Tovia Singer Meets Guinea Jews.

[Binyamin Yisrael]

Are these real Jews? Are they lost tribes or real converts?

[edu]

I don't know what is your source concerning Tovia Singer.
In any case this is the viewpoint of
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/05/07/british-indiana-jones-examines-evidence-for-jewish-origin-of-papua-new-guinea-tribe-interview/
on the subject

How did you first encounter the Gogodala tribe?

“I went to give some lectures on Hebrew literature at the University of Sydney, and it was advertised in the press. A few days later the telephone rang and the person on the other end of the line said that he was the spiritual leader of a tribe in Papua New Guinea and he read about what I managed to do for the Lemba people, proving that they were of Jewish origin, and he wanted me to do the same thing for him. A few days later he flew from Papua New Guinea to Sydney and he brought with him 500 hairs in a big black hat. He had plucked them from the heads of various tribal members, and he wanted me to take [the hairs] back to England to have the DNA extracted to try and say something about their origin.”

Is the Gogodala tribe actually of Jewish origin?

“When we finally did the test, we didn’t see very much at all. There’s no reason to at all suppose that the Gogodala have come from the Middle East in genetically recent times, but the interesting thing is that throughout the world, particularly in the area of the Pacific, there are many, many other groups who are passionately pro-Israel and Zionist; they passionately believe that they are of Jewish origin, and they passionately want to learn about Judaism and in some cases are practicing it, like in the case of the Gogodala.

“[In 2007] there was a declaration on the part of the then-Prime Minister (Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare) that the people of Papua New Guinea would always worship the God of Israel. On Israel’s Yom Ha’atzmaut every year, the capital of Papua New Guinea is absolutely chockablock with pro-Israel demonstrations, Israeli flags. Many of the tribes, not only the Gogodala, really believe that they’re Israelite.”

What is behind the “lost tribes” phenomenon and how does it manifest itself?

“Ever since the beginning of colonial intervention throughout the world, colonists, missionaries or public servants of different sorts came to explain unknown peoples through the paradigm of lost Israelites. If you can’t understand what somebody is doing in a particular place, you don’t know where they from, one way of explaining them is to say, ‘Ah, they’re the lost tribes of Israel.’ This was consistently done in North America with Native Americans or South Americans. The standard explanation of local populations over a period of 500 years was that they were Israelites, Jews, lost tribes. The same thing is true on the colonial frontier in Africa, parts of India, New Zealand, (inhabitants) were consistently thought to be Israelites by the colonists who discovered them, and the aboriginals in Australia. People have been saying that the people of Papua New Guinea are Jews ever since the 1700s, and finally these ideas sort of internalized.

“In many places, if it’s not Judaism then it’s a kind of Christianity that is very Judaic. An example of what very often happens in Africa is a group that celebrates the Sabbath, Jewish holidays, Passover and so on. They may very well observe some aspects of Kashrut, but they will have a belief in Jesus. On the one side of that you’ve got groups that are more Christian and on the other side of that you’ve got groups that are really completely Judaic. The Gogodala find themselves on the same spectrum and moving fairly rapidly, in my view, toward a more complete identification with Judaism. They celebrate the holidays and learn Hebrew. In my estimation this is a group that a few years down the road will be converting to Judaism.

“The FIU Center for Global Jewish Communities, which I am the director of, is very conscious of the fact that Judaism is changing, that so many people are converting to Judaism, and that there are so many groups around the world think of themselves as being Jews. The sense is that this is a huge phenomenon that involves millions of people, and that it deserves proper study. We’re offering for next year four or five fellowships to come to FIU to study this. It’s going to turn into one of the more interesting Jewish studies centers in the U.S. and it will be doing something that nobody else does.”

[Binyamin Yisrael]

My source is Tovia Singer's Facebook post.

[Binyamin Yisrael]

The Aborigines are NOT from the Ten Tribes. They are a distinct race. Their race is the smallest in the World. Their race is called Australoid and also includes areas near Australia as well as some "untouchable" natives of India as well as Madagascar. They are basically the natives of Australia and the Indian Ocean area. These groups are among the most primitive people in the World. I'm not saying they are evil but their lifestyle and appearance make them look like hunters and gatherers like in Pre-Historic times.

The natives of New Zealand are Polynesian (Pacific Islanders) who are racially Oriental. You might as well include Native Hawaiians if all these groups are called Jews.

The Lemba are certainly NOT Jewish. They are blacks that claim descent on the male line to Kohanim. But they insisted on marrying black women and "converting" them. The conversions are obviously not real and Kohanim are prohibited from marrying converts. It's just like Ethiopian Jews and Ethiopian goyim claim descent from King Solomon and the Non-Jewish Queen of Sheba. Such fictional offspring would not be Jewish even if they existed.

There are two Pacific islands that usually vote with the US and Israel in the UN. This is because Israel was the first country to recognize their independence. They are not Jews, but rather friends of Israel.

[Binyamin Yisrael]

This is an example of an Aborigine.

[Every Jew AK47]

The Aborigines are NOT from the Ten Tribes. They are a distinct race. Their race is the smallest in the World. Their race is called Australoid and also includes areas near Australia as well as some "untouchable" natives of India as well as Madagascar. They are basically the natives of Australia and the Indian Ocean area. These groups are among the most primitive people in the World. I'm not saying they are evil but their lifestyle and appearance make them look like hunters and gatherers like in Pre-Historic times.

The natives of New Zealand are Polynesian (Pacific Islanders) who are racially Oriental. You might as well include Native Hawaiians if all these groups are called Jews.

The Lemba are certainly NOT Jewish. They are blacks that claim descent on the male line to Kohanim. But they insisted on marrying black women and "converting" them. The conversions are obviously not real and Kohanim are prohibited from marrying converts. It's just like Ethiopian Jews and Ethiopian goyim claim descent from King Solomon and the Non-Jewish Queen of Sheba. Such fictional offspring would not be Jewish even if they existed.

There are two Pacific islands that usually vote with the US and Israel in the UN. This is because Israel was the first country to recognize their independence. They are not Jews, but rather friends of Israel.

SO, are Yemenite Jews real Jews, considering that there was intermarriage and mixing with them and other Mizrachi Jews as well?   There was also many Arabic people who converted to Judaism over the years, hence why you may see similar features to Yemenite Muslims and Yemenite Jews. Even some Yemenite JEws have Cushitic/Ethiopian features.   The original inhabitants of Israel were not dark brown skin people, either, contrary to what some may claim.  The natives of Turkey, for example, are very light , fair complected people.   I think its far fetched to say all Ethiopian Jews are not real Jews.. The same could be said about Yemenite Jews who actually settled just across the sea from Ethiopia.   

Most Ethiopian Jews do not claim descent from King Solomon and Queen of Sheba, you are confused with Ethiopian Christians who claim that..   You are quoting the Ethiopian Christian Kebra Negast..  The Ethiopians have been interacting with the Jewish people since the time of Moses and many were multi-generation converts to Judaism and intermarried.  For example, when it talks about the Ethiopian who was friends with prophet Jeremiah and helped pull him out of the well. 

Considering the 1000s of years of migration in Galut across the globe, I cannot say that any one group of Jewish people is totally pure racially or ethnically.

[Binyamin Yisrael]

Yemenite Jews have a mesorah. They kept records of marriages, divorces, and conversion. They had valid Batei Din. All the "lost tribe" groups lack this and therefore require full conversion to become Jewish.

[Every Jew AK47]

Yemenite Jews have a mesorah. They kept records of marriages, divorces, and conversion. They had valid Batei Din. All the "lost tribe" groups lack this and therefore require full conversion to become Jewish.

So are many of the Jews during the Shoah and Inquisition who were forced to become Catholic and lost touch with their heritage now non-Jews??   If a child is taken from his Jewish parents, like placed in an orphanage and marries another Jewish woman frmo the same orphanage and grow up under a Catholic family, do their children need a conversion, once they find out they are of a Jewish ethnicity or background?

Speaking of which, considering the multi-generation of hedonistic Jews in Galut who also did not grow up with a mesorah, why are they any less obliged to under a conversion as well??  I suppose that may even include myself, since my parents were secular , non-practicing Jews..  Although my father was did have a bar mitzvah, he never taught me anything of Talmud or Mesorah and I had to learn myself later in life.  I also grew up around goyim and was influenced by them.

I guess this will become a very complicated subject, but to me, to refer to any group of people who are Jewish, yet cut off from mainstream Judaism, as non-Jews doesn't seem respectful to Am Yisrael who have been cut off and separated over the generations, especially in Galut.

Because much of the Beta Israel's history is passed orally from generation to generation, we may never truly know their origins. Four main theories exist concerning the beginnings of the Beta Israel community:

1) The Beta Israel may be the lost Israelite tribe of Dan.
2) They may be descendants of Menelik I, son of King Solomon and Queen Sheba.
3) They may be descendants of Ethiopian Christians and pagans who converted to Judaism centuries ago.
4) They may be descendants of Jews who fled Israel for Egypt after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and settled in Ethiopia.

Without regard as to which theory may actually be correct (and each theory has its support), the authenticity of the “Jewishness” of the community became an issue.

As early as the 16th century, Egypt's Chief Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Avi Zimra (Radbaz) declared that in Halachic (Jewish legal) issues, the Beta Israel were indeed Jews. In 1855, Daniel ben Hamdya, a member of the Beta Israel, was the first Ethiopian Jew to visit Israel, meeting with a council of rabbis in Jerusalem concerning the authenticity of the Beta Israel. By 1864, almost all leading Jewish authorities, most notably Rabbi Azriel Hildsheimer of Eisenstadt, Germany, accepted the Beta Israel as true Jews. In 1908 the chief rabbis of forty-five countries had heeded Rabbi Hildsheimer's call and officially recognized the Beta Israel as fellow Jews.

In reaffirming the Radbaz's position centuries before, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, Israel's Chief Sephardic Rabbi, stated in 1972, “I have come to the conclusion that Falashas are Jews who must be saved from absorption and assimilation. We are obliged to speed up their immigration to Israel and educate them in the spirit of the holy Torah, making them partners in the building of the Holy Land.”

In 1975, Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren wrote to the Beta Israel telling them, “You are our brothers, you are our blood and our flesh. You are true Jews.” Later that same year the Israeli Interministerial Commission officially recognized the Beta Israel as Jews under Israel's Law of Return, a law designed to aid in Jewish immigration to Israel. The Beta Israel were ready to come home.

Indeed, the Beta Israel were strictly observant in pre-Talmudic Jewish traditions. The women went to the mikvah, or ritual bath, just as observant Jewish women do to this day, and they continue to carry out ancient festivals, such as Seged, that have been passed down through the generations of Beta Israel. The Kesim, or religious leaders, are as widely revered and respected as the great rabbis in each community, passing the Jewish customs through storytelling and maintaining the few Jewish books and Torahs some communities were fortunate enough to have written in the liturgical language of Ge'ez.

[Dr. Dan]

Another interesting blurb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Jews

yeh yeh yeh..i know it's wikipedia.