The association “Paris Kibbutz” and the “Federation of Black Jews”.

A meeting, an effective collaboration for more than two years.

The creation of the State of Israel inaugurated a meta-community [1] unprecedented in the history of the Jewish people.

All kinds of Jews and non-Jews coexist there, somehow because the Israeli microcosm experiences the same cultural and socio-economic difficulties as the macrocosm of the world.

Israel meets these cultural and socio-economic challenges with inventiveness, and the kibbutz, which has been reinventing itself since 1909, is the best example.

The kibbutz is a path of life born from the encounter of Jewish transmission with the anarchist and communist ideas of the 19th century.

“The kibbutz is the fairest and most honest way of life in the world. Since the 19th century, there has been no more noble, more dedicated, and more brilliant attempt to find a model of life that truly meets a person’s desire to be free, honest and useful. “

Shimon Peres

We find in Israel religious kibbutz, traditionalists, atheists, putting forward or not the ecological, the possibility of wage labor, of rural and / or city life (“the urban kibbutz” since 1987), of coexistence between Jews and Israeli Arabs. , religious and non-religious, etc.

The kibbutz world is a meta-community within that of Israel.

Like Israel and the kibbutz world, black Jews are a meta-community emerging from around the world that brings together an incredible diversity of identities with its share of hardships, riches and inventiveness.

To learn more about black Jews, click here.

The Jewish people, originally semi-nomadic, carry a transmission fertilized by acculturation.

Black Judaism revives Jewish transmission in what makes it strong: a unique skill in acculturation [2]

Since the destruction of its two Temples and its entry into semi-nomadism, the Jewish people have successfully integrated without ever dissolving into the collectives in which they live for a time.

It nourishes and renews itself as much as it permeates and contributes.

The unique as well as life-giving fruits of its acculturation appear to those who study Jewish thought and history as well as the culture and history of the peoples who welcomed, tolerated, persecuted and driven out, thus depriving themselves of its contributions.

The Jewish people could derive from this exceptional competence in acculturation their vitality and their course towards and against the trials passed through since their dispersion in the year 70 of the Christian era.

Thus, Guershon Nduwa, President of the International Federation of Black Jews, speaks of black Jewish identity: “We are Africans of Jewish culture and we love the diversity of our religion. We respect all communities that preserve their ancient cultures for the preservation of human dignity. We wish and work for peace and prosperity on the African continent, and in doing so, we feel a continuation of our noble Hebrew heritage. This phenomenon is a perfect example of the wealth that matters most to Black Jews, which is cultural wealth. “

He continues on the need for a meta-community in France: “In France, will the Jewish community finally come out of the customary” Sephardic / Ashkenazi “duel and accept another component, that of Black Jews? History teaches us to open our eyes, to take the measure of this tour de force: to sweep away centuries of popular believes that generate exclusion of the other. The minhagim (customs) are a tremendous wealth for the Jewish community, but we must learn to harness their remarkable energies while emphasizing the common values ​​that make our communities work, otherwise we will encourage the emergence of new intolerances. When they do not keep pace with changes in society, customs become obstacles to the well-being of the individuals who experience them. How to go beyond and transcend these customs to achieve living together? Paradoxically, we think that we are in a favorable situation where we can rebuild a certain community unity around important axes such as issues related to the Torah, study and living together. To respond to this kind of initiative, we obviously have to have actions and projects that break with the logic that produced these phenomena. “

 Taken from: Guershon Nduwa. “Manifesto of the Black Jews.” IBooks.

https://itunes.apple.com/fr/book/manifeste-des-juifs-noirs/id1162600510?mt=11

The kibbutz movement, including Paris Kibbutz in France, joins Guershon Nduwa’s call for the realization of a Jewish meta-community in France, proactive, respectful of the diversity of cultures that constitute it, and carrying projects followed by actions.

The representatives of these two associations therefore met and have been working for more than two years to pool their activities and actions.

[1] Metacommunity is originally an ecological concept that defines a set of local communities linked by the dispersal of several potentially interacting species.

The “Meta-community” is a unifying framework which integrates and reconciles the many disparate trends within a community, i.e. a process of determining how the community should behave in a new situation in the face of a decontextualized framework.

The meta-community could describe a kibbutznik community where varieties of social coercion are no longer seen as rigid models. Those who are not familiar with the kibbutznik community should note that communities are spoken of as an aspect of modernity.

(Note by Guershon Nduwa on a course given by Professor Richard Hayoun z “l Languages’O. History of Israel 2003)

[2] Acculturation refers to the phenomena (transport of ideas, folklore, spontaneous conversions, mixed unions, mixed-race children, etc.) which result from peaceful, continuous and direct contact between groups of individuals carrying different cultures, as well as changes in the original cultures involved acquired through these contacts.

We want to keep the term acculturation which refers to a “patchwork” identity, strong and happy with its diversities which enrich each other.

This coexistence does not lead to a crossbreeding in the sense of mixing and disappearance of one or the other of the cultures but on the contrary, to dynamic productions, intelligent and coexisting in good intelligence, in short, innovative, which vitalize each transmission.

To understand everything about Black Judaism:

• Presentation by Maurice Dorès, ethnologist, psychiatrist, director: “Le monde noir judaïsé”.
• Interview with the president of the International Federation of Black Jews, Guershon Nduwa.
• History of the Jewish people – The ten lost tribes.
• Rav Dynovisz. Meeting in Jerusalem with black Jews.

Léa Schwartz