Igbo-Israel

The legend of The Lost Tribes of Israel remained for scholars, historians, archeologists, anthropologists and Hebraists a fascinating topic for millennia. When Israel faced an imperial conquest in the hands of the Assyrian empire in 722 B.C. as earlier warned by prophets Isaiah and Hosea, the nation also went on exile and into what seemed oblivion. A people who for penalty of apostasy became a dispersed people across the globe for nearly three thousand years creating a puzzle of identity and location for so long has suddenly began to emerge from the shadows of time. The account of their journey and experiences over this period had largely remained conjectures as they assimilated amongst foreign cultures. The Igbo, sojourned in the two sides of lower Niger, one of Africas great rivers second only to the Nile and like other exiled tribes of Israel was relatively unknown to those who never had any contacts with them. The era of trans-Atlantic forced migrations and European colonization opened this connection. The exposition of a peoples beliefs, behavior, attitudes and values within religious, cultural and political context had only affirmed their origin and identity.