British Belief in Israelite Origin - 2.
8 February 2023; 17 Shevet, 5783.
Contimued from: Early Reports.
Contents:
1. Ireland.
2. Wales and Welsh-Hebrew.
3. Early Modern Times.
4. Love, Ambivalence and Jew-Hatred.
In Britain.
In the USA.
Christian Identity.
Coming to Israel?
5. Christian Zionism.
6. H. W. Armstrong
7. Great Heroes who were Also Believers.
8. How Others Saw the Situation.
9. Yair Davidiy and Brit-Am.
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1. Ireland.
Irish Mythology contains Hebrew-like names and references helping us identify the Irish and British with Israel.
Dr. William Pinnock, "Catechism of the History of Ireland: Containing a Brief Outline of the Principle Occurrences Which Have Taken Place in That Country, From the Most Distant Period of its History to the Present Time" (London, 1825), expressed his belief in the probable Hebrew origin of a least a segment of the Irish population.
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2. Wales and Welsh-Hebrew.
.
# In an article originally appearing in the London magazine, The Jewish Expositor in 1828 and reprinted in the Hebrew Christian Witness almost fifty years later, the Rev. Joshua William Brooks, writing under the pen-name Abdiel, concluded that the Welsh population, on account of its language, religion and customs could make a fair claim to Israelitish blood.#
From before then, from then, and until now numerous works have been published on the same subject.
"Comparing Welsh-Hebrew" by Karel Jongeling (Netherlands, 2000). This work discusses the history of comparisons made between the two languages. Jongelin has more than 400 references in his Bibliography dealing with Welsh as compared to Hebrew. We have a few more examples from works quoted in Old British Israel Literature. Many of the numerous and intricate examples that have been given over the centuries are very convincing.
Studies of this nature go back to the 1600s. Not everyone derives the conclusion from this that the Welsh are descended from Hebrews but it does show there must be come kind of connection there.
See:
The Welsh Language
Hebrew Traces in Celtic Tongues
https://hebrewnations.com/articles/linguistics/welshlanguage.html
Welsh and Hebrew
https://hebrewnations.com/articles/linguistics/welsh.html
The Tribe of Asher in Wales. Caber.
"And the sons of Asher; Jimnah, and Ishuah, and Isui, and Beriah, and Serah their sister, and the sons of Beriah; Heber, and Malchiel." Genesis 46:17.
The name Heber is also pronounceable as "Cheber" and means friend or companion. ... "HEBER" in Hebrew has the same meaning of "union" and "joining." Heber (of Asher) may also be recalled in the people named after "Caber". [The name "Heber" in Hebrew bregins with the letter "chet" and may be pronounced as "cheber" which in Hebrew dialects could easily have become "Caber"]. The appellation "CABER" occurs in an account of early British history [quoted by JEAN FRANCOISELE PETIT, "Le Grande Chronicle. Ancienne et Moderne de Holland, Zeelande, Utrecht, Frise, Oversyseel, et de Groenungham", Dordrecht, 1601], which states that Britain was first populated by the sons of Bruttus who, from Troy in Anatolia, reached Britain via Italy. Bruttus had three sons, Albion who received Scotland, Locris who took what later became known as England, and CABER who was given Wales.
In addition to the above other evidence helps us trace contingents from Asher to Ireland and North Wales.
See:
Hebrews in Wales
https://hebrewnations.com/articles/tribes/asher1/hebrewswales.html
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3. Early Modern Times.
The Jewish historian, Leon Poliakov, remarked:
"The British had four great mythologies with which to construct their own myth of origin -- the Greco-Roman, the Celtic, the Germanic and the Hebrew. In the writings of Gildas the Celts became the real Israel" ("Aryan Myth", 1974).
Richard Brothers in the 1790s held beliefs similar to those later held by British Israel. He also claimed to be the son of the brother of the Christian Messiah and other preposterous. The historian Cecil Roth even wrote a tongue-in-cheek little booklet about Cecil Roth. Nevertheless, no connection is known to have existed.
It is usually the critics of British Israel who attribute founders rights to Cecil Roth.
On the other hand.
The British-Israelites nearly always credit the founding of their ideas to John Wilson (1799?-1870).
# In his work, 'Lectures on Our Israelitish Origin,' of 1840, Wilson attempted to provide empirical information that supported British- Israelism. His arguments suggested that similarities to English ways in certain elements in Hebrew language and social institutions were not merely coincidental (Barkun: 7). British-Israel organizations formed during the 1870s on account of slow, but growing acceptance of Wilson's teachings. #
A work in 1810 explaining Biblical Prophecies takes it for granted that Britain is the 'Israel' mentioned in prophecy who would receive the greater portion of God's favor.
Rev. James Hatley Frere, A Combined View of the Prophecies of Daniel, Esdras, and St. John, 2d ed. (London: Printed for the Author, 1815),.
William Waddilove (1820), a Church official, wrote that the Scots, Irish, and Saxons had descended from the people of Israel.
Upon the death of John Wilson in 1871, a new leader of the British-Israelism movement emerged in Edward Hine. He authored "Seventeen identifications of the English nation with the lost house of Israel" (London, 1870) One of his most known teachings was pyramidism. - In its day the notion that a divine message was concealed in the way the pyramids were built and designed was quite important.
Hine was also the leader of the British-Only wing of the movement that did not recognize the European Germanic peoples as fellow Hebrews. He was opposed by Edward Wheler Bird. Bird used the pseudonym Philo-Israel, in his monthly Banner of Israel, published in London from 1877.
This argument has continued to our time. At various stages prominent British-Israel figures wanted to include within the definition of Israelite other peoples such as the Japanese (Professor Odlum), the Sikhs, Pathans, the Indians, the Balts, the Germans, the Russians, etc. British Israel is not a homogeneous body.
Brit-Am today identifies Descendants of the Ten Tribes are being among Western Peoples: USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, Ulster, Scotland, Wales, England, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, and Switzerland.
This probably coincides with mainstream British Israel opinion.
"The Shemetic Origin of the Nations of Western Europe" (1879) by John Pym Yeatman was also considered in its time a work of note. The author was a known scholar and public figure.
In the early 1800s British Israel consisted of a number of disunited, small scattered groups in Britain, the British Empire, and America. Nevertheless, its membershjip was growing and important people belonged to it. Some considered it a menace:
Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) left the Church of England in 1845 in order to join the Roman Catholic Church. His reason for this, according to him, was a very real fear that the British Israel movement "would take over the Church of England."
Between 1899 and 1902, adherents of British Israelism dug up parts of the Hill of Tara in Ireland believing that the Ark of the Covenant was buried there.
In 1919, the British-Israel-World Federation (BIWF) was founded in London, and Covenant Publishing was founded in 1922.
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4. Love, Ambivalence and Jew-Hatred.
In Britain.
In the beginning British Israel membership was mostly pro-Jewish, or rather they thought they were. They were active in helping indigent Jews and in attempts to convert Jews to Christianity (Source: Eric Michael Reisenauer).
- In their minds conversion to Christianity was a good thing though for the Jews it was worst than death, and for most of them the end of the line.
From a Jewish point of view attempts to convert Jews to Christianity amount to intended extermination.
Ever since the 1700s there had been intermittent attacks made on Jews in East Europe. Anglo-Israelite (i.e. British-Israelite) elements during the 1900s were reportedly active in trying to prevent the admittance of Jews from Eastern Europe to Britain. It may be that Jews from those regions were too traditional and too religious for the tastes of some British Israelite adherents?
Nevertheless, there were always some who were against Jews but others who were sympathetic towards them.
Reisenauer tells us:
# British-Israelites also took great pride in the fact that the Jews were welcomed in England while they were being increasingly driven from the continent of Europe. Surely, they concluded, this indicated an affinity and relationship with the tribe of Judah that other Europeans did not share.
British-Israelites did overplay the sympathy of the British people for the Jews and underplay the anti-Semitism which was certainly present in Victorian Britain. It does seem fair to say, however, that hostility towards the Jews was less virulent and government policy more welcoming than in several other European nations. #
For discussions of the prevalence and nature of anti-Semitism in Britain see Anthony S. Wohl, '"Dizzi-Ben Di:Zzi': Disraeli as Alien," Journal of British Studies 34 (July 1995): 375-411; and Colin Holmes, Anti-Semitism in British Society, 1876-1939 (London, 1979).
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), either adhered to British Israelism or virtually did so. Disraeli descended from Jews, was twice PM, served as formulator of enlightened Conservative doctrine. He was also a well-known author of popular historical romances featuring Jews and Englishmen joining forces for enlightened goals.
# British Israelites nevertheless admired him, not only for his Jewish heritage but for his imperial policies and would certainly have welcomed him into their fold. #
Many prominent military men, members of the Royal Family, including the Queen and her Royal Consort Prince Albert, and numerous others were all followers of British Israel. At that time a much larger proportion of the population had grown up on the Bible. Also British Israel teaching were supported with serious and innovative researches. The findings of British Israel in the late 1800s corresponded roughly with what was then accepted in British academic circles. British Israelite teachings were consisted with known findings in archaeology and the assumptions of Classical History.
A prominent adherent of British Israelis was Admiral Lord John Arbuthnot Fisher (1841-1920). # Fisher expressed his belief on numerous occasions both in public and in his private letters, including two letters to the Times and his memoirs. Like many British-Israelites, Fisher was greatly impressed with the prophetic implications of the fact that by the end of the First World War Britain held Jerusalem. Jerusalem, he proclaimed, should serve as the capital of a federated Empire or Anglo-Saxon union since, he believed, it had been the capital of Israel "whom we are without a doubt." A devoutly religious man, Fisher saw the hand of God acting on behalf of the British in their victory over the Germans. In a letter to Jellicoe dated April 29th, 1916, he took comfort in the fact that "our faith is the same, my beloved Jellicoe, and the only reason we shall win this War is because we are the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel!" "The only hypothesis," he later asserted, "to explain why we win in spite of incredible blunders is that we are the lost tribes of Israel."#
# Fisher retained a faith in what he called an ''Anglo- Israelitish Providence" which guarded and protected the British Empire.#
(Source: Reisenauer, 1997).
British Israel alsocreated its own mythology or drastically adapted what it found in existence. This included the Stone of Scone, the Hebrew Princess Tea Tephi, and relaled matters. We will discuss this elsewhere.
In the 1930s there was a world wide increase in anti-Semitism as epitomized in Germany.
There were British-Israelite groups who allowed some of their leaders and followers to spread lies and calumnies against the Jews. On the other hand leading champions of the Jewish People, of Zionism, and later of the State of Israel, also believed in British Israel. This is discussed further on.
In the USA.
In the USA prominent British Israel type personalities included William Pascoe Goard (1863-1937) a Methodist minister and activist, and C. A. L. Totten. Totten was an American military officer, a professor of military tactics, a prolific writer. He wrote on chiefly on Biblical Chronology, biblical prophecy, the Great Pyramid, British Israelism, the symbolism of the Great Seal of the United States, and the preservation of ancient weights and measures.
Joseph WILD in 1882 published a short essay of value, "Manasseh and the United States." This essay was incorporated as an Appendix in the first and second editions of "Joseph. The Israelite Destiny of America," by Yair Davidiy of Brit-Am, 2001, Israel. Davidiy was not aware of the biography of Wild at the time he used his teaching . Wild is defined as a Methodist and Congregational preacher, British Israelite, and author. He was also a rabid anti-Catholic Crusader and a dedicated Mason.
British Freemasonry also apparently has tendencies of British Israelitism. Jews are not accepted to Freemasonry beyond a certain rang. Major Rabbis have pronounced Freemasonry a form of idolatry and forbade Jews from participating in it.
Christian Identity
Howard Rand (1889 -1991) was a lawyer, inventor, and Prohibition Party politician . He headed the former Anglo-Saxon Federation of America in 1928. Rand was a virulent hater of the Jewish People. He published The Bulletin, later renamed The Messenger of the Covenant. More recently, it was renamed Destiny.
Rand in effect gave rise to the Christian Identity Movement. This in effect is a Satanic organization and an enemy of the Israelite Hebrew Peoples.
The Christian Identity Movement was anti-Semitic. It maintained ties with the BIWF in Britain and influenced it
British Israel teachings in the USA are said to have influenced Mormonism, Pentecostalism, and later Christian Zionism.
Coming to Israel?
A Pentecostal type was John Alexander Dowie, 1847 - 1907). Dowie was an evangelist and faith healer. Dowie emigrated with his family in 1888 from Australia to the United States. Dowie spoke about plans for Anglo-Saxon Christians to take control of Jerusalem in order to prepare for the Second Coming.
This legacy was continued by Charles Fox Parham, who was also a kind of faith healer and eccentric. Unlike Dowie, Parham believed that the Lost Tribes would join their Jewish brethren in order to reestablish the nation of Israel. His was a more expansive view of the Lost Tribes than Dowie's, encompassing not only Anglo-Saxons, but also Scandinavians, Danes, High Germans, and even Hindus and Japanese, who, according to Parham, had acquired the blood of Abraham through intermarriage and hence, they were eligible to take part in his end-time drama.
The above notions are similar to those of part of the present-day Christian Ephraimites associated with Angus Wootten in the USA with offshoots in Germany and elsewhere.
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5. Christian Zionism.
Personalities acquainted with British Israel in its positive aspects were sometimes also active as Christian Zionists who are also known as Restorationists. The personal secretary of Oliver Cromwell, John Sadler (1615 -1674), for instance believed the British were descended from Israel. He also advocated that the Jews be re-admitted to England. Some of his Puritan colleagues saw this as the first step in helping the Jews establish their own Kingdom in the Holy Land.
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6. H. W. Armstrong.
Herbert W. Armstrong (1892 -1986) founded the Worldwide Church of God (WCG). He was an early pioneer of radio and television evangelism. Armstong first became an adventist and after that founded his own Church. Its doctrines included British-Israelism. He may have had anti-Semitic racist tendencies at the beginning but these were soon eschewed. Armstrong has his own version of British Israel which is not that different from the original. He published his views on this matter in "The United States and Britain in Prophecy." This was distributed free of charge on request to many thousands of inquirers. He also spread the message in other ways ultimately. When he died his successor rejected the British Israel doctrine. Nevertheless, there were several breakaway groups who still believed in the original doctrines. They continued to spread the British Israel message. A few of his former followers converted to Orthodox Judaism and came to Israel.
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7. Great Heroes who were Also Believers.
When British Israelism and Restorationist Zionism come together.
All of the following believed that the British, or Irish, or both were descended from Israel and kith and kin of the Jews.
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Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, CBE, DSO (3 March 1878 - 17 June 1967) was a British soldier, intelligence officer and ornithologist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ri...
Meinertzhagen was of Danish ancestry. He had achievements in the military sphere having served in Africa and Palestine as it was then known. Meinertzhagen became a strong advocate of the Zionist cause. He believed in British Israel.
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John Henry Patterson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo...)
Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson, DSO (10 November 1867 - 18 June 1947), known as J. H. Patterson, was an Irish born British soldier, hunter, author and Christian Zionist, best known for his book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo (1907), which details his experiences while building a railway bridge over the Tsavo river in British East Africa (now Kenya) in 1898-99.
In world War-1 Patterson had commanded Jewish forces serving in the British Armies. These included "both the Zion Mule Corps and later the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers (also known as the Jewish Legion) which would eventually serve as the foundation of the Israeli Defence Force decades later. "
Patterson also believed in British Israel.
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Orde Wingate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Or...
Orde Charles Wingate DSO & Two Bars (26 February 1903 = 24 March 1944) was a senior British Army officer. He helped Jewish Haganah which led tot he IDF. He was also known for his creation of the Chindit deep-penetration missions in Japanese-held territory during the Burma Campaign of World War II.
Wingate too reportedly believed in British Israel.
There are very many more like these.
See Also:
Bird Watcher. Gentile Heroes of Israel
https://hebrewnations.com/articles/16/meiner.html
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8. How Others Saw the Situation.
In the 1800s Britain ruled the seas. Britain seemed invincible. Foreign counties were turning into British Colonies almost without Britain trying or even especially wanting them.
Paul Belloni Du Chaillu (1831-1903) was a French-American traveler, zoologist, and anthropologist. He became famous in the 1860s as the first modern European outsider to confirm the existence of gorillas, and later the Pygmy people of central Africa. He later researched the prehistory of Scandinavia.
Du Chaillu studied the Ancient Vikings and the British Civilization of his time and concluded that there was something unique about it.
Du Chaillu (The Viking Age, 1889)
# I have often asked myself the following questions:--How is it that over every region of the globe the spread of the English-speaking people and of their language far exceeds that of all other European nations combined? Why is it that, wherever the English-speaking people have settled, or are this day found, even in small numbers, they are more energetic, daring, adventurous, and prosperous, and understand the art of self-government and of ruling alien peoples far better than other colonising nations? Whence do the English-speaking communities derive the remarkable energy they possess ... [and] what are the causes which have made the English such a pre-eminently seafaring people? for without such a characteristic they could not have been the founders of so many states and colonies speaking the English tongue! #
The English agreed that there was something special about themselves. Nevertheless, they were not happy with the thought that they shared this uniqueness with others. Some of them went out of their way to deny it.
Reisenauer reports:
# Dr. Latham, in his Ethnology of the British Islands, cast some of the first doubts as to the British and German relationship by contending that "throughout the whole length and breadth of Germany there is not one village, hamlet, or family which can shew definite signs of descent from the continental ancestors of the Angles of England."28 These Eng lish ancestors, in other words, had left the shores of Germany in their entirety leaving no relation, German or otherwise, on the continent of Europe. Huxley, quoting Latham, in dicated that though the modem language of Britain is without a doubt Anglo-Saxon, "it is by no means so certain that the blood of Englishmen is equally Germanic." Dr. Pike, through his own experiments and observations as well as use of the work of Dr. Beddoe, J.B. Davis and J. Thurman, concluded that the modem British race could not have descended even from the same original stock as the modem Germans. Using the then commonly accepted methods of cephalic indices, anthropometrics, and psychological, or 'moral', comparisons, Pike remarked that "the English type agrees in the main, though showing some minor variations, with the Cyrnric type of head; ... and that type not only differs from the Teutonic type, but stands at the opposite end of the scale." Decades later, Professor W. Z. Ripley, found that the cephalic indices of the Anglo-Saxon race dif-fered dramatically from those of the modem German." Alexander Del Mar, in 1900, not only reconfirmed that the Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and Normans were identical peoples under different names but also that "the Saxons, or Northmen, and the Germans have teleologically nothing in common." At the time of the First World War, of course, this attempt to distance the British racially from the Germans increased substantially. Nonetheless, it is clear that for at least the previous half century a substantial current of thought had already proposed this racial cleavage.#
# Robert Gordon Latham, Ethnology of the British Islands (London: John Van Voorst, 1852), 217, 259-60. Latham, like many of those who cast doubt on the German English relationship, based his conclusion on the unique admixture of races found in Britain and well as on the subsequent invasions of Germany after the departure of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc. which comprised the ancestors of the modem Germanic race. #
In 1917, during the First World War, there were Germans who assumed that British Israel teachings permeated the whole of British Society:
"... the religious ideology which assigns to the descendants of Abraham the sovereignty over the entire world plays a most important part in the political education of the English people. The view that the British are descended from the Lost Ten Tribes, and are therefore chosen by God to be the rulers of the world, permeates nearly every section of the nation." Extract from a German newspaper "Bremer Burgenzeitung."
There was also a case where two known prominent anti-Semites in France who were also anti-British combined the two: The British were descended from the same stock as the Jews. That explains their mutual disagreeableness.
German Nazis, such as Goebbels and Goering, also compared the British with Jews and noted similarities.
It is probable that Winston Churchill believed in British Israel.
So did President Ronald Reagan in the USA.
President John F. Kennedy told Israeli PM Gold Meir that the connection of the USA with Israel is the same as that of the USA with Britain.
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9. Yair Davidiy and Brit-Am.
Yair Davidiy published "The Tribes" in 1993. It was followed by new editions and more than 10 other books on the Biblical Identity same theme.
In ca. 1995 Yair Davidiy, a practising Jew in Israel, announced the creation of "Brit-Am" as a formal organization.
Later its name was changed to "Brit-Am/Hebrew Awareness."
Brit-Am believes in the Three Bs:
1. Biblical Truth.
2. Biblical Ambience (Background, study, etc).
3. Biblical Israelite Tribal Identity.
This last point, no.3, is what Brit-Am emphasizes through its Three Rs:
1. Research.
2. Revelation- Recognition, i.e. making the Results of Research known.
3. Reconciliation. preparing the way for future union of Judah with the Ten Tribes.
Differences between Brit-Am and other groups of British Israel type Provenance include:
We use the Hebrew Bible in its original Hebrew Language.
We use Rabbinical and related Sources, alongside Biblical and Secular ones.
We try and keep abreast with Academic Research that is most relevant to us.
We also regularly revise previously accepted academic findings and provide new, better ones. This is done in numerous fields including Science (DNA), Archaeology (especially regarding megalithic monuments such as dolmens), Tribal Identifications, and more.
We endeavor to be both pro-Jewish, and pro-Ten Tribes Hebrew.
We may have imperfections but we are probably closer to the truth on Identity matters than any other body
Anecdote:
Shalva Weill, a Senior Researcher at The Research Institute for Innovation and Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem remarked to Yair Davidiy,
"Brit-Am is a kind of Jewish British-Israel, is it not?"
Answer:
"Well not exactly but close enough."
It is worth noting Weill herself holds the Pathans to be members of the Ten Tribes.
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Source Most Quoted in this article:
"BRITSH-ISRAEL:
RACIAL IDENTITY IN IMPERIAL BRITAIN, 1870-1920 ,"
PhD Thesis (Loyola University Chicago)
by
Eric Michael Reisenauer, 1997.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/3693/
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See Also:
The Earliest West European Beliefs in their Israelite Origins
https://britam.org/countries/countriesindex.html
Additional Sources:
"BRITSH-ISRAEL:
RACIAL IDENTITY IN IMPERIAL BRITAIN, 1870-1920 ,"
PhD Thesis (Loyola University Chicago)
by
Eric Michael Reisenauer, 1997.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/3693/