment for one another and ability to overcome internal politics and differences. No small group of renegade and privileged pilots will change the essence of a common destiny and future for us in Israel.

“Some are more equal than others”

During the final months leading up to the 2016 Presidential elections, Hillary Clinton brought to the world the three infamous words; “basket of deplorables”, thereby ensuring that she would lose the coming election against Donald Trump. According to her version of society, there were two baskets of people, those who feel abandoned and desperate, whom she placed in one metaphorical basket, and those she called “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic” — whom she placed in the other metaphorical “what I call the basket of deplorables.” Hillary evidently believed that deplorables were incapable of voting for the Democratic party due to their limited capacities, you know, being hillbillies or rednecks, and in general unappreciative of and unable to fathom the Democratic principle.

I am reminded of this episode in American politics as Israel’s current government, a coalition of four political parties led by the Likud and Benjamin Netanyahu, attempts to legislate Judicial reform. The last elections took place less than three months ago, during which the left-progressive parties that lost the elections did not demand at the time a recount nor did they question the legality or the legitimacy of the results. Yet, despite a majority of the Israeli public voting for political parties that made judicial reform a core issue in their political platform, you would think that the very opposite is the truth, and that Israel is in the midst of a coup d'état and imminent dictatorship. In January 2023, three weeks after taking office, Israel’s newly elected government unveiled a broad package of judicial reforms that would reduce the broad judicial self-proclaimed powers of the Supreme Court and Judicial system on the grounds that they were undermining the separation of powers and encroaching on traditional executive and legislative branches of government, thereby endangering Israel’s Democratic political system.

What began as a so-called protest against judicial reform, has evolved in recent weeks into something entirely unexpected. The opposition parties have claimed that the judicial reforms are the true threat to democracy and not the courts. Over the past 11 weeks the protests have intensified, with elite centers of power in the deep state, industry, media, academia, and the legal system all banding together to stop the judicial reform. This despite recent polls show that over 75 % of the public have lost faith in the courts and belief that the courts are broken and dysfunctional. The average Israeli makes every effort to stay away from the courts knowing from past experience, that the “little guy” has no chance of getting justice, and that the courts show no mercy for the honest citizen. Progressive elites, industrial giants, importers, and monopolies receive preferable treatment by the justice system accompanied by selective enforcement by the police. The courts have over the year’s ruled against Israel’s Jewish identity giving a systematic preference to those who reject Israel as the Jewish national homeland. Despite claims of Israel descending into chaos, all spheres of Israeli society are functioning regularly. Israel is far from descending into chaos, despite the false, biased and one-sided media generated portrayal of anarchy on the streets of Israel.

It’s a closely guarded secret in the business community of Israel, especially within the international Hi-tech world that if you want to do business with companies located in Israel, stipulate and condition that any investment contract be subject to American or European contract law and not Israeli court. What do international companies know that make them so unwilling to trust the Israeli court system? The Israeli courts have over the years based their rulings on a new method of construing contracts. Contrary to common law jurisdictions found in Britain and other Western nations, Israeli courts rule according to a contracts’ “objective purpose” as determined by judges and not primarily by the wording within the agreement. The result of this Israeli judicial construction (judicial activism in simple English) is that in Israel, Judges arbitrarily determinate the purpose or latent intent over the objective language of a contract. In the United States and Western European nations, “objective purpose” does not take precedence over the objective language of a contract which is taken as the best evidence of a parties’ intent. The bottom line being; a judicial system that allows Judges to base their rulings on “reasonableness” or own personal preferences in interpreting the law thereby creates a built-in uncertainty and inherent instability in the judicial system.

The Israeli public made their preferences known at the ballot box less than three months ago. The formation of a conservative government voted in by a clear majority of the voters, has only intensified powerful elite circles to maintain the current judicial system broken as it is and mobilize their supporters to take to the streets and attempt to create chaos. This elite also known as the “First Israel” understands that the progressive left will never be able to garner a majority at the ballot box, and that only by maintaining their hegemony on the Judicial system can they continue to receive preferable rulings allowing them to maintain their control of critical circles of power in Israel.

Hillary Clinton would feel at home among those that belong to the “First Israel”. Our hometown version of what she calls the “deplorables” belong to those who are part of the “Second Israel”; Mizrachi, Sephardim, Haredi, Dati-Leumi, Ethiopians, and other minorities. Our deplorables serve in the Army, pay taxes, contribute to the well-being of others, and are proud of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people. Our “depolorables” refuse to accept the Orwellian concept of “Some are more equal than others” and will continue to support judicial reform as it advances through the different stages of legislation.

It was President Abraham Lincoln who said, "Democracy is a rule of the people, for the people and by the people". The citizens of the country elect the Government to rule the country and the elected government work for the welfare of the people. It would be wise for the judicial system to accept not only President Lincoln’s wise words but also his “intent” concerning what Democracy means.

Israel’s judicial tyranny perpetuates “White Privilege”

Leaders of Israel’s progressive left, the heads of the Military-Industrial/Hi-Tech complex, the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, the judicial system, and governmental offices manned by self-appointed guardians of the deep state have all united and banded together for a last stand, as bastions of “White Privilege”, rejecting the electoral preferences of the majority of the Israeli voting public. These self-appointed officials in government along with their cohorts in the private sector, ignoring the democratic notion of accepting the will of the people, have declared war, in this case civil war, on the bottom up demand for judicial reforms proposed by the recently democratically elected government with a clear parliamentary majority, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

In a nutshell, the judicial reform will end limitless power for unelected “Elites”; the Israeli Supreme Court/Court of Appeals exists and functions outside and beyond the authority of the legislative branch, Israel’s Knesset. The Israeli Supreme Court has over the past three decades created in Israel a judicial reality in which there are literally no limits to its authority, and recognizes no limits or restrictions to intervene and exercise judicial review by governmental action and/or legislation. The Israeli Supreme Court recognizes legal standing for any person or organization that demands judicial review of any action or legislation decided upon by the Israeli Knesset. The Israeli Supreme Court has given itself more authority, more power than any comparable judiciary in any Democratic nation in the Western World. Israel’s Supreme Court has ultimate exclusive authority and discretion over the appointment of all Judges at all levels in Israel’s judicial system; creating a situation in which Israel’s Judges lack diversity and are top heavy with progressive judges promoting a world view that is not supported by the majority of Israel’s voting public. Imagine a United States Supreme Court overturning laws passed by Congress based on how “reasonable” the judges believes these laws are irrespective of the legality of the law.

For those of you who remain skeptical after reading recent Israeli headlines in English or hearing the unanimous across the board yet misleading condemnations from Jewish American organizational leaders claiming that the judicial reforms are a threat to the very fabric of Israel's democracy, and I quote: “endangering the very existence of the State of Israel and the Israeli nation." I have good news, the reality is the very opposite. The judicial reforms are not out to destroy Israel's democracy but to save and restore it. Those who are at the head of the opposition to Israel's judicial reform are nothing more than the last vestiges of the old "Elite", "White Privileged" Israeli's of European descent who are unable to accept that they no longer have a moral or electoral mandate to decide for the general public. The protest movement against judicial reform has received positive and encouraging support from the media outlets in Israel and from abroad yet their goal is not to save Democracy but to save the power of the ruling progressive elite and the unproportioned power they wield in Israel.

Who are these population groups who dare to question the old order? Who are mad as hell and are unwilling to remain silent any longer. Who are these usurps who have the gall to no longer put up with the hollowing out of Israel's democracy and Israel’s Jewish identity; who stop at nothing to impose their own "White Privileged" principles, preferences and values on the Israeli electorate.

As a former Bronx boy who studied in New York City with other Jews who grew up in Manhattan, Riverdale, Yonkers, and so forth, I remember quite distinctly how they referred to those of us that came from poorer and less sophisticated backgrounds as......"Shvartze Chayot", we were derogatorily called. In today’s Israel, the "Shvartze Chayot" are also labelled “baboons”, “Sh-t heads”, “and “dispensing machines of poison”; the list goes on and on representing a number of social ethnic groups in Israel. The dominant and largest group are the secular Sephardic-Mizrachim, and those among them who vote for Shas {the largest religious Sephardic political party), the Haredim irrespective of their ethnic background, and the Dati-Leumi (those who live in central Israel and those that populate the communities beyond the green line in Judea and Samaria). These diverse population groups make up the majority of what has become to be known as the “the second Israel.”

In response, there is a perfect storm of factors that have brought about the judicial reform initiative after the recent elections in Israel. An election that voted for a Likud electoral victory giving Israel’s newly elected government a clear and uncontested mandate to promote and advance a conservative political agenda including judicial reform. Fixing Israel’s judicial anomaly that has skewed the checks and balances between the branches of government in favor of the judiciary having no comparable judicial system among Western democracies. For this reason alone, the judicial system, and the Supreme Court specifically have lost the trust and respect of all Israelis. Public support for the judicial system has wavered for a number of years under 10 percent, making the judicial reforms imperative and the expected showdown between Israel’s conservative government and the “Elite” of White Privilege unavoidable and necessary.