Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. By Jackson John L., Jr.

Abstract

In this work, John Jackson sets for himself three goals and objectives, namely: “to capture a bit of the design and architecture of the Kingdom's intricately interwoven beliefs, along with the journeys of some of its believers, to make some small sense of the complicated ways in which the AHIJ (African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem) practices and practitioners rehearse and recalibrate a set of ongoing questions about the links between race and spirituality, and to highlight emergent concerns about the challenges of conducting social research today, even and especially research on groups already researching themselves” (12–13). One of the first questions many readers are sure to have is, “how generalizable is this project to Black Jews?” According to Jackson, even though many black Jews claim nothing in common with the AHIJ, their story often resonates with the tales of African Hebrew Israelites, which increases the relevance of this work and should force us to think more broadly about the ways history and race affect Israel and Judaism.