Tudor Parfitt

Last updated

University of Toronto
Tudor Parfitt
Born (1944-10-10) 10 October 1944 (age 79)
Wales
NationalityBritish
Occupations
  • Historian
  • writer
  • broadcaster
  • traveller
  • adventurer
Academic background
Education Loughborough Grammar School
Alma mater University of Oxford (D.Phil.)

Tudor Parfitt (born 10 October 1944) [1] is a British historian, writer, broadcaster, traveller and adventurer. [2] He specialises in the study of Jewish communities and Judaising communities around the world, particularly in Africa, Asia and the Americas and the development of issues about the construction of race.

Contents

Parfitt is emeritus professor of modern Jewish studies in the University of London at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he was the founding director of the Centre for Jewish Studies. He is now senior associate fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He is corresponding senior fellow of the Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer, Koninklijke Academie voor Overzeese Wetenschappen, Belgium and is on the board as chair of the academic advisory committee of the Paris-based Projet Aladin and is on the Committee of Experts of the New York-based Global Hope Coalition. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in the United Kingdom. He was appointed distinguished professor at Florida International University in 2012 and distinguished university professor in 2018. He is alumni fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard College. In 2011 he gave the Nathan Huggins Lectures at Harvard College, which were published by Harvard University Press.

Early life and education

Parfitt was born in Wales in 1944, the son of Vernon (a headmaster) and Margaret (Sears) Parfitt. [1] He was educated at Loughborough Grammar School in Leicestershire, England. In 1963-4 he spent a gap year with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in Jerusalem, where he worked with handicapped people, some of whom were Holocaust survivors. [3] Upon his return to Britain, he studied Hebrew and Arabic at the University of Oxford and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1968 he was awarded the Goodenday Fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He completed a D.Phil. at Oxford with David Patterson and Albert Hourani, on the history of the Jews in Palestine and their relations with their Muslim neighbours. He expanded it for publication by the Royal Historical Society.

Academic career and Journeys

In 1972 Parfitt was appointed lecturer in Hebrew language, literature and history at the University of Toronto, Canada. In 1974 he was appointed Parkes Fellow at the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations at the University of Southampton in England. Shortly afterward, he took up a lectureship in Modern Hebrew at SOAS. His first body of work interrogated the nature of the revival of the Hebrew language.

Throughout the 1980s, Parfitt undertook covert lecture tours to Jewish Refusenik groups in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. In 1985 he spent several months visiting the various Jewish communities of Asia - including Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. In Japan he interested the Emperor's brother, Prince Mikasa, in the Jewish communities of the East. [4] In 1987 he was asked by the Jewish community of Singapore to write an official history of the island's Jews. That same year he visited Syria to write about the situation of its Jewish community for the Minority Rights Group. He was arrested by the Syrian secret police, the Mukhabarat, during his trip. He describes these events in his first travel book, The Thirteenth Gate. His second travel book, Journey to the Vanished City (1992) describes his six-month journey across Africa. In the early 1990s, Parfitt conducted fieldwork in Yemen, researching its ancient Jewish community, and wrote a book on the subject. In The Road to Redemption, he said that the Yemenite Jews had emigrated to Israel as a result of extreme prejudice, persecution, legal disabilities and because of the rapidly changing economy of the Indian Ocean region. He also researched and presented a BBC documentary called The Last Exile on this subject. In 2002 he published his Lost Tribes of Israel: the History of a Myth. One of his themes is that the creation of Israelite and Judaic identities throughout the world, from the Americas to Papua New Guinea, was an innate feature of Western colonialism. Constructing unknown peoples as Jews was an insidious means of controlling them. In addition such constructed identities served as a means of explaining a wide range of religious and cultural manifestations. In some cases the colonial effort was supported by the idea that indigenous cultures were descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel. His interest in far-flung Jewish Judaising communities has led him to travel to Papua New Guinea, Madagascar and Central and South America. His work on marginal Jewish communities and aspiring Jewish communities throughout the world led to his being consulted by a Knesset select committee which eventually argued that the State of Israel should formulate new policies to address the aspirations of these 'lost tribes'. [5]

African Judaism

Parfitt has been the pioneer of the study of Judaism and Judaising movements in Africa. [6] In 1984 Parfitt was commissioned by the London-based Minority Rights Group to write a report on the Ethiopian Jews who had fled Ethiopia. They had migrated to escape persecution and famine, but were dying in large numbers in the refugee camps along the border between the Sudan and Ethiopia. His visits to the camps coincided with Israel's Operation Moses, which rescued thousands of Ethiopian Jews and took them to Israel. Parfitt's book on the operation Operation Moses was translated into many languages. He later was selected as the vice-president of the Society for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry (SOSTEJE).

Subsequently, he turned his attention to another black and apparently Jewish group: the Lemba tribe of southern Africa. They claimed descent from some ancient Jewish population. He published Journey to the Vanished City (1992) about his six-month journey throughout Africa. In a subsequent edition he traced the origins of the tribe to the eastern end of the Hadhramaut in Yemen. There he discovered the ancient city of Sena and the possible origins of the tribe in some migrating Jewish traders. Seeking more data, in 1996 and later years Parfitt organised Y-DNA studies of Lemba males. These found a high proportion of paternal Semitic ancestry, DNA that is common to both Arabs and Jews from the Middle East. [7] The work confirmed that the male line had descended from a few ancestors from southern Arabia. In recognition of this work, he was made corresponding fellow of the Académie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer.TV programs about the discoveries, and major newspaper coverage, brought Parfitt international attention.In 2000 e appeared on '60 Minutes' produced by CBS. [8] He was nicknamed the British 'Indiana Jones,' after the film character. [9]

The Lemba have a tradition of having brought a drum, or ngoma, from the Middle East centuries ago. Parfitt noted that their description of the ngoma was similar to that of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant. He observed that rabbinic sources maintain that there were two Arks of the Covenant: one the ceremonial Ark, covered with gold, which was eventually placed in the Holy of Holies in the Temple; the other the Ark of War, which had been carved from wood by Moses and was a relatively simple object. Parfitt proposed that the Ark of War may have been taken by Jews across the Jordan River and, citing Islamic sources, suggests that they perhaps carried it as they migrated south, while under rule by Arab tribes. The Lemba claim to have brought their ark/ngoma from Arabia at some point in the past. In 2007, Parfitt discovered an object he claimed was an ancient copy of the original ngoma. [10] Parfitt wrote The Lost Ark of the Covenant: Solving the 2,500 Year Old Mystery of the Fabled Biblical Ark (2008), documenting his findings. Associated documentaries were aired on Channel Four and the History Channel. The BBC reported that the discovery of the ngoma "instilled pride among many of the Lemba". [11] In 2010 Parfitt was invited to address a symposium in Harare on the subject; attendees included the cabinet and vice-president John Nkomo. The ngoma has been exhibited at the Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences. [12] Parfitt subsequently wrote about Judaising movements elsewhere in Africa [13] and in 2020 described how knowledge of Black Jewish communities in Africa and particularly the community in Loango had a decisive impact on the development of race theory during the Enlightenment and later. [14] Parfitt's pioneering work has contributed to the expanding study of the spread of Judaism and Judaising movements throughout the African continent. [15]

Other work

Parfitt has a particular interest in eastern Jewish communities. He collected DNA which helped unravel the complex history of the Bene Israel community of western India. [16] He did archival work on the Jews of Singapore and has recently worked with communities in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. [17] Parfitt's other academic interests have been: the Sephardi/Mizrahi communities of the Muslim world, Jewish-Muslim relations, Hebrew and Hebrew Literature, Judaising movements, Jewish genetic identity and the discourses surrounding it, and Jews in Asia and Africa. He has published widely on the margins of the Jewish world. [18] More recently he has written on general issues concerning the history of racial constructs. His widely reviewed book on the history of race as it affects Jews and Blacks — Hybrid Hate: Conflations of Antisemitism & Anti-Black Racism from the Renaissance to the Third Reich — was published by Oxford University Press in 2020. [19] [20]

Parfitt has published over 100 articles and written, edited or translated 32 books which have been translated into fifteen languages.

Publications

Books

Documentaries

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ark of the Covenant</span> Chest containing the Ten Commandments

The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, is a purported religious storage and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lemba people</span> Ethnic group in Southern Africa

The Lemba, Remba, or Mwenye are an ethnic group which is native to South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe of mixed Bantu and Yemeni heritage. Within South Africa, they are particularly concentrated in the Limpopo province and the Mpumalanga province.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bene Israel</span> Jewish community in the Indian subcontinent

The Bene Israel, also referred to as the "Shanivar Teli" or "Native Jew" caste, are a community of Jews in India. It has been suggested that they are the descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes via their ancestors who had settled there centuries ago. Starting in the second half of the 18th century, after they were taught about normative Sephardi Judaism, they migrated from villages in the Konkan region where they had previously lived to nearby cities throughout British India—primarily to Mumbai where their first synagogue opened in 1796 but also to Pune, Ahmedabad, and Karachi, where they gained prominent positions within the British colonial government and the Indian Army.

Throughout history, various groups of people have considered themselves to be the chosen people of a deity, for a particular purpose. The phenomenon of "chosen people" is well known among the Israelites and Jews, where the term originally referred to the Israelites as being selected by Yahweh to worship only him and to fulfill the mission of proclaiming his truth throughout the world. Some claims of chosenness are based on parallel claims of Israelite ancestry, as is the case for the Christian Identity and Black Hebrew sects—both which claim themselves to be the "true Israel". Others claim that the concept is spiritual, where individuals who genuinely believe in God are considered to be the "true" chosen people. This view is common among most Christian denominations, who historically believed that the church replaced Israel as the people of God.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Africa</span>

African Jewish communities include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beta Israel</span> Jewish community associated with modern-day Ethiopia

The Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews, are an African community of the Jewish diaspora. They coalesced in the Kingdom of Aksum and the Ethiopian Empire, which is currently divided between the Amhara Region and Tigray Region in modern-day Ethiopia. After the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, most of the Beta Israel immigrated to Israel or were evacuated from Africa through several initiatives by the Israeli government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Falash Mura</span> A group of Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity

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The Bene EphraimBnei Ephraim, also called Telugu Jews because they speak Telugu, are a small community living primarily in Kotha Reddy Palem, a village outside Chebrolu, Guntur District, and in Machilipatnam, Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh, India, near the delta of the River Krishna. They claim to be descendants of the Tribe of Ephraim, of the Ten Lost Tribes, and since the 1980s have learned to practice modern Judaism.

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References

  1. 1 2 "Parfitt, Tudor (Vernon) 1944", Encyclopedia.com
  2. ↑ Barnett, Ryan. "Tudor Parfitt". AskMen. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  3. ↑ Mora Dickson, Israeli Interlude, Dennis Dobson Ltd.; Illustrated edition (1966)
  4. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Parfitt, T. (1987) The Thirteenth Gate: Travels among the Lost Tribes of Israel. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
  5. ↑ Parfitt, Tudor; Fisher, Netanel (2016). Becoming Jewish: new Jews and emerging Jewish communities in a globalized world. Cambridge Scholars. ISBN   978-1-4438-9965-9. OCLC   959330137.
  6. ↑ DEVIR, NATHAN P. “JUDAIC AFRICA - Black Jews in Africa and the Americas. By Tudor Parfitt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. Pp. Xiii+225. $29.95, Hardback (ISBN 9780674066984).” Journal of African history. 56.1 (2015): 173–174. Web.
  7. ↑ Parfitt, T.; Egorova, Y. (1 March 2006). Genetics, mass media and identity : a case study of the genetic research on the Lemba and Bene-Israel. London: Routledge. ISBN   978-0-415-37474-3.
  8. ↑ ""60 Minutes" Different Kind of Governor/The Dirty War/The Lemba (TV Episode 2000) - IMDb". IMDb .
  9. ↑ "Tudor Parfitt's Remarkable Quest". www.pbs.org. 22 February 2000. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  10. ↑ Van Biema, David (21 February 2008). "A Lead on the Ark of the Covenant". Time. Archived from the original on 25 February 2008.
  11. ↑ "Lost Jewish tribe 'found in Zimbabwe'". BBC News. 8 March 2010.
  12. ↑ "Zimbabwe displays 'Biblical Ark'". BBC News. 18 February 2010.
  13. ↑ Parfitt, Tudor ( 2013) Black Jews in Africa and the Americas, Harvard University Press
  14. ↑ Parfitt, Tudor (2020) Hybrid Hate: Conflations of Anti-Black Racism and Anti-Semitism from the Renaissance to the Third Reich. New York: Oxford University Press.
  15. ↑ Devir, Nathan P., 'Propagating Modern Jewish Identity in Madagascar: A Contextual Analysis of One Community’s Discursive Strategies', in Simon J. Bronner, and Caspar Battegay (eds), Connected Jews: Expressions of Community in Analogue and Digital Culture (Liverpool, 2019; online edn, Liverpool Scholarship Online, 25 Feb. 2021)
  16. ↑ Parfitt T, Egorova Y. Genetics, history, and identity: the case of the Bene Israel and the Lemba. Cult Med Psychiatry. 2005 Jun;29(2):193-224. doi: 10.1007/s11013-005-7425-4. PMID 16249950.
  17. ↑ Parfitt, Tudor (2005) 'The development of Fictive Israelite Identities in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific (17th-21stC).' Généalogies revées special issue of Diasporas histoire et sociétés, 5 . pp. 49-56
  18. ↑ Parfitt, Tudor and Fisher N. (editor). (2016). Joining the Jewish People: New Jews and Emerging Jewish Communities in a Globalised World, Cambridge Scholars’ Press.
  19. ↑ Hybrid Hate: Conflations of Antisemitism & Anti-Black Racism from the Renaissance to the Third Reich (First ed.). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. 2020. ISBN   978-0-19-008333-5.
  20. ↑ Bush, Stephen (12 July 2023). "The search for a new language about race". Financial Times. Retrieved 15 August 2023.
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