“The Rabbi Has Landed!” Dispatches from the Giant of (Jewish) Africa

Just two months ago, on his fourth visit to Jewish Nigeria, Professor William Miles brought his Conservative rabbi and wife to the African continent for the first time. The ensuing encounters highlighted the political, economic, and theological divergences between Jews in Israel, America and Africa. At the same time, they reinforced the unifying power of Judaism to transcend differences in culture, race, ethnicity and nationality. What does the rise of sub-Saharan Jewry mean for the demographic and geographic momentum of the Jewish Diaspora?

William F.S. Miles is professor of political science at Northeastern University in Boston and former Stotsky Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies there. He teaches courses on religion and politics and international development. Miles is the author of Jews of Nigeria: An Afro-Judaic Odyssey (a National Jewish Book Award finalist); Afro-Jewish Encounters from Timbuktu to the Indian Ocean and Beyond; and, with Daniel Lis and Tudor Parfitt, co-editor of In the Shadow of Moses: New Jewish Movements in Africa and the Diaspora. Winner of the National Bible Contest and former Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger, Miles is conversant in Hebrew and is a fluent speaker of French and Hausa.

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