Search for the Sons of Abraham begins in one of Africa’s
least comfortable towns, the smoky sprawl that is Soweto. This is journey’s
end for remnants of the Lemba tribe and the beginning of a quest to retrace
the footsteps of this community. The Lemba, a proud and cohesive people, have
no clear idea of how they came to Africa in the first place. They claim their
spiritual home is a place called Sena. Yet they have no idea where Sena is,
nor when it was they left it. But what they do hold to most fiercely is the
idea that they are Africa's 'Black Jews'.
Anthropologist and linguist Tudor Parfitt has investigated
many peoples who have claimed to be lost Jewish tribes. From his own
observations, he believes that some truth may underlie the Lemba's belief that
they are one of these. Yet, as he says: 'There is no evidence of any
colonisation of sub-Saharan Africa by Jews. If the Lemba were proven to be
Jewish, it would open up new chapters in Jewish and world history.'
Tudor decides to follow the Lemba trail backwards, with a
twofold quest in mind. He will try to find their seemingly mythical
homelandSena, but armed with a genetic sampling kit, he will also harness the
, latest DNA techniques to prove their origins taking cell samples from the
inner . This method, based on cheek, is only possible because of an
extraordinary discovery made in the Centre for Genetic Anthropology at the
University College London in 1997, when a team led by Neil Bradman identified
a unique genetic marker on the Y chromosome of certain Jewish males. This
'signature' seems to have been passed on from father to son among descendants
of Jewish priests who later came to have the surnames Cohen and Cohan'As a
population, we were able to ; collectively these men are known as the Cohenim.
Bradman explains: differentiate priests from nonpriesthood over a considerable
period of -priests, and this is consistent with the maintenance of an
hereditary time.'
Bradman’s colleague, geneticist David Goldstein of Oxford
University, carried the research a stage further and was able to date the
Cohenim marker. He proved that this unique genetic signature on the Y
chromosomes of some Jewish male Cohens had been passed down from father to son
from the days of Aaron and Moses. Goldstein identified the importance of the
discovery: 'We can test the origins of particular groups that seem potentially
to have a connection to an ancestral Jewish population.' Just as the role of
priest was inherited, so was the DNA pattern passed from father to son,
generation after generation.
Tudor’s taking of DNA samples from the Lemba will be the
first time this technique has been used to test the origins of a tribe
claiming to be Jewish, subjecting their genes to scientific scrutiny. In
essence, using this unique marker as a measure, Tudor will try to discover
whether the Lemba's claim to be Jewish has any foundation.
He is able to get cell samples from the Lemba community in
Soweto and from another in Zimbabwe. He also notes that the Lemba people are
divided into clans with names that, as a linguist, Tudor is unable to
recognise as coming from any African language. In addition, he is told that no
non-Lemba man has ever been allowed to become a Lemba, further ensuring the
purity of the genetic line.
After travelling on to Great Zimbabwe, the impressive medieval
centre that, say the Lemba, they helped to build, Tudor goes on to the
war-torn town of Sena on the Zambezi in Mozambique, but can find no evidence
that this was the place so revered by the Lemba. However, his proximity to the
coast gives him an idea. In ancient times, ships from southern Arabia sailed
as far south as this – perhaps the Lemba travelled that way, too?
Yemen is Tudor's next port of call, and a visit to a library
in the interior leads to the discovery of the virtually unknown town of Sena
at the end of a deep wadi far in the desert, a place rarely marked on maps.
Battling through the mud left behind by unusual flash floods, and accompanied
by armed gunmen to discourage tribal kidnappers, he finally reaches this Sena.
Although there is no graffiti saying, 'The Lemba were here!',
Tudor reckons that it is highly likely that this is where they came from. Not
only is it known that there were Jewish communities in the Arabian peninsula
in ancient times, but all but one of the Lemba's clan names are well-known
here. He takes DNA samples from some of the local population on the off-chance
that they will show some connection with the Lemba.
In the end, they did not, but this is not true of the samples
taken in Africa. Genetic markers are found that link the Lemba with the Jews
of Israel. But even more spectacularly, the unique priestly Cohenim marker is
found in the priest clan of the Lemba. This discovery makes it almost sure
that the Lemba are indeed one of the Lost Tribes of Israel.
Directed by Chris Hale
Edited by David G Hill
A Cicada Films Production for Channel 4 - To the Ends of the
Earth
