What is "Eidot CHeMDaT"A"?
In 1782, a 16-page pamphlet entitled “A Sermon on the Capture of Lord Cornwallis” introduced a term into American racial dialogue that would not reach widespread use for another two centuries:
“African-American.”
Ultimately receiving mainstream adoption after Rev. Jesse Jackson’s use in 1988, the term “African-American” was advanced to give a heritage and a cultural base to descendants of American Blacks who lived through the slavery era—particularly those who did not know where on the African continent their ancestors originated from—supplanting earlier terms such as “Colored” and “Negro,” tools of White supremacy and oppression which referred more to skin color rather than ancestry. “Black American” remained in use as an umbrella term jointly referring to both African-Americans and their Caribbean-American cousins.
However, the term “African-American” quickly became misinterpreted and/or misused to include modern-day continental African immigrants to America. A Nigerian or South African immigrant to the United States is not an “African-American,” but a Nigerian-American or South African-American, as they are aware of where in Africa they and their ancestors originate. The conflation and appropriation of terms has led to the creation of lesser-known designations such as FBA (Foundational Black Americans) and ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) to describe the descendants of purposefully obliterated tribal ancestries, languages, and family units as a result of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Therefore, when discussing the term "Eidot CHeMDaT”A" in the landscape of Jewish ethnicity and identity, it is imperative to first explicitly define what it means and who it includes.
What is "Eidot CHeMDaT”A"?
A new communal self-description—not a label invented by academics, anthropologists, or outside observers—first took shape on social media in 2023. By the time of the 2024 Harvard University symposium Jews and Black Theory: Conceptualizing Otherness in the Twenty-First Century, the term had fully emerged:
Eidot CHeMDaT”A.
A play on the Aramaic word chemdata (חֶמְדָּתָא)—meaning “delight” or “desirable” (see Targum Jonathan, Zechariah 7:14, Jeremiah 3:19)—the designation names and affirms the shared identity of Jews of African descent across the spectrum of mainstream belief and practice, existing as an acronym for:
Eidot
עֵידוֹת
Chilonim
חִילּוֹנִים
U’Masortim
וּמָסוֹרתִּים
V’Datiyyim
וְדָתִיִּים
shel ha-T’futzah ha-Afriqa’it
שֶׁל הַתְּפוּצָה הָאַפְרִיקָאִית
The Communities of Secular, Heterodox, and Orthodox Jews of the African Diaspora
It is a name that affirms the full legitimacy of African-American and Caribbean-American Jews within normative rabbinic Judaism—by birth or by choice—under the authority of the Ashkenazic denominations (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, et al), or the traditionalist practices and observances of Sefaradi/MENA Jewry. This thus distinguishes them from the many other non-rabbinic movements that have flourished in Black religious life, whose self-proclaimed Jewish identity is defined outside that framework.
Chilonim (חִילּוֹנִים): Evoking the Israeli socio-religious category, these are those who are Jewish by birth—whether matrilineal (as per traditionalist halakhah) or patrilineal (as per the Reconstructionist, Renewal, and North American Reform movements)—or Jewish by choice via adoption or formal conversion to mainstream Judaism—whether under the auspices of the denominational guidelines of Ashkenazi Jewry or the traditionalist guidelines of Sefaradi/MENA Jewry—but are otherwise secular, unaffiliated, non-observant.
Masortim (מָסוֹרתִּים): Recalling both Israeli Masorti (Conservative) Judaism and the Israeli Hebrew term for those who identify as religious centrists, these include adherents to all the Heterodox denominations of mainstream Ashkenazi Judaism (Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform, Renewal), and those neither strictly religious nor secular who observe as per “traditional” Sefaradi/MENA-Judaism.
Datiyyim (דָתִיִּים): This includes adherents to any of the Ashkenazi Orthodox Judaisms (Modern Orthodox, Ultra-Orthodox, Charedi, Chassidish, Yeshivish, et al), and those who observe as per Sefaradi/MENA-Jewish Shomer Shabbat/Shomer Kashrut/Shomer Taharat Mishpachah/Shomer Mitzvot traditionalists.
Ha-T’futzah Ha-Afriqa’it/The African Diaspora(הַתְּפוּצָה הָאַפְרִיקָאִית): The African Diaspora is the forced and voluntary global dispersion of Africans and their descendants—particularly to the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean—primarily as a result of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade from the 16th-19th centuries.
Why "Eidot CHeMDaT”A"?
Historically, African Diasporic Jews have often been referred to as “Black Jews.”
Among such Jews this term has been met with varying acceptance. Some reject the term as—like “Colored” and “Negro”—it denotes skin color rather than ancestry or minhag (cultural tradition and custom), representing an othering rather than a declaration of practice and origin.
Others embrace the term “Black Jews,” yet decry that the label is often appropriated and obfuscated by Hebrew Israelites, a non-homogenous Judaism-inspired Afrocentric religious movement composed of numerous groups with varying beliefs and practices that originated in the late 19th century. Some Hebrew Israelite sects are considered Black supremacist and Judeophobic, while others are civil with mainstream Judaism and even resemble Conservative or Conservadox Jewish congregations in ritual practice. However, regardless of practice or nomenclature, all Black Hebrew Israelite groups are distinct from African/Caribbean-American adherents to Judaism and are not affiliated with the mainstream Jewish community or normative Judaism, as they do not meet the established criteria—such as matrilineal or patrilineal descent or formal conversion—that are used to identify someone as Jewish.
A core Hebrew Israelite tenet is that all African/Caribbean-Americans are descendants of the Hebrews of the Bible, and most, if not all Hebrew Israelite groups, consider white Ashkenazi Jews as Edomite converts, reject the Talmud as a “white book,” and Rabbinic Judaism and its offshoots as illegitimate “white denominations.”
Eidot CHeMDaT”A Jews are therefore those African/Caribbean-Americans who belong and adhere to mainstream Rabbinic Judaism as expressed either by the guidelines of denominational Ashkenazi Jewry or the traditionalist observances of Sefaradi/MENA Jewry, and as distinct from Hebrew Israelites and their various iterations.