Jews Vainly Search For The ‘Lost’ Tribes Of Israel In The Third World

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From Christians for Truth (CFT)
Jews Vainly Search For The 'Lost' Tribes Of Israel In The Third World
https://christiansfortruth.com/jews-vainly-search-for-the-lost-tribes-of-israel-in-the-third-world/

A recent article https://www.jpost.com/judaism/article-729707  describing the vain Jewish search for the Lost Tribes of Israel demonstrates not only that they can't even define what a "Jew" is  https://christiansfortruth.com/whoopi-goldbergs-demise-forces-jews-to-admit-they-dont-really-know-what-a-jew-is-or-what-anti-semitism-is/  — but also how they blindly and narcissistically conflate the definition of a "Jew" with "Israelite" which completely contradicts both the Old and New Testaments:

[CFT Note: we have edited the original lengthy, disjointed, and meandering JP article for the sake of focus and brevity. But for serious student of this subject, we suggest you follow the links about and read the article in its entirety.]

For millennia, the idea of the lost tribes of Israel has been a topic of intrigue for believers and non-believers alike. There is certainly no debate that following the destruction of the First Temple, most of the 12 tribes have been scattered across the globe. From the words of Israel's prophets to the tales of the Sambation River to this day, the question remains: Where did they go?

Well, that was anyone's best guess – until today. There is a group of people looking to uncover the truth behind the lost tribes in order to determine where they went and to integrate them back into the Jewish people.

What makes someone lost? That is the first question to explore. It appears there are three types of "lost" Jews: those claiming to be descendants of biblical tribes; those who converted decades or centuries ago; and those who have been forced to hide their Judaism due to fears of persecution...

...The Magazine spoke with [Rudy] Rochman during his latest trip to Africa, where he was filming episodes for his upcoming documentary "We Were Never Lost." Speaking from the Ivory Coast, he discussed the content of the documentary:

"Historically the nation of Israel consisted of 12 tribes, however today the Jewish people primarily descend from the Kingdom of Judea, which only consisted of two-and-a-half tribes: Yehuda, Benjamin and Levi... while the rest of the tribes and the majority of Israel were displaced by the Assyrians and dispersed around the world prior to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. This means if we found the descendants of the nine and a half tribes, we would be much more than the 15 million Jews we are today. This is not a myth. The question is where did they go?"

He continues about how he got involved in the project. "When I first found out there were Jews in Africa, I felt a sense of shock and the responsibility to connect with them. I asked myself: what if they had come to Israel first while we were still suffering in the Diaspora, wouldn't we want them to come help and recognize us?"

...The idea of conversion is a salient point in the discussion of "if" and "how" these communities will integrate into the wider Jewish people. Rabbi Eliahu Birnbaum, also known as the Yehudi Olami – "the wandering Jew" – is a world-renowned expert in the field of Jewish communities throughout the globe: lost tribes, descendants of Jews and emerging communities..

...Birnbaum's work has brought him to over 140 countries. According to him, we should be focusing on three groups: nidchei yisrael (descendants of Israel); zera yisrael (a child or grandchild of a Jewish man); and giyorim (converts).

...According to Birnbaum, the view on this group has historically been that they have Jewish blood, but he points out that the thinking is flawed: "You can go anywhere in the world and find people with some Jewish blood, but that does not necessarily make them Jewish," he says.

Rather, the term nidchei Yisrael refers to those with a spiritual connection to Judaism – in other words, spiritual descendants of the nation. To Birnbaum, this much is clear in their commitment to the Torah and mitzvot.

When Birnbaum approaches his work, he is coming from the angle of not "Who is a Jew?" but rather "What is the Jewish nation?"

"'Who is a Jew?' is a question for one person. We need to ask not a personal question but a general one. 'What is the Jewish nation?' More than anything, we have to introduce the question," he stressed. In solving it, he believes we will see that these three groups are indeed our brothers and sisters.

Birnbaum is unique in his outlook in that as a dayan, his approach goes beyond ideology and is deeply rooted in practicality. "It is clear that the only way they can join the Jewish nation is through giyur [conversion to Judaism]." What this looks like is unique to the individual, as for many it is just "finishing the process" as they are already learned in Torah and mitzvot.

Birnbaum, like everyone else the Magazine spoke with, says the reason they want to join the Jewish people is not because they want to be considered Jewish when the Messiah comes (as the Sages forbade converts during this time) or to make aliyah – it is purely spiritual.

This concept is perplexing at first glance, though when explored, it makes sense. "We live in the post-modern world where people are looking for something... There are many Christians who move to Islam, so maybe it's a rejection of Christian doctrine." He also says, "They always say it is so hard to be a Jew, but how is it that so many want to become one?" Though he laments, "Maybe we are not ready to accept them... we haven't opened our eyes to see something new." He believes this is part of a "galut (exile) mentality" that has plagued us since the Holocaust....

...To Greenspan, the idea of whether or not these tribes are "lost" is totally irrelevant: "We can never know for certain if they are a tribe or not – it would be very hard to prove that they are. What is most astounding is the mass acceptance of Judaism. Not just that, but the intensity and spirituality of these communities. There are thousands of truly learned Jews... quoting the Midrash and the Sages... They are learning and reading at the highest levels..."

...He calls the phenomenon "YouTube Judaism" because the advent of the Internet allowed those in remote places to learn more traditional Jewish practices. Greenspan maintains that from a halachic perspective, none of them will be accepted by mainstream Judaism unless they have converted.

What conversion actually means is a different story. "There are two conversions: national and social. You can go through an Orthodox conversion but still be rejected by the masses because of the color of your skin or the way you look... It is something that happens even today." What scares him is that "In 50 years, there could be millions of people who are shomer mitzvot and deal with antisemitism for being Jews, yet the State of Israel will never accept them... It is a very complicated and sad situation...."

...He holds that the most important aspect of the debate is "whether they are genuinely connected to Judaism today and living Jewish lives," though he acknowledges the latter is a wide-open debate....

...The major sticking point, according to those the Magazine spoke with, is the idea of aliyah. Almost everyone interviewed says that the fear that millions of people who may not actually be Jewish will all of a sudden become eligible to immigrate to Israel is the single biggest factor holding back recognition of these communities. Of course, at first glance, this appears to be a major problem, though the responses show that it is not as serious as previously thought.

...One of the main reasons for this is discrimination. As the majority of these Jews are black, Asian or South American, they do not look like "typical Jews." Of course, this can be easily explained by thousands of years of intermarriage and evolution, many having lived in different climates. Moreover, issues spill into Ashkenazi versus Sephardi culture, as most practice Sephardi traditions....

...Greenspan says, "Judaism is so colorful, it is like a tapestry... with threads going every direction. We should retain this tapestry." Rochman hopes his work can empower the next generation to be stronger in standing up for who we are as people, shift public perception, and spark a conversation about whether "our values and Torah are fundamental to our society." Rabbi Mordechai speaks poignantly about how this work can "emphasize to the world the diversity of the Jewish people and can help to combat antisemitism...."

Note the essential contradiction here — first they claim that the 12 Tribes of Israel were dispersed upon the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, but then they acknowledge that the dispersion began long before that event — and of course, the later is the truth.

The ten northern tribes of Israel began their dispersion during the Assyrian captivity around 700 BC — and they were never "Jews" — the so-called "Jews" as they are known in the New Testament are comprised only of Israelites of the southern kingdom from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi.

It is these "lost' Israelites of the ten northern tribes who are referred to in the New Testament as the "uncircumsized" — Israelites who had largely lost their identity as Israelites over the previous seven centuries since the Assyrian captivity.

Paul identifies the "uncircumcized" as Israelites dispersed among the nations who over time had become "alienated" from Israel in the past in Ephesians 2:

"Wherefore, remember, that ye were once the nations in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that called Circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that ye were at that time apart from Christ, having been alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope, and without God, in the world"

—Ephesians 2:11-12, Young's Literal Translation

We chose to use Young's Literal Translation here because it correctly translates the Greek apallotrioó ("apallotriomenoi") [see Strong's 526] more accurately as "having been alienated from" instead of the more ambiguous and misleading "being aliens from" or "excluded from" which does not convey the essential meaning that the Ephesians were not merely non-Israelite "gentiles" but rather uncircumcised Israelites from the ten northern tribes who had, over time, become "alienated" from that part of Israel who had keep the faith and traditions alive.

Without this understanding and context of these verses, we cannot truly understand the meaning of Ephesians 2:14, which clearly states that Christ came to remove the separation between these two factions of of the 12 tribes of Israel and reunited them under Him:

"For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us"

The truth and meaning of this crucial verse is intentionally muddied and obscured in the New Living Translation — a top-selling Bible among mainstream "judeo-Christians" — where it reads and extrapolates far beyond the original Greek text:

"For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us."

Again, these "uncircumcized" lost Israelites from the ten northern tribes are whom Paul describes in Romans 11 as the "wild olive" branches that had become "broken off" of the Israelite commonwealth — which is the "olive tree."

"And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree"

–Romans 11:17

Revelation 11 confirms that both the "olive tree" — Judean Israelites from the southern kingdom and the wild olive tree — the "lost" Israelites from the ten northern tribes will be reunited in the Kingdom of heaven on earth to come:

These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.

In other words, under Christ all twelve tribes of Israel would become reunited — and Israel from thereafter would be known as "Christians" as Justin Martyr stated,

"Christ is our King, and Christianity is our race which you knew once as Israel."

–Justin Martyr, 100-160 AD, from Paragraphs of Trypho chapter 135.

And we know that the "lost" ten northern tribes of Israel migrated up into Europe via two routes — through the "Pass of Israel" of the Caucasus Mountains, which is why Europeans are also known as "Caucasians" — and via the sea, across the Mediterranean to Tarshish (Celtic Iberia-Spain), and then from there up to the British Isles and Ireland.

Note how the Jews in search of these "lost" tribes of Israel limit their search for "Jews" only — not Israelites who gave up all practices and rituals of the Hebrews — which the Jews cling to as the basis for their "Israelite" identity.

That's because apostate Jews broke their covenant with God by making marriages to forbidden, non-Adamic races — and switched their "Jewish" identity from patrilineal to martilineal descent — thus making any claim to an Israelite bloodline illegitimate.

And they admitted this was, in fact, the case in the 1980 Jewish Almanac when they wrote,

"Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a Jew or to call a contemporary Jew an Israelite or a Hebrew."

And in the above-cited article on their search for the lost tribes of Israel, the Jews admit that "it would be very hard to prove" any connection with Africans to the legitimate bloodline of the original tribes — a gross understatement if there ever were one.

So to determine who is a real Jew, they ironically adopt the same cop out that judeo-Christians have adopted to determine Christian identity — by coming up with the vague and meaningless concept of "spiritual Judaism" or "spiritual Jews."

And their spurious explanation of how Jews became every color of the rainbow — through "thousands of years of intermarriage and evolution, many having lived in different climates" — is just as nonsensical as how mainstream judeo-Christians attempt to explain how we got all the races and ethnicities on the face of the earth from two racially pure and identical progenitors — either Adam and Eve or Noah and his wife.

This bogus and futile Jewish search for the lost tribes of Israel among Third World non-Adamics or pre-Adamics can find its origins in the spurious 1650 book The Hope Of Israel by a Portuguese Jew named Menasseh Ben Israel.

This search for "lost Jews" is not in anyway the same as the search for lost Israelites — Jews are not Israelites, and Israelites are not Jews — and Jews need to get off this insane hamster wheel and accept that reality.