February 2012


Connections The Lemba of Zimbabwe


A publication of Jewish Voice Ministries International A Brief History of Africa’s Ancient Levitical Priests “E


thiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God” (Psalm 68:31b NKJV). For more than a decade Jewish Voice has proclaimed


Yeshua and ministered relief to the Beta Israel and Beta Avraham, the Black Jews of Addis Ababa and Gondar, Ethiopia, witnessing extraordinary miracles and salvations among Jews. Tis prophetic End-Time move of God—regathering the remnant of Israel, scattered to the far reaches of the earth—continues to enlarge as new Lost Tribes are found and doors of opportunity open. In 2010 a previously unknown Jewish community


living in an extremely isolated and rural area of Ethiopia contacted the Jewish Voice Global Outreach team; the Gefat Tribe of Woliso, suffering the privations of their mean existence, had been praying for relief. In 2011 Jewish Voice established the first medical clinic outreach in this remote and primitive location, exemplifying the love of Messiah to desperate Jewish brethren. Te work Jewish Voice has been privileged to do


among the Ethiopian Jews is unprecedented, yet the doors of Africa continue to open!


Te claims of the Lemba of Zimbabwe have long


been considered the stuff of legend—fascinating, but dismissed. In 1999 DNA testing profoundly changed that perception. Geneticists from the U.S., U.K., and Israel not only found the Cohen modal haplotype marker, indicating the Lemba were descended from the levitical priests of the ancient Jewish Temple and Aaron, Moses’ brother, but made the remarkable discovery that the marker is in higher concentration among the Lemba than the general Jewish population! Clearly Semitic in their physical features and


traditions—among them, practicing circumcision, abstaining from pork, not mixing milk and meat, and the use of the shofar—the Lemba have now been genetically linked to Levi, one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Drawing on elaborate oral traditions and historical


documents, it is believed that the Lemba migrated to Yemen from Judea before moving to the African continent. Both genetic similarities and historic documentation connect the Lemba to the Jews of


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