Black Jews Will Save The World

"People need brainwashing when they first come here because their brains are dirty," informs town information minister Ahmedial Ben Yehuda. "We help them to filter."

"Here" is the town of Dimona, smack in the middle of the Negev, South Israel's sprawling desert. Famed for manufacturing Israel's nuclear bombs (oops, sorry Shimon), this sleepy town is gaining a second reason to visit. It's the home of the African Hebrew Israelites, who are showing me around their "social experiment."

Tropical gardens and charming wooden huts are the sights which greet me. "Welcome To The Village of Peace" exclaims a confident sign overhead. Believers, known as brothers and sisters, breeze among the gardens in flowing African-style cotton onesies. Solar-powered outdoor ovens heat vegan stews in the courtyard. There is no noise from cars, no smoke from cigarettes, no litter clogging the immaculate pathways. The otherworldly atmosphere is eerie, as if my hosts inhabit a universe parallel to my busy one.

Ahmedial Ben Yehuda

They began as a black power movement in 60s Chicago, but with the twist of believing that as African-Americans they were descendants of the Biblical Israelites. In 1966, their spiritual leader and metallurgist Ben Ammi had a vision instructing him to lead his followers back to the Holy Land. Today they are thriving, with 3,000 brothers and sisters in Dimona and dozens of satellite groups around the world, from Nairobi to New York. Their faith is not religious, they do not pray or visit synagogues. As Ahmedial puts it, they believe in a "lifestyle of righteousness," of perfecting yourself and your community while doing no harm to the environment.

As far as the self goes, an African Hebrew is required to cleanse themselves of all vices. Tobacco, alcohol, drugs, and condoms cannot be found here. Exercise is mandatory every other day, a full-body massage every week, and a colonic irrigation every month. There is no private ownership of vehicles and swearing is forbidden--as I shamefully discovered when something bit me. Strict veganism, as prescribed in the book of Genesis, is observed.

In Hebrew, the word for worship is the same as for work, and the work of the people here is to live righteously. But the African Hebrews don't believe in a heaven after death, so what's the pay-off?

For one, the health benefits are stunning. Studies by researchers from Vanderbilt University and Meharry Medical College show the community have an extremely low level of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and obesity. Life spans are increasing and the Hebrews believe they can continue this progress. "When we're 150, we'll get another set of teeth," Ahmedial quips optimistically. "We're giving people the tools not just for a long life, but everlasting life," says health coach and priest Abhir HaCohane.

It hasn't always been so upbeat. When Ben Ammi led his people home in 1969, the Israeli government weren't thrilled. The state's definition of a Jew did not include them and they were denied citizenship. "When we got here we didn't like white folk," Ahmedial cheerfully concedes, partly explaining the tension that in 1986 led to the army surrounding their village and ordering them to leave.

Abhir HaCohane putting younger men to shame in the preventative health center.

In the bad old days, without work permits or social services to lean on, the community leant upon itself. "We started to build our own institutions," Ahmedial tells me, "like the preventative health centre. We couldn't afford to get sick and go to the hospital so we had to avoid getting sick." There is now a general feeling among the brothers that doctors are liars and modern medical science is a sham. "Progress would be if you tore down a hospital and built a recording studio," Ahmedial insists.

"Three things is killing the people:" says priest-cum-health guru Abhir HaCohane, a veteran of two meetings with Haile Sallasie and occasional sleeper on beds of nails, "breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The weapon of mass destruction is McDonald's. Back home, 75% of African-American women are obese. Here, maybe 5%, and they're the ones that don't do what we tell them."

Its a light-hearted remark, but the role of women here has drawn criticism. "The man is head of the household," says Ahmedial, "a woman can do what she likes once the housework is done." Their zest for polygamy has been another source of conflict with the state. Ahmedial tells me in Africa it was a natural response to a high ratio of women to men, which reminds me of Nottingham University, but in both cases it seems like a convenient excuse.

Singer sister Marquia with a new arrival from Benin. If women are being subjugated here, they don't seem to mind.

Community relations are in the style of a good old fashioned hippy commune. Food, money, and possessions are shared. Disputes are resolved via discussions that go up the hierarchy from "senior" to "crowned" brothers, and if necessary to ministers and even the spiritual leader, Ben Ammi. If discussion fails, expulsion is the last resort, which is also the punishment for sins like adultery. Ahmedial is proud to tell me these techniques are the reason for zero cases of murder, rape, drug abuse, homelessness, or starvation in their history.

Now that survival has been all but ensured via the acquisition of permanent resident status, the African Hebrews are trying to win friends and influence people. Their business interests include an African cotton clothes industry, two vegan restaurants in Tel Aviv and the first tofu factory in Israel. These aim to give outsiders a taste of their lifestyle while supplementing the community's income.

These funds make their next big project possible: the strengthening of ties with Africa. Every month, Ahmedial and other ambassadors fly to Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, assisting with humanitarian projects and teaching healthy lifestyle tips. If that sounds like missionary work, Ahmedial disagrees. "It's just a lifestyle," but he adds, "we're very clear about wanting to influence people."

When it comes to the old country and Uncle Sam, the information minister is convinced of their imminent destruction. "When you see Hurricane Katrina, you have to think: That is corrective action. We want to be on the side of the creator. When a rainforest is destroyed, do you think nobody hears the trees scream? Unless there is a radical change, the slow-motion implosion of the USA will continue until it [corrective action] overwhelms them."

The commune's first full Israeli citizen, Chicago-born Elyakim Ben Israel.

No one in the "village of peace" has any doubt that they are the chosen ones; delighted smiles are practically tattooed onto every face. As Elyakim Ben Israel, the community's first full citizen, told me with conviction, "The holy land needs a holy people, and we know without a shadow of a doubt that we are those people." "Our wish is to be seen as the light of the world," Ahmedial adds, "and slowly we are getting through to people".

It seems a bit rich coming from self-professed white-haters. "We transcended race a long time ago," Ahmedial corrects me, pointing me in the direction of Ovade Driggers, his son-in-law and the first white permanent resident here. "No, I don't feel out of place at all," Driggers tells me convincingly. "I grew up in a 70% black neighborhood in Germany so it doesn't bother me."

Driggers was turned onto the African Hebrew narrative while working in an office furniture store in Atlanta. "At the time I was married, but my wife divorced me when I threw all the meat out of the freezer. She thought I had lost my mind. I finally had my moment of realization in jail when I decided to come to Israel." Driggers is now happily married with a daughter in Dimona. He says his family have been very supportive: "Pretty much the opposite of my wife's reaction."

Another surprising addition to the commune is salty, wisecracking, Dirty Harry-esque ex-cop Maher, 76, from Chicago. "I saw that a black community was a garbage can, the policeman was supposed to sit on the lid to keep the stink in. This is heaven compared to America," he says. Lifting 50kg weights and pushing for the burn on the treadmill, he is a poster boy for the groupthink.

But for all the joys of purity, the long lives and positive community influence, it's hard to envy the children growing up here. Music is heavily censored for sexual references, ten meetings with a priest are required to begin a relationship, contact with the wider society exists, but is severely limited. As Oscar Wilde's Henry said in Dorian Gray, "It is wise to be suspicious of a man who refuses life's basic pleasures." As I left the commune, declining a soy meal on my way out, the eerie feeling began to ebb away and in the distance I saw a kebab vendor.

KIERON MONKS
PHOTOS BY DANIEL WEGRZYN