Black Jewish Indigeneity and the Remapping of Jewish Histories and Futures

Name: Black Jewish Indigeneity and the Remapping of Jewish Histories and Futures
Start: 2025-04-30T15:30:00.000-04:00
Location: Room 003, Rockefeller Center

A public lecture by Noah Tamarkin, Cornell University. Presented by the Religion Department's Forum on Race & Religion.

Noah Tamarkin, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Science & Technology Studies
Cornell University

Wednesday, April 30, 2025
3:30 PM
Location: Rocky 3
Free and open to all

Reception to follow

Lecture title: Black Jewish Indigeneity and the Remapping of Jewish Histories and Futures

Abstract: This talk considers how Jewishness and race converge. It builds on my book, Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa (Duke University Press, 2020). The book traces how a group of black South Africans known as the Lemba gave new meanings to late 1980s and 1990s genetic studies that aimed to demonstrate their links to Jews. This talk shows how Lemba Jewishness, and the decision between geneticists and Lemba people to locate that Jewishness in Lemba bodies, provides new ways to think about Jews, race, place, and belonging. I argue that Lemba Jewishness provides openings through which to rethink and ultimately remap Jewish histories and futures.