The Black Hebrew Israelite (BHI) movement is a collection of groups that emerged in the late 19th century in the United States among African Americans who believe that they are descended from the ancient Israelites. Some BHI groups consider themselves to be the only true Jews, while others have a more syncretic theology that includes elements of Christianity, Freemasonry, and the New Thought movement that emerged at around the same time.
In 1886, Frank Cherry founded the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations. His teachings incorporated the Talmud and preached that Jesus would return in the year 2000. Cherry taught that the earth was “square” and “surrounded by three layers of heaven.” Prayers during his services required facing toward Jerusalem and included no music. Cherry’s rhetoric was biased against traditional Jews, which remains common in many BHI groups.
A decade after Cherry founded his church, William Saunders Crowdy established the Church of God and Saints of Christ. His form of BHI theology was closer to messianic Judaism, blending elements of Christianity with a self-identified Israelite identity. Other BHI congregations were founded in the early 20th century, with particularly strong presences in New York and other northeastern cities with large Black and West Indian migrant populations.
By the mid-1980s, the estimated Black Hebrew Israelite population in the United States ranged between 25,000 and 40,000 individuals. These congregations adopted features reminiscent of traditional Black church communities while integrating Jewish customs and liturgy. The most significant of these groups was the One West Camp, founded in Harlem in the mid-1970s. One West members became recognized for their public street ministry, often wearing elaborate costumes like capes and leather garments meant to visually represent ancient Israelites in a modern urban context.
One West seized on nascent cable television to pioneer public access television shows and also filmed confrontational street preaching in order to gain media attention. The group developed its own modified form of Hebrew, claiming that it was the true ancient form of the language that had been received through divine revelation.
In addition to focusing on African Americans, One West preachers identified other groups as Israelite descendants: Puerto Ricans as the Tribe of Ephraim and Native Americans as the Tribe of Gad. They taught that hardships faced by these groups were consequences of straying from God’s commandments, and that they could only overcome these trials by recognizing and embracing their lost Israelite identity.
One West groups became increasingly aggressive in their street preaching in the 1990s, loudly taunting and harassing passersby in heavily trafficked areas with racist, homophobic, and antisemitic slurs. In 1998, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani banned BHI street preaching in Times Square. The group, with support from the ACLU, successfully sued the city and received a $59,000 settlement.
After the predicted end of the world in 2000 did not come, One West underwent repeated schisms. One of the most visible One West groups today is the House of Israel, headquartered in New York and particularly active in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The House of Israel came to national attention in January 2019, when a group preaching at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington got into a confrontation with Catholic high school students from Kentucky who were wearing red caps supporting President Donald Trump. Video of the confrontation went viral on social media after a Native American man stepped in to try to defuse the situation.
The Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center both condemned the House of Israel after the incident. The ADL has said that “some, but not all,” Black Hebrew Israelites are “outspoken anti-Semites and racists.” The SPLC has classified 144 BHI organizations as Black separatist hate groups with antisemitic ideologies.
In December 2019, two individuals linked to a BHI group killed a police detective and three others at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey, and two weeks later, a man whose journals contained references to BHI teachings carried out a machete attack on Orthodox Jews in New York.
In 2022, NBA player Kyrie Irving was suspended for promoting the film “Hebrew to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” which advances antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jews and Black identity. Rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) and actor Nick Cannon have also publicly expressed views similar to those espoused by BHI factions.
Key Sources:
Blistein, J. (2022, November 4). Kyrie Irving boosts antisemitic movie peddling ‘Jewish Slave Ships.’ Rolling Stone.
Dean, M. M. (2014, October 19). Superior Court rules in favor of controversial street preachers. The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Dorman, J. S. (2013). Chosen people: The Rise of American Black Israelite Religions. Oxford University Press, USA.
Kestenbaum, S. (2019, January 23). Who are the Black Israelites at the center of the viral standoff at the Lincoln Memorial? The Washington Post.
Könighofer, M. (2008). The new ship of Zion: Dynamic Diaspora Dimensions of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. LIT Verlag Münster.
Miller, M. T. (2024). Black Hebrew Israelites. Cambridge University Press.
Thrasher, S. (2011, March 30). Black Hebrew Israelites: New York’s most obnoxious prophets. The Village Voice.
Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religious Movements 