African-American Jews are people who are both African American and Jewish. African-American Jews may be either Jewish from birth or converts to Judaism. Many African-American Jews are of mixed heritage, having both non-Jewish African-American and non-Black Jewish ancestors. Many African-American Jews identify as Jews of color, but some do not. Black Jews from Africa, such as the Beta Israel from Ethiopia, may or may not identify as African-American Jews.
Black Jewish rapper Drake
History of the Jews in Africa
African Jewish communities include:Sephardi Jews and Mizrahi Jews who primarily live in the Maghreb of North Africa, including Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia, as well as Sudan and Egypt. Some were established early in the diaspora; others after the expulsion from Iberia in the late 15th century.
South African Jews, who are mostly Ashkenazi Jews descended from pre-Holocaust immigrant Lithuanian Jews.
Beta Israel living primarily in the Amhara and Tigray regions of Ethiopia and sparsely in Eritrea.
Berber Jews, the majority of whom were assimilated and converted to Islam, especially during the historical persecutions of the Almohadic Caliphate in the Middle Ages. The modern population of Berber Jews in Africa now numbers about 8,000 people in Morocco, with the majority having emigrated to Israel since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, along with smaller numbers scattered throughout Europe and North America.
Historical communities which no longer exist in Africa due to assimilation, such as the Jews of Bilad el-Sudan in West Africa, who existed before the introduction of Islam to the region during the 14th century.
Various relatively modern groups throughout Africa, most of whom claim some form of a Judaic or Israelite identity, and/or ancestry.
Proportion of Jewish population in Africa
Berber Jews of the Atlas Mountains, c. 1900
Ethiopian Jews