Farrakhan, Kushites and the Jewish people

by Jackie Muhammad

‘The Jewish elite have labeled Black leaders among the most anti-Jewish people in America, if not the world.’

For thousands of years Black people have been among the staunchest supporters of the Jewish community. However, our staunch support has never been appreciated.

The Jewish elite have labeled Black leaders among the most anti-Jewish people in America, if not the world. According to the landmark bestseller, “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews” Volume Two (TSRV2), those so designated include Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Pres. Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and even Mohandas Gandhi.

Anyone, it seems, who follows Jesus’ example in the Bible and Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) example in the Qur’an, of reproving the aberrant and abhorrent behavior of wayward Jews is labeled as their enemies.

At the center of this controversy today is the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. The anger that’s being generated is based on the knowledge that America exploited the slave labor of Black people for over 400 years and at the center of that exploitation were members of the Jewish community.

According to Jewish historians, rabbis and prominent Jewish scholars, Jews were among the world’s leading slave traders. The leading slavers in Brazil, Cuba, Surinam, early medieval Europe, and Iraq were Jewish merchants.

According to TSRV2, in Surinam plantations with Hebrew names like Machanayim, Nachamu and Goshen proliferated in that South American nation. According to Dr. Marcus Arkin, Rhodes University professor, Jews used “many thousands” of Black slaves in Surinam. Rabbi Herbert I. Bloom, stated that the “slave trade was one of the most important Jewish activities.” In 1694, records show that Jews owned 9,000 Black slaves in Surinam.

Based on a July 20, 1992 article written in the New York Times by the world famous Black historian John Henrik Clark, the author states, “In the years of the slave trade, Africa lost over 100 million people.” The irony of Jewish ownership of slaves, and their participation in the emasculation, dehumanization and death of over 100 million Black people is very ironic because, according to acclaimed Jewish author Henry T. Aubin, without the Black man there would be no Jewish existence.

In a book written by Mr. Aubin titled, “The Rescue of Jerusalem: The Alliance Between Hebrews and Africans In 701 B.C.” the acclaimed Washington Post, Philadelphia Bulletin, and Montreal Gazette reporter, winner of three of Canada’s National Newspaper Awards and co-recipient of B’nai B’brith Media Human Rights Award, details how the Black Egyptians of the 25th Dynasty (also known as the Ancient Kushites) came to the rescue of the people of Judah and saved them from becoming victims of the world’s most predatory nation of that era, the Assyrians. The Assyrians carved a path of destruction throughout the Middle East and Africa that was unprecedented. The only nation standing in their path was the Black Kushites.

We read of these Kushites in the Old Testament in the 2nd book of Kings. Years earlier, in 721 BC, the Assyrians brought the 10 tribe kingdom of Israel (Judah’s co-nation) to an end. Allah (God) allowed them to be persecuted because of their rebellion against the laws of God and their violation of the Covenant. So the people of Judah had every reason to fear the Assyrians, an Indo-European people who emigrated from Europe around the same time as did the so-called Semitic Hebrews, around 4,000 years ago. (See Keller’s “The Bible As History.”)

The Bible describes the leader of the Kushites, Prince Taharqa, who later became Egypt’s Pharaoh, as an angel of the Lord. Incidentally, Taharqa and the Kushites played a significant role in the expansion of the Africans into Spain 1,400 years before the Muslim Moors did so in 711 A.D., and under the leadership of the Kushites the Africans played a crucial role in the establishment of civilization among the Olmec Indians in Central America (See Dr. Ivan Van Sertima’s “They Came Before Columbus.”) The Olmec calendar and the Kushite calendar begin in the same year, Feb. 26, 747 B.C. These Brothers were very powerful people. Historian J.A. Rogers, author of “From Superman to Man, Sex and Race Volume One, Africa’s Gift to America,” wrote of the accomplishments of these men who the Bible may have also referred to as giants.

The Jews appealed to the Kushites to save them from the Assyrians. The Black African Egyptians of the 25th Dynasty responded and their response is written of in the Bible. Because of the Egyptian’s intervention, the Assyrians retreated and fled back to Assyria. Their actions caused Jerusalem to be spared. According to Mr. Aubin, if the Jews had been destroyed, captured, or resettled by the Assyrians as were the 10 tribes of the nation of Israel (also known as the 10 Lost Tribes) then the religion of Judaism would never have been allowed to emerge. Had the Kushites not intervened, the Jewish concept of monotheism would not have evolved. Monotheism as a significant religious concept introduced to the Jews by Moses around the 13th Century B.C., did not become a vital part of the Jewish mindset until after 586 B.C., the period known as the Deliverance. Until that point, the period of the Babylonian Exile, they practiced a form of religion in which they had one principal God, Yahweh, but also held on to their belief in many other local gods as well. This point is clearly articulated in “The Rescue of Jerusalem” and another landmark publication called, “Who Wrote the Bible?” by Jewish author, Richard Elliott Friedman.

In addition, in 2 Kings 17 we find that just prior to the Assyrian’s invasion of the kingdom of Israel (722 B.C.) the people of Israel were still building altars and setting up pillars and sacred poles of the fertility cults and bowing to foreign deities. This outward display of polytheist beliefs was still taking place among the “chosen people” hundreds of years after Moses.

The point that I am making is that the Jewish people owe their very existence to the Black man. Had we not intervened and saved them from the onslaught of the Assyrians, they would have been removed from the annals of history. Our reward for such a heroic act was to become the Jewish victims of the most insidious form of slavery known to man. Not only were the Jews at the very center of the slave trade, no one benefited from the profits of slavery more than they did.

Calling Minister Farrakhan a racist and an anti-Semitic is like calling Moses, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah and even Jesus anti-Semitic. All of these great prophets of Israel castigated the Jews for their rebellion against God. Minister Farrakhan has never denigrated the name of Moses nor has he ever besmirched the religion of Judaism. However, in the tradition of Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah and Jesus, he has forcefully spoken out against the evils of Zionism. The rulers of Zion, Micah said, built the city in bloodshed and wickedness (Micah 3:10). Was that great prophet anti-Semitic too?

Farrakhan has approached the Jewish community and politely told them that our enslavement at their hands has resulted in spiritual, emotional, and psychological damage. Since their own scholars, rabbis and historians agree that they were at the center of this damage and they have benefited from our condition, and we are in need of repair, then they owe us the courtesy and respect of participating in our repair. That’s the least they could do because, according to Mr. Aubin, they also owe us their existence.

(Jackie Muhammad is a former presidential appointee, member of the Oxford Round Table, educator, youth-trainer and businessman.)