janothar:

jewishmillennials:

How would you like to uplift and celebrate Black Jews during Black History Month?

What would you like to learn? What would you like to share?

Not a Black Jew, but here’s my favorite bit of Black Jewish history that I’d like to share: Queen Gudit the First.

She ruled the Kingdom of Semien in modern Ethiopia (ancestors of today’s Beta Israeli Jews) and she was one of the most badass Jews in our long history of badasses.

Late in the 10th century, the Axumite empire, one of the most powerful empires in East Africa, decided to expand.  Semien was in their path and they thought “Jews?! But we’re…we’re Coptic Christians! THIS CANNOT BE!” and attacked.  So Gudit’s father, Gideon, was forced into a war.  And he won a few battles but then died, leaving her the throne.

She gathered some allies, picked up a sword, and said “Ok, if the choice is die or submit, we die.  But maybe they can die first.  Yeah, that sounds better” and she burned the city of Axum to the ground, conquered almost all the territory Axum held, and established almost two centuries of Jewish rule over modern day Ethiopia.

Over those two centuries, the world heard stories of an independent Jewish kingdom in Africa.  It was mentioned by Marco Polo and other travelers, and the rulers had claimed to be “ha-Dani”, of the Tribe of Dan.

It wasn’t until the 1400s that the Jewish Kingdom of Semien was fully conquered by the Christian Solomonid dynasty, ending almost 500 years of a Jewish state in Africa, and one that was a force to be reckoned with! The Kingdom was briefly independent again later, but finally fell in the 1600s.

Semien was the last Jewish state before modern Israel, and may be the longest lasting independent Jewish state in all history (it’s not clear exactly how long the original Kingdom of Judah lasted).