After decades of struggle in Israel, dozens of African Hebrew Israelites face deportation

Riddick3001@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 75 points –
After decades of struggle in Israel, dozens of African Hebrew Israelites face deportation
apnews.com
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Pointers:

The Hebrew Israelites, as the spiritual community’s members are commonly known, first made their way to Israel from the United States in the 1960s. While members do not consider themselves Jewish, they claim an ancestral connection to Israel.

The Hebrew Israelites believe they are descendants of the biblical tribes of Israel who, after the Roman conquest in 70 A.D., fled down the Nile and west into the African interior and were ultimately taken as slaves to North America centuries later.

They observe an interpretation of biblical laws formulated by their late founder that includes strict veganism, abstention from tobacco and hard alcohol, fasting on the Sabbath, polygamy, and a ban on wearing synthetic fabrics.

In 2015, about 130 of them without documentation submitted requests for residency rights, claiming that authorities had reneged on earlier promises to legalize their status.

The Interior Ministry rejected the requests in 2021 and issued deportation orders to 49 people. Four left the country, while the remaining 45 appealed. The rest remain in legal limbo.

Ed. Corrected. 2nd Par. was duplicate, is now replaced.

Are these the same Israelites as in the Desmond Dekker song?

the same Israelites as in the Desmond Dekker song?

Needed to checkout the song, I suppose you mean " Israelites "?
I saw it was by Rastafarian singers. So there's definitely a connection.

Whether they are the same people is an important question; they seem to consider themselves part of the 12 tribes it seems.

That's the one, people mishear it as 'my ears are alight' :)

my ears are alight'.

Haha.. my ears could be better though. I always need to check the lyrics, or I end up making stuff up.

I guess these people were too quiet and out of the way to deserve an Israeli life? Away with them.

Is deportation from Israel considered a bad thing by anyone at this point?

Would you consider the government taking all your possessions and your home and telling you to go to another random country you’ve never been to a bad thing

I think if you spend your life believing ridiculous nonsense, prompting you to live in a country run by corrupt goons, a country with laws that allow them to do stuff like this, you shouldn't be surprised when it happens.

That's not what you said, although "they deserved it" is a much worse take so I'll give you that

I was playing off the fact that Israel is about to become a full-blown dictatorship (duh). Sucks to be these people, sure.

I don't see them all that differently than idiot anti-vaxxers dropping dead of COVID, or wacko 7th Day Adventist no blood transfusion morons dying of an infected finger going septic.