Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. ''This is our Red Sea:'' Exodusters, Prophet William Saunders
Crowdy, and the Beginnings of Black Israelism
2. ''Equivalent to Israelism'': Inheritance, Freemasonry, and the
Ancient Israelites
3. ''We are Israelites but not Jews:'' Orientalism and Israelism in
the Holiness-Pentecostal Movement
4. ''Our Only Hope, Our Only Salvation as a Race'' Rabbi Arnold
Josiah Ford, Ethiopianism, and African American Settlers in
Ethiopia
5. ''I Saw You Disappear with My Own Eyes'': Hidden Transcripts of
Rabbi Wentworth A. Matthew's Black Israelite Bricolage
Conclusion
Appendix: ''Short History of The Congregation BETH B'NAI ABRAHAM,
New York, N.Y.''
Bibliography
Jacob S. Dorman is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Department of American Studies at the University of Kansas.
"[A] delightfully readable intellectual history of Black Israelite
religion It will be a fascinating read for anyone interested in
African American religious history, especially that which lies
beyond the mainstream, and it has much to offer scholars interested
in the interplay of religion and culture in North America."--Marie
W. Dallam, Nova Religio
"Chosen People is a bold, compelling history of Black 'Israelite'
religions among African- descended people in places as far afield
as Kansas, Harlem, and Ethiopia. Highlighting Jewish, Christian,
and Muslim ideas and practices, the book explores the dynamic,
historically specific 'bricolage' that made Black Israelite
religions. It is a novel intervention in scholarly debates of
cultural change in the African diaspora, a must- read for scholars
of the
African diaspora, religious studies, and cultural
production."--Edda Fields-Black, American Historical
Association
"Chosen People is unique in placing Black Israelite religions in
the complex context of American history and is the most
comprehensive work of scholarship on this topic...No one attempting
to understand the rise of Black Israelite religions in America can
afford to do without Chosen People." --Jewish Review of Books
"Chosen People offers a fascinating look at Black Israelites,
people who resided in the interstices of groups and ideas we
commonly separate-Blacks and Jews, religion and politics, history
and identity, cultural theory and historical documentation,
Christians and Jews. Dorman situates his subjects in an incredibly
rich context, illuminating not only those African Americans who
believed in the blackness of the ancient Hebrews, but also the many
social,
political, and cultural forces operating in post-emancipation
African American history. It is fascinating reading for anyone
interested in American religion, history, or culture."--Cheryl
Greenberg, Paul E.
Raether Distinguished Professor of History, Trinity College
"Jacob Dorman has written a masterful (even paradigm-shifting) book
on Black Judaism, a genuine tour de force. Carefully combining a
close reading of primary artifacts/evidence with substantive
life-history interviews, critiques/re-readings of various secondary
literatures, and even a healthy dash of what I'd call a decidedly
ethnographic sensibility, Dorman has crafted a powerful and
meticulous portrait of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century
Black
Jewish leaders who institutionalized versions of Black Judaic
subjectivity in the United States that can still boast many
adherents all around the country and the world today. Chosen People
is an engaging and
thoughtful read for students and scholars of Jewish studies,
Africana studies, religious studies, and American history."--John
L. Jackson, Jr., Richard Perry University Professor of
Communication and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
"Jacob Dorman has not only established himself as the leading
historian on Black Israelites, but has made an immense contribution
to our understanding of the African Diaspora, religion and
modernity, and the vexing problem of cultural identity. The
research is prodigious, the scope impressive, and his telling of
how African-descended people embraced and transformed Judaism is
truly dynamic. Most importantly, Chosen People reminds us that
people are not
merely inheritors of tradition but its creators."--Robin D. G.
Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
"Jacob Dorman extends historical narratives of African American
religion beyond 'Black Jews' to the kinship between Black
Israelites, Ethiopians, Rastafarians, and Holiness-Pentecostal
Christians, with Freemasons, Conjurers and Mystic Scientists
forming a bricolage of ideational, rather than hereditary,
traditions. This is a fascinating study that shifts models of
African American cultural transmission and religious innovation
from 'roots' to 'rhizomes,' and
from 'syncretism' to 'polyculturalism.'" --Yvonne Chireau,
co-editor of Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with
Judaism
"Dorman's book draws an intricate web of connections between
Israelites, black Jews, Holiness, Pentecostal, and Anglo-Israelite
groups, all with a skilled reading of the meaning of religious
symbols." --Religion in American History
"Dorman provides an engaging study of the complex nature of the
creation and evolution of Black Israelite religions on the Great
Plains, in the great cities of all regions of the United States,
and as a result of the great migrations that carried practitioners
of these religions to other parts of the world. This significant
book makes a valuable contribution to the literature on cultural
synthesis and African American history." --The Journal of
American
History
"Chosen People: The Rise of the American Black Israelite Religions
is a refreshing shift in studies on the early formations of Black
religious life in the United States... By situating his study in
the thickness of American inequality and black peoples' of faith
search for meaning, Dorman offers readers a viewpoint of the
complex richness of Black religious experience and group formation
in the U.S. ... For that and many other reasons, Dorman's work
is
a must-read." --Pneuma
"Dorman's book is an impressive effort to write persuasively and
clearly about this complexity, to convey in historical language a
cultural process that is not rightly rendered through a sequential
chronology but is more accurately conveyed through the accrued
effect of whispers, images, metaphors, rites, and sermonic
dreams."--The Journal of Religion
Ask a Question About this Product More... |