Who Are Black Hebrew Israelites?

(RNS) — On Tuesday (Dec. 10), two individuals opened fire on a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey. The violent attack — which occurred shortly after the assailants allegedly killed a police officer in a nearby cemetery — ultimately left three bystanders dead and three people wounded, including two police officers.

Law enforcement authorities later announced they are treating the incident as a case of domestic terrorism and said the suspects — both of whom were killed in a shootout with police — were “fueled both by anti-Semitism and anti-law enforcement beliefs.”

Officials also noted that one of the suspects had posted anti-Semitic comments online and had ties with the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, a category that includes organizations labeled as hate groups and members who have voiced beliefs widely seen as anti-Semitic.

But just who are the Black Hebrew Israelites, and where did they come from?

According to Judith Weisenfeld, religion professor at Princeton University, the short answer is: It depends.

“There’s no such thing as ‘the’ Black Hebrew Israelites,” Weisenfeld, author of New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity During the Great Migration, told Religion News Service. “There are lots of different theological and political orientations within that broader umbrella.”

The movement, which typically does not associate itself with mainstream Judaism, has a long…