The Igbo Jews And The Questions of Genetics & Culture

We will try to keep this as simple as possible so that persons without knowledge of deep sciences
will be able to understand us with ease.

As studies of DNA became popular as one of the tools for identifying the beginnings or origins
of ethnicities we the Igbo were fascinated but generally we just watched, because among other
reasons, we have rock solid evidence about who we are. Just the word or phrase for Igbo culture
“Ome na ana”, our rituals, beliefs, language, archaeological, agricultural, architectural styles, and
history tell our story definitively. We are Semites! We are Hebrews! We are Israelites! We are
Jews! Most non Igbo Jews learn from immersion into Igbo studies that the core essence of the
Jewish way of life, as described, defined and compiled in the Torah, is what the Igbos call the
Igbo culture-Ome na ana. Translated into English Ome na ana means “things, laws, customs,
morals, traditions that are to be observed in the land.” As the Hebrew leader Moses prepared to
leave his beloved people he told Israel repeatedly that “everything that the Lord had told them
are the things that they must do in the land that they are going into to possess.” Films that discuss
the subject have been available for many years. Also books that discuss the Igbos origins from
Israel, by Igbos and non Igbos have been available for centuries, and they are readily available.
The most definitive are The Igbos And Israel: An Inter-cultural Study of the Largest Jewish
Diaspora and Israel’s Odyssey In Deep Africa: Setting The Stage For The Other Jewish History,
by lawyer and scholar Remy Ilona.

We would not go into how our history was distorted, and what did not reflect the facts about us
presented about us for years here. That is another story for another occasion.
We followed reports about many DNA analyses with much interest, but we did not want to be
distracted with that as we had and still have a much more important job to do: restoring the
16,000 square miles that is Igbo territory and the Igbo people to what they were before we were
attacked, defeated and colonized by the greatest empire that has existed in the world, the British
Empire. And as Remy Ilona sums it up, breathing life back into the maybe up to 900,000
communal ‘obi’ (synagogues) in Igboland that are defunct presently. However we could not stop
every Igbo from having their genes analyzed. So we were not surprised so much when California
based Igbo lawyer and founder of the Igbo group Igboville- Emeka Maduewesi turned in the
report that follows-

“Jewish, Egyptian or Igbo DNA?

DNA analysis of the mummy of Pharoah Rameses III and his son declares that they possessed
the E1b1a gene. This gene connects the sub-Saharan to the Ancient Egyptians. The fact that
Pharoah Rameses III possessed the E1b1a gene is very significant because it reveals the
association between the ancient Egyptians and the sub-Saharan Africans who have been
identified as the Israelites.

I, Emeka Maduewesi, of Obiuno Otolo Nnewi, Anambra State, is of the same E1b1a gene, The
E1b1a gene is a split of the parent E-Haplogroup of the Y-DNA Tree. The other split is the
E1b1b. Y-DNA is passed from father to son. When the Hebrews were in Egypt, the Bible says in
Genesis 47:11, "And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the
land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded."

Back to the Y-DNA, the two splits of the E-Gene, E1b1a and, E1b1b together with I and J gene
are carried by Jews. Albert Einstein belonged to haplogroup E1b1b. Many Jewish Ashkenazi
with E1b1a are very white. The E1b1a haplogroup is highly concentrated in Southern Nigeria,
with the highest concentration of its E1b1a1a1f1a subclade in Igboland.”
This report scrutinized in details opens up history again. The Igbos have oral traditions that
indicate that they have Israelite origins. Igbo rituals and other aspects of Igbo culture support
this. As have been pointed out and documented in numerous studies there are also Igbo oral
traditions that mention names of Hebrew ancestors, and that discuss Israelite migrations. And
Igbo folk-lore discuss times and events that took place in a location that suffered from droughts.
The Land of Israel suffered droughts repeatedly. Droughts and threatened famines set the stages
for some momentous events that took place in the national life of the Hebrew people. The great
drought that threatened the family of Israel propelled Jacob (Israel) to relocate his family to
Egypt, to team up with the branch of Israel that his second to last and favorite son Joseph had
established there. Ruth the noble Moabitess joined the Israelites because she met and married an
Israelite man who had moved to Moab with his family when drought and famine threatened
Israel.

Some other Nigerian groups also maintain that they have ancestral ties in the Near East. The
Hausa people say that a man called Bayajidda, from Baghdad was their forebear. The Yoruba
have oral traditions that they are related to the ancient Egyptians. Some state that they are related
to the figure identified as Nimrod in the Bible. Some assert that they are a branch of the
Canaanites that once lived on the land before the Israelites returned from Egypt.

The following submitted by Yoruba writer M. Kayode Oladale Molake

is illustrative: ‘Following the deluge, after a few thousand years with the kingdom under water
and under deserts, other people, including the Hebrew, invaded with confidence to take over the
land gradually because the great king was gone. The Canaanites scattered under different names
to hide because of persecution, genocide, splinter groups and within group fighting. One group
became Yoruba, which was 'Yerubbaal' -- the 'People of Baal'…, the word 'Baal' was absorbed
from the Canaanite into Hebrew to mean 'lord or master of the house' and it is the same as 'baale'
in Yoruba. The (Yoruba) people further changed the identity of Baal to Shango. Please make the
effort to go to a good museum where you can find the drawing of the Canaanite God Baal and
compare it with any statue of Shango. And for that matter, we should compare the sculptures and
arts of the Canaanites (Phoenicians) with that of the Yoruba, Benin, Asante (Ashanti) and others
for similarities1.’

There is much in this write-up and general Yoruba cultural studies that deserve serious
consideration. As the writer noted, the Yoruba, and the Bini (Benin) are uncommonly close in
culture. The casual observer in Nigeria will notice the linguistic and cultural similarities between
both groups. And for that matter between them and some other Nigerian groups like the Itsekiri,
the Igala, and the Hausa whom their oral traditions list the Yoruba as a related group. Notably
traditionally their political heads like the Pharaohs, and the kings of the Canaanites are also
divine or semi divine. The following piece about the Yoruba by Darren Idongesit Aquaisua, a
Nigerian social critic is very illustrative: ‘….Automatically the Ooni is a human-god and [from]
the little Yoruba history and Ifa tradition that I’ve studied the Ooni has always been the master of
the universe, and lord of all lords……2’

Remarkably most of these groups have traditions about sojourns in the Near East. However Afro-
centrism which rose to counter Euro-centrism ensured that these traditions were shamed and
suppressed because to the Afrocentric any hint that sub-Saharan Africans had connections to the
Near East was an admission that there was something of value in any place outside of the land of
the ‘blacks’ (sub-Saharan Africa) in ancient times. But curiously the Afrocentric is quick to claim
Egypt as ‘black.’ And many studies have informed us that people with features that are like the
features that are common in sub-Saharan Africa presently, lived in the Near East in ancient times.

Studies of DNA, cultural studies and history are also lending credence to the narratives of the
Bible, which among other things situate the Near East as the region in which history began. This
is not to say that there was no prehistoric period, as there certainly was one, in which among
other things, the prehistoric ancestors of modern man left what became Africa and moved to
other parts of the world.
These reports and close study of them also lend credence to the Bible narratives that state that
there was a family which repopulated the world, after the Deluge. This family which was headed
by a figure known as Noah had three sons known as Shem, Ham, and Japhet. The first, Shem
was a progenitor of the Hebrew people. The second Ham was a progenitor of the Egyptians and
Canaanites. These men and their brother Japhet definitely spoke one language. Careful reasoning
informs us that their descendants who were one people if we go far back enough to Noah, would
also have much similarities in language and genes. Accordingly we would expect the Israelite,
the Arab, the Druze, Assyrian and the Kurds to be similar genetically. If we can locate the
descendants of the Canaanites and ancient Egyptians in the Near East at this period, they will
also expectedly be very close genetically to the afore-mentioned. And when we meet them in far
flung locations like Asia, Europe, Africa and Nigeria we would expect to find the same genetic
similarities.

Another thing that genetic studies is revealing is that what really makes human groups different
is culture and not genes. In fact humans are even very close to chimpanzees and bonobos
genetically3. If humans and chimpanzees and bonobos have over 98% similarities in genetic
formulation, what would be the amount of genetic differences between two humans then? It
would be very insignificant.

Getting ready to conclude we’ll say, from all the fore-going that we are constrained to think that
if authentic genetic studies of all the ethnic groups in Nigeria are conducted, read, analyzed, and
interpreted properly, that the result that would be found would be pointing to common descent
from that one man that the Bible called Noah, and his family. The differences that exist are
cultural. A brief explanation and demonstration here about how its culture that will show their
differences will be helpful. While groups like the Yoruba traditionally have kings that are divine,
the Igbo detest kings, autocrats, and other things that go with one man rule to the extent that they
saved their revulsion and hatred for one man ruler-ship in their wise sayings, such as ‘Igbo ama
eze’, and ‘Igbo enwe eze.’ (Igbos do not recognize kings), and (Igbos do not have kings). This
beside the religious difference was what put the Igbos at odds with British rule.
While the Yoruba traditionally used the dog as a sacrificial animal to their afore-mentioned god
Shango, the Igbos traditionally used poultry, goats, and sheep as sacrificial animals to Chukwu 4.

1. http://www.africastyles.com/blackhistory/yoruba_history2.html
2. http://abiyamo.com/you-are-a-disgrace-nigerian-man-lambasts-ooni-of-ife-his-queenyou-
are-a-disgrace-nigerian-critic-lambasts-ooni-of-ife-his-queen/
3. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/06/bonobos-join-chimps-closest-human-relatives
4. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304101762_Igbos_%27Memories
%27_and_Special_Feelings_For_Jerusalem

By Remy Ilona, LLB, BL(Hons), MA Religious Studies in Expectation

With contributions by

Francis Duru, M.B;B.S(Bachelor o medicine, Bachelor o Surgery), M.Sc (Human anatomy),

Ph.D (Human anatomy).