Uriella

I was aware of the fact that Elijah was ripping us off, but the rest of the family wanted to stay and it was ok especially since they were paying for their own plate of food. As we paid our fees, Elijah’s wife (Yahera) handed each of us a folder with an itinerary for the entire weekend. There were also other Hebrew Israelite congregations from around the country that had come to Nashville, as well. I was more than sure that Elijah was making money hand over fist! He was a crook and I knew it but oh well, we decided to make the best of it.

The dinner was really awful. The chicken was rubbery, and the beans and rice were cooked in a giant pot that made them burn on the bottom and the burnt flavor was very strong in the beans and rice. The best thing on the plate was the salad. There was no way they could mess up the lettuce.

The dinner definitely was not worth twenty-five dollars. At any rate, we did enjoy meeting up with other Hebrew Israelites and hearing their stories of how they came into Hebrewism.

I found it very interesting that everyone there referred to Hebrewism as truth and when they spoke about the Bible they called it The Word and finally, when they were talking about God they all called him Yah, Yahweh or The Most High. That was really about all they had in common.

Even though they all wore the religious label of Hebrew Israelites, they all had totally different interpretations of what the Bible said and every congregation was very adamant that their interpretation was the truth according to what Yah said.

Every Hebrew congregation that was there was sure that their leader was the only one with a connection to Yah and everyone else was going to hell if they did not follow what they were doing. Later on I would com...

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...ide there with Tonya.

When we got there, I found out that there was another twenty dollar charge for the dinner plus a ten dollar registration fee. I was shocked, but I paid for our dinners anyway. We went thru the same metal detector and the same ladies patted us down for weapons. Tonya was mortified, she could not believe that she had to be patter down and walked thru a metal detector.

“No matter what church I have visited, I have never been treated like this!”

Tonya was very disturbed by what was going on and honestly I could not blame her one bit! I thought she would give up and just leave, but she stayed. Her main point of being there was to investigate the Hebrew Israelites. We walked into the auditorium and we spotted Sheldon, Paul & Morgan. I looked around the auditorium for Eric and Gregory. I saw them both playing drums with the rest of the brothers.