David_Hilliard
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEkcnoGjNNw
Despite the hellish heat on this spring Saturday morning in gritty West Baltimore, the five Hebrew Israelite priests loitering near a West Franklin Street storefront are draped in heavy robes, and their heads are wrapped in matching white, red and black cloths. Star of David emblems swing from their necklaces and are embroidered into their fabrics. One priest holds a staff.
Around them, security guards wear black headscarves, black T-shirts and black military-style pants tucked into combat boots. They grip cell phones and billy clubs. On their belts are sheaths and holsters, some empty, others holding blades and guns. The guards flit back and forth across the street, between the parking lot of an apartment complex that police say is notorious for drug-related crimes and a building with covered windows and a bolted front door.
Behind that locked door is the Baltimore branch of the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, a black supremacist sect headquartered in New York City. Obsessed with hatred for whites and Jews, the leaders of the Israelite Church have managed to build up 29 church branches in recent years.
They are not alone.
Around the country, thousands of men and women have joined black supremacist groups on the extremist fringe of the Hebrew Israelite movement, a black nationalist theology that dates back to the 19th century. Its doctrine asserts that African Americans are God's true chosen people because they, not the people known to the world today as Jews, are the real descendants of the Hebrews of the Bible. Although most Hebrew Israelites are neither explicitly racist nor anti-Semitic and do not advocate violence, there is a rising extremist sector within the Hebrew Israelite movement whose adherents believe that Jews are devilish impostors and who openly condemn whites as evil personified, deserving only death or slavery.
The notorious white supremacist leader Tom Metzger once remarked of extremist Hebrew Israelites, "They're the black counterparts of us." The belief system of extremist Hebrew Israelites is basically the reversed-color mirror image of the Christian Identity theology embraced by many white supremacists, which holds that mainstream Jews are the descendants of Satan and that white people are the chosen ones, divinely endowed by God with superior status over "mud people," believers' term for non-white individuals.
Hebrew Israelites
Priests of the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ preach a particularly virulent form of Hebrew Israelism.
Since 2000, when the prophecy of a key leader failed to materialize (he predicted Christ would return to Earth at the dawn of the new millennium to wreak bloody vengeance on white people), the rhetoric of extremist Hebrew Israelites sects has been steadily heating up, with increasing talk of an impending apocalypse and God-ordained race war. At the same time, a magnetic young leader, who counts among his disciples the lead singer of a top-selling R&B group, emerged and rapidly expanded a movement that was previously concentrated in black inner-city neighborhoods on the East Coast. There are now extremist Hebrew Israelite churches in cities throughout Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Oregon.
Confrontations between Hebrew Israelite street preachers and their perceived enemies are growing uglier and gaining increasing attention through video clips circulated to legions of viewers on websites like YouTube. The Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge, a sect that is the Israelite Church's main rival, has its own YouTube "channel," or video sharing distribution networks, with over 500 subscribers. One recently circulated Israelite School video, which has been viewed more than 26,000 times, shows a group of robed street preachers harassing a white woman until she bursts into tears. Another shows the preachers applauding as a white man kneels down to kiss the boots of "the prophets of God" while begging forgiveness for the sins of his race.
In yet another video, a preacher of the Israelite School, a man who identifies himself as General Mayakaahla Ka, offers this stark prediction for the future of the white race: "Every white person who doesn't get killed by Christ when he returns is going into slavery!"
Baltimore: The Grilling
The streets of the West Baltimore neighborhood where the Israelite Church sanctuary is located are just as tough as they look on HBO's "The Wire," a cops-and-reporters crime series acclaimed for its realistic insights into urban life. In the middle of this scene, passersby on Franklin Street respectfully acknowledge the Israelite Church priests and their black-clad security men. These local residents would have no problem getting into the nightly classes that Israelite Church teachers offer in public libraries throughout Baltimore.
But the mysterious church here is different. Entry to its Saturday "Sabbath" sessions requires a vigorous and often intimidating screening.
First, there's the question of skin tone; those with European ancestry need not apply. Others — and, lately, Hebrew Israelites have come to include West Indians, Latin Americans, and American Indians as brother "Hebrews" — may approach security for entry. Any stranger must meet certain strict conditions.
You must promise the guards that you are "clean" — that you haven't eaten pork or had sex in the prior 24 hours. You must explain how you learned about the church and why you've chosen to attend. You must assure guards that you're not a law enforcement officer or a spy from a rival Hebrew Israelite group, and then you have to give up your photo identification. Any recording device will be confiscated during an aggressive pat down search carried out by the guards.
When the door is unbolted briefly to allow you into the building, you walk into a tiny vestibule where you're required to enter your name, address and telephone number into a ledger. If you have a cell phone, it will be confiscated and stored in a file cabinet until you leave. You will be issued a King James Version of the Bible — and any other version that you may carry will be taken away.
Finally, a disciple approaches. He pours olive oil on your head as a final cleansing measure. Now, at last, you are prepared to enter the inner sanctum.
General Mayakaahla Ka is shouting at a college-aged Jewish kid outside the Market East Station in downtown Philadelphia. He and three other extremist Hebrew Israelite preachers, all wearing the Israelite School insignia of two swords crossed through a Star of David, berate their victim until he begins to weep. The altercation is part of an Israelite School recruiting video that began circulating this spring and has since been viewed more than 73,000 times.
"Are you saying the Holocaust is a joke?" the Jewish man asks.
"It's a joke!" the "general" responds. "The Holocaust is a damn joke! Heil Hitler!"
Mobile clusters of up to a dozen extremist Hebrew Israelite street preachers, known in the movement as "camps," have become a common presence at busy intersections, plazas and public transportation centers in large American cities, especially in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., as well as Venice, Calif. The camps are often remarkably aggressive and intimidating, railing against "white devils" and calling for death for Jews and homosexuals.
Zacharyah ben Ya'aqov, a former racist Hebrew Israelite who was active in the movement in the 1990s, calls the activities of camps "evangelical terrorizing." Ya'aqov, who now heads the Israelite group, The Truth After Knowledge, denounces his former community's racist doctrines. He describes on his group's website his experiences as a rank-and-file member, explaining that his superiors brainwashed new recruits, using "fear tactics to break you down," and instructed followers to join camps and verbally assault pedestrians. "They [camp preachers] told them [targeted passersby] they had hell to pay and would be going into slavery," Ya'aqov says on his Web forum. "Especially the white man, who they had special hatred for."
The Israelite School caused a major stir recently when it positioned a camp at the bustling intersection of H and 8th streets in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of northeast Washington, D.C.. The noise produced through its preachers' megaphones and amplifiers sparked conflicts with those who live in the area. "It's frightening when a person or group can force noise — whatever the speech content — inside another's home," said Capitol Hill resident David Klavitter, who monitors the Israelite School camps for his Quest for Quiet blog. "This allows amplifiers to be used as weapons to harass, intimidate and threaten people."
Last December, the Israelite School observed the holidays by "lynching" effigies of the Virgin Mary and Santa Claus in Klavitter's neighborhood.
Extremist Hebrew Israelites have a long, strange list of enemies. At the top of the list are white people, who they preach are descended from a race of red, hairy beings, known as Edomites, who were spawned by Esau, the twin brother of Jacob (later known as Israel) in the Old Testament. Equally hated are "fraudulent" Jews, "the synagogue of Satan." They're closely followed in no particular order by Asians, promiscuous black women, abortionists, continental Africans (who, according to the extremist Israelites, sold the lost tribes of Israel, who were black, to European slave traders), and homosexuals, who according to extremist Israelites should all be put to death. (In December 2006, three gay men who were assaulted inside an Atlanta nightclub identified their attackers as Hebrew Israelites; no arrests were made).
Recruiting literature describing the extremist Israelite doctrine is just as harsh as the street preachers' angry rhetoric. "Does the Bible teach unity of races? NO!" reads one of the Israelite Church's widely distributed fliers. "Will the different nations who believe in Jesus be saved from the Lord's wrath? NO! Was Jesus Christ a Caucasian man? NO! Does his color matter? YES!"
BALTIMORE — Despite the hellish heat on this spring Saturday morning in gritty West Baltimore, the five Hebrew Israelite priests loitering near a West Franklin Street storefront are draped in heavy robes, and their heads are wrapped in matching white, red and black cloths. Star of David emblems swing from their necklaces and are embroidered into their fabrics. One priest holds a staff.
Around them, security guards wear black headscarves, black T-shirts and black military-style pants tucked into combat boots. They grip cell phones and billy clubs. On their belts are sheaths and holsters, some empty, others holding blades and guns. The guards flit back and forth across the street, between the parking lot of an apartment complex that police say is notorious for drug-related crimes and a building with covered windows and a bolted front door.
Behind that locked door is the Baltimore branch of the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, a black supremacist sect headquartered in New York City. Obsessed with hatred for whites and Jews, the leaders of the Israelite Church have managed to build up 29 church branches in recent years.
Despite the hellish heat on this spring Saturday morning in gritty West Baltimore, the five Hebrew Israelite priests loitering near a West Franklin Street storefront are draped in heavy robes, and their heads are wrapped in matching white, red and black cloths. Star of David emblems swing from their necklaces and are embroidered into their fabrics. One priest holds a staff.
Around them, security guards wear black headscarves, black T-shirts and black military-style pants tucked into combat boots. They grip cell phones and billy clubs. On their belts are sheaths and holsters, some empty, others holding blades and guns. The guards flit back and forth across the street, between the parking lot of an apartment complex that police say is notorious for drug-related crimes and a building with covered windows and a bolted front door.
Behind that locked door is the Baltimore branch of the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, a black supremacist sect headquartered in New York City. Obsessed with hatred for whites and Jews, the leaders of the Israelite Church have managed to build up 29 church branches in recent years.
They are not alone.
Around the country, thousands of men and women have joined black supremacist groups on the extremist fringe of the Hebrew Israelite movement, a black nationalist theology that dates back to the 19th century. Its doctrine asserts that African Americans are God's true chosen people because they, not the people known to the world today as Jews, are the real descendants of the Hebrews of the Bible. Although most Hebrew Israelites are neither explicitly racist nor anti-Semitic and do not advocate violence, there is a rising extremist sector within the Hebrew Israelite movement whose adherents believe that Jews are devilish impostors and who openly condemn whites as evil personified, deserving only death or slavery.
The notorious white supremacist leader Tom Metzger once remarked of extremist Hebrew Israelites, "They're the black counterparts of us." The belief system of extremist Hebrew Israelites is basically the reversed-color mirror image of the Christian Identity theology embraced by many white supremacists, which holds that mainstream Jews are the descendants of Satan and that white people are the chosen ones, divinely endowed by God with superior status over "mud people," believers' term for non-white individuals.
Hebrew Israelites
Priests of the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ preach a particularly virulent form of Hebrew Israelism.
Since 2000, when the prophecy of a key leader failed to materialize (he predicted Christ would return to Earth at the dawn of the new millennium to wreak bloody vengeance on white people), the rhetoric of extremist Hebrew Israelites sects has been steadily heating up, with increasing talk of an impending apocalypse and God-ordained race war. At the same time, a magnetic young leader, who counts among his disciples the lead singer of a top-selling R&B group, emerged and rapidly expanded a movement that was previously concentrated in black inner-city neighborhoods on the East Coast. There are now extremist Hebrew Israelite churches in cities throughout Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Oregon.
Confrontations between Hebrew Israelite street preachers and their perceived enemies are growing uglier and gaining increasing attention through video clips circulated to legions of viewers on websites like YouTube. The Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge, a sect that is the Israelite Church's main rival, has its own YouTube "channel," or video sharing distribution networks, with over 500 subscribers. One recently circulated Israelite School video, which has been viewed more than 26,000 times, shows a group of robed street preachers harassing a white woman until she bursts into tears. Another shows the preachers applauding as a white man kneels down to kiss the boots of "the prophets of God" while begging forgiveness for the sins of his race.
In yet another video, a preacher of the Israelite School, a man who identifies himself as General Mayakaahla Ka, offers this stark prediction for the future of the white race: "Every white person who doesn't get killed by Christ when he returns is going into slavery!"
Baltimore: The Grilling
The streets of the West Baltimore neighborhood where the Israelite Church sanctuary is located are just as tough as they look on HBO's "The Wire," a cops-and-reporters crime series acclaimed for its realistic insights into urban life. In the middle of this scene, passersby on Franklin Street respectfully acknowledge the Israelite Church priests and their black-clad security men. These local residents would have no problem getting into the nightly classes that Israelite Church teachers offer in public libraries throughout Baltimore.
But the mysterious church here is different. Entry to its Saturday "Sabbath" sessions requires a vigorous and often intimidating screening.
First, there's the question of skin tone; those with European ancestry need not apply. Others — and, lately, Hebrew Israelites have come to include West Indians, Latin Americans, and American Indians as brother "Hebrews" — may approach security for entry. Any stranger must meet certain strict conditions.
You must promise the guards that you are "clean" — that you haven't eaten pork or had sex in the prior 24 hours. You must explain how you learned about the church and why you've chosen to attend. You must assure guards that you're not a law enforcement officer or a spy from a rival Hebrew Israelite group, and then you have to give up your photo identification. Any recording device will be confiscated during an aggressive pat down search carried out by the guards.
When the door is unbolted briefly to allow you into the building, you walk into a tiny vestibule where you're required to enter your name, address and telephone number into a ledger. If you have a cell phone, it will be confiscated and stored in a file cabinet until you leave. You will be issued a King James Version of the Bible — and any other version that you may carry will be taken away.
Finally, a disciple approaches. He pours olive oil on your head as a final cleansing measure. Now, at last, you are prepared to enter the inner sanctum.
General Mayakaahla Ka is shouting at a college-aged Jewish kid outside the Market East Station in downtown Philadelphia. He and three other extremist Hebrew Israelite preachers, all wearing the Israelite School insignia of two swords crossed through a Star of David, berate their victim until he begins to weep. The altercation is part of an Israelite School recruiting video that began circulating this spring and has since been viewed more than 73,000 times.
"Are you saying the Holocaust is a joke?" the Jewish man asks.
"It's a joke!" the "general" responds. "The Holocaust is a damn joke! Heil Hitler!"
Mobile clusters of up to a dozen extremist Hebrew Israelite street preachers, known in the movement as "camps," have become a common presence at busy intersections, plazas and public transportation centers in large American cities, especially in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., as well as Venice, Calif. The camps are often remarkably aggressive and intimidating, railing against "white devils" and calling for death for Jews and homosexuals.
Zacharyah ben Ya'aqov, a former racist Hebrew Israelite who was active in the movement in the 1990s, calls the activities of camps "evangelical terrorizing." Ya'aqov, who now heads the Israelite group, The Truth After Knowledge, denounces his former community's racist doctrines. He describes on his group's website his experiences as a rank-and-file member, explaining that his superiors brainwashed new recruits, using "fear tactics to break you down," and instructed followers to join camps and verbally assault pedestrians. "They [camp preachers] told them [targeted passersby] they had hell to pay and would be going into slavery," Ya'aqov says on his Web forum. "Especially the white man, who they had special hatred for."
The Israelite School caused a major stir recently when it positioned a camp at the bustling intersection of H and 8th streets in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of northeast Washington, D.C.. The noise produced through its preachers' megaphones and amplifiers sparked conflicts with those who live in the area. "It's frightening when a person or group can force noise — whatever the speech content — inside another's home," said Capitol Hill resident David Klavitter, who monitors the Israelite School camps for his Quest for Quiet blog. "This allows amplifiers to be used as weapons to harass, intimidate and threaten people."
Last December, the Israelite School observed the holidays by "lynching" effigies of the Virgin Mary and Santa Claus in Klavitter's neighborhood.
Extremist Hebrew Israelites have a long, strange list of enemies. At the top of the list are white people, who they preach are descended from a race of red, hairy beings, known as Edomites, who were spawned by Esau, the twin brother of Jacob (later known as Israel) in the Old Testament. Equally hated are "fraudulent" Jews, "the synagogue of Satan." They're closely followed in no particular order by Asians, promiscuous black women, abortionists, continental Africans (who, according to the extremist Israelites, sold the lost tribes of Israel, who were black, to European slave traders), and homosexuals, who according to extremist Israelites should all be put to death. (In December 2006, three gay men who were assaulted inside an Atlanta nightclub identified their attackers as Hebrew Israelites; no arrests were made).
Recruiting literature describing the extremist Israelite doctrine is just as harsh as the street preachers' angry rhetoric. "Does the Bible teach unity of races? NO!" reads one of the Israelite Church's widely distributed fliers. "Will the different nations who believe in Jesus be saved from the Lord's wrath? NO! Was Jesus Christ a Caucasian man? NO! Does his color matter? YES!"
BALTIMORE — Despite the hellish heat on this spring Saturday morning in gritty West Baltimore, the five Hebrew Israelite priests loitering near a West Franklin Street storefront are draped in heavy robes, and their heads are wrapped in matching white, red and black cloths. Star of David emblems swing from their necklaces and are embroidered into their fabrics. One priest holds a staff.
Around them, security guards wear black headscarves, black T-shirts and black military-style pants tucked into combat boots. They grip cell phones and billy clubs. On their belts are sheaths and holsters, some empty, others holding blades and guns. The guards flit back and forth across the street, between the parking lot of an apartment complex that police say is notorious for drug-related crimes and a building with covered windows and a bolted front door.
Behind that locked door is the Baltimore branch of the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, a black supremacist sect headquartered in New York City. Obsessed with hatred for whites and Jews, the leaders of the Israelite Church have managed to build up 29 church branches in recent years.
