Ben Ammi Ben-Israel

Ben Ammi Ben-Israel
בן עמי בן-ישראל‎
Born	Ben Carter (1939-10-12)October 12, 1939 Chicago, United States
Died	December 27, 2014(2014-12-27) (aged 75) Beersheba, Israel
Citizenship	American Israeli[a]
Years active	1966–2014
Known for	Founding the African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem
Movement	Black Hebrew Israelites
Children	25

Ben Ammi Ben-Israel (Hebrew: בן עמי בן-ישראל; October 12, 1939 – December 27, 2014) was an American spiritual leader. Inspired by the Black Hebrew Israelites in the United States, he founded the African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem, which claims that African Americans originate from the Land of Israel.^[1] The community's initial members claimed Israelite descent and undertook a major initiative to immigrate to the State of Israel during and after the 1960s. Ben Ammi stated that Black people were descended from the Twelve Tribes of Israel and thus were the "true inheritors" of Israel, and created a new religious movement that he claimed was authentically Hebrew or Israelite in theology and practice. Though he was born a Baptist Christian, he denounced Judaism and Christianity as false religions, but maintained that the Jewish Bible was still divine.

According to his community, Ben Ammi witnessed a divine revelation in Chicago in 1966, when the angel Gabriel told him to lead his people to Israel and establish the Kingdom of God there. He rallied other African Americans to his cause, changing his name from Ben Carter to Ben Ammi Ben-Israel, and first settled in Liberia before immigrating to Israel with his followers. The Israeli government and Israeli religious authorities recognized them as non-Jews and deported many of the community's illegal immigrants. Eventually, some of the community's members were given pathways to permanent residency and Ben Ammi himself became an Israeli citizen in 2013. A number of African Hebrew Israelites, heeding calls from Ben Ammi in the past, have also enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces.^[2]

In 2014, Ben Ammi died at a hospital in Beersheba; his African Hebrew Israelite Nation stood at about 5,000 people at this time and was mostly concentrated in Dimona. His views and statements, as well as those of his community's, have stirred controversy and are often charged with antisemitism and Black supremacy. Following Israel's deportation of many African Hebrew Israelite illegal immigrants, Ben Ammi accused the Israeli government of racism and of occupying the Holy Land through an international Jewish conspiracy. He also claimed that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs had an erroneous tradition of descent from Isaac and Ishmael, respectively, and that they were instead descended from European Crusaders. Ben Ammi stated that African Americans had been victims of "Euro-gentile dominion" in the United States, where they were led to believe that Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were not Black people. He and his community have not identified as Jewish.

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