The Pan Africanism movement covers the African diaspora subject across the globe, most recently in the Asian continent. The following communities discussed in this paper are from India and the Persian Gulf area.
In the Land of Israel, immigrants of Ethiopian began settling in the state since the 1970’s. Black Jews practice Judaism and Ethiopians migrated to Israel primarily for religious reasons. With roots going back to biblical times, Ethiopians Jews were surprise to find other groups of people who had been practicing the religion as well. The immigrants had a difficult time trying to enter the country by “returning to Israel.” In 1973, they were considered a part of the Jewish community and qualified to gain Israeli citizenship. As anti-Semitism rose in Ethiopia, the Jews of Ethiopia left for the Promised Land. Over time, the influx of Ethiopians came in with the assistance of government agencies and refuge operations. The Ethiopian immigrants were placed in temporary shelter and given monetary funds by the government along with Hebrew language classes. Those who came during those years currently have better opportunities. The black experience in Israel is an interesting one to be analyzed in conjunction with their national identity.
Ethiopian Jews have faced discrimination in a number of public sectors such as housing, education, military and other areas of Jewish life. Few have reported these incidences of discrimination. Most families live in the developing areas of Israel; some believe the reasoning behind it has to do with their African background when the Israeli agencies placed them there. Intriguingly enough, some Ethiopians were not aware that White Jews existed. Some have complained that they are segregated in the...
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...communities that derive from Africa. The cultural kinship that is shared between all of these communities are not only a part of the African diaspora, but it deals with questions of religion, ethnic and political questions when determining where future research of the extensions of African communities will be guided toward. By going into these various communities as a research with a theme that deals with national belonging, the output will yield various results.This regional part of the world, which covers the continent of Asia, is an exciting route to be looked at. The unique trajectory stands alone with both of these communities. When you begin to draw lines between national borders and ethnic conflicts throughout Africa and Asia; the idea of national belonging is a very intriguing topic to be looked at, especially in relation to the African diaspora.
Yahweh, B. L. (2013). Jewish and african affairs. In B. Yahweh (Ed.), Jews and the African
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. No. 3 (1965): 524-540. http://www.jstor.org/stable/612097 (accessed December 1, 2013).
In Brent Hayes Edwards essay, “ The Use of Diaspora”, the term “African Diaspora” is critically explored for its intellectual history of the word. Edward’s reason for investigating the “intellectual history of the term” rather than a general history is because the term “is taken up at a particular conjecture in black scholarly discourse to do a particular kind of epistemological work” (Edwards 9). At the beginning of his essay Edwards mentions the problem with the term, in terms of how it is loosely it is being used which he brings confusion to many scholars. As an intellectual Edwards understands “the confusing multiplicity” the term has been associated with by the works of other intellectuals who either used the coined or used the term African diaspora. As an articulate scholar, Edwards hopes to “excavate a historicized and politicized sense of diaspora” through his own work in which he focuses “on a black cultural politics in the interwar, particularly in the transnational circuits of exchange between the Harlem Renaissance and pre-Negritude Fran cophone activity in the France and West Africa”(8). Throughout his essay Edwards logically attacks the problem giving an informative insight of the works that other scholars have contributed to the term Edwards traces back to the intellectual history of the African diaspora in an eloquent manner.
Throughout history, Jews have been persecuted in just about every place they have settled. Here I have provided just a small ...
Underneath the tale of Segu is the hushed and disloyal question few people tend to voice: how did they lose the rights to use the land and resources of an entire continent? This novel explains that it was not just Europe’s greed and Christianity pretense that led to the fall of Africa. It shows that Islam was a major force that endangered Segu as well. However, aside from the tragedy’s that were outlined, there lies a captivating story about culture, spirituality, and diversity.
United Jewish Communities. (2003). National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01. Retrieved October 8, 2033, from: http
In Eli Evan’s The Provincials and Stuart Rockoff’s piece “The Fall and the Rise of the Jewish South” the reader looks at the changing life and times for people of Jewish ancestry in the American south. Since the 1950’s, the Jewish south has experienced rife anti-semitism, a demographic shift as small town populations significantly decreased while large cities grew, and social change due to the civil rights movement.
Wolfson, Bernard J. "African American Jews: Dispelling Myths, Bridging the Divide." Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 33-51. Print.
The transition of Jews through history is one, which is complex and took place over a long period. There are many factors, which contributed to the change of the status of Jews within their world and changes in their status as well; these changes affected the religious and cultural values of European Jews, which lead to an alteration in their own perception, as well as the surrounding populace. There are several opinions as to how non- Jews perceive the issues that led to Emancipation of Jewish people. Prior to the period of Emancipation there were three main characteristics which defined the traditional Jewish communities of Europe. These three aspects are community, autonomy and torah (religion). In relation to Torah, there is a common yearning to return to their homeland in Eretz Yisrael. As it is known from the Greek era, the purpose of a state or community was to glorify one's own religion and as a result, Jews could not be members of a Christian state. Therefore, they had no choice but to form their own communities within the larger Christian State. A Jew is a member of the Jewish nation and people and religion is what defined your life and place in society. Virtually everything revolved around the community; decisions were made with the impact of the community in mind. An essential aspect of this community was the conceptions of ghettos; Jews lived, worked, and played in these ghettos. These ghettos kept the Jewish community contained, and also provided a sense of separatism from outside influences. "The point can also be made that separation was in fact a contributing factor to healthy relations (between Jews and non- Jews)" with their concern for l...
Migrations have taken place by slaves and by free people of sub-Saharan Africa for over seventy thousand years, beginning with the tropical areas of the Old World and followed by Eurasia and the Americas. These migrations, or Diasporas, began with religious voyages and cultural exchanges and evolved to the slave trade and the deportation of black men, women and children to new colonies as workers and servants. Long before the Atlantic slave trade grew, merchants from Greece and the Roman Empire traveled to the East African coast. Patrick Manning points out in, African Diaspora: A History Through Culture, that migrants came from southern Arabia to Eretria and Ethiopia in the first millennium BCE (Manning 36). As time went on, contacts grew with other regions of Africa and trade developed with Asia and Europe. This resulted in further migrations of black Africans as both slaves and free men. The Africans brought with them customs, music food preparation techniques and minerals. For example, the discovery of copper in Central Africa brought about a substantial trans-Saharan trade and more exchange of culture and migrations. As more Africans migrated to various parts of the world, they carried with them their culture and learned new techniques and ways of life. Whether they migrated as slaves or as free men, the Africans influenced their new lands and African identity was influenced forever. This paper will look at the effects of these migrations on African identity throughout the Diaspora. It will examine migration patterns, issues of race, racial hierarchy and culture.
If one were to ask a New York resident in the 1950’s how many people he or she would expect to be living in New York sixty years from now, he would most likely not say 20 million. Among those 20 million, it is even more unfathomable that an estimated 1.7 million Jews reside within New York City, making New York home to over a quarter of the Jews living in America today . Amongst those Jews however, how many of them consider themselves religious? Seeing that only an estimated 10 percent of Jews today classify themselves as observant, how and when did this substantial dispersion occur? The period post World War II in America presents the many different factors and pressures for Jews arriving in America during this time. Although many Jews believed America would be the best place to preserve and rebuild Jewish presence in the world, the democracy and economic opportunity resulted in adverse effects on many Jews. The rate of acculturation and assimilation for many of these Jews proved to be too strong, causing an emergence of two types of Jews during this time period. Pressures including the shift to suburbanization, secular education into professional careers, covert discrimination in the labor market and the compelling American culture, ultimately caused the emergence of the passive and often embarrassed ‘American Jew’; the active ‘Jewish American’ or distinctly ‘Jewish’ citizen, avertedly, makes Judaism an engaging active component of who and what they are amidst this new American culture.
As the Diaspora experience is presented as a distinct identity trait of the Jewish people, there is ...
The Jews were different from the general population of the countries where they were. They had different customs, had a different religion and dressed different. Because they were grouped in the ghettos these differences were increased. However, when Germany became a nation in 1871, there was a halt in anti-Semitic laws. In 1900, Jews could buy houses, and while they were subject to restrictions, they were more comfortable under Ge...
Knott , Kim, and Seán McLoughlin, eds. Diasporas Concepts, Intersections, Identities. New York : Zed Books, 2010. Print.
...an countries. These immigrants brought with them Jewish, cultural heritages and traditions which were very different from those existing in Israel at the time. This Western-oriented culture demanded acknowledgement to its morals and values, causing a huge conflict which caused a misfortune to the newcomers of the state. Immigration had a negative effect on the traditional communital aspects and interpersonal relations. Original and understood values which had provided the infrastructure for community consensus were vastly weakened. Family roles were destroyed and past experience provided no representation for current needs and wants. Cooperative activity became very difficult. Old Fashioned leadership which had relied on the traditional frameworks of society was also declared void in the new situations that had seceded the vast amounts of immigration (Home).