Even before approaching the subject assigned to this text, because of the specificity of the subject that it treats, at the intersection between history and Judaism, a subject that is both technical and specialized, it seems useful, if not necessary, to shed light on this reality which is not only ours and which, even within Judaism, is the work of a majority who have received advanced training and specialization.
The theme of African Judaism seems to some to be off-putting or a simple search for originality, amounting to preventing it from turning round, to disturb the tranquility of traditional Judaism based on an oiled and well-established practice.
The aim is to shed light on the foundations which undoubtedly legitimize the efforts of the hierarchy of Judaism. The hope is that the latter will find there the arguments to be proud of its essence and relaunch the practice, eventually understanding it well, appropriating it as an expression of its own Jewish genius, revaluation of cultural values and the irreducible foundation of the People. .
Like a bold resilience or the emergence of a repressed never extinguished in its silence, embedded in their cultural humus made of sensitive realities and an imaginary abundant with figures, values, cosmologies, African Judaism seems to reinvest in Jewish societal spaces, if it is not through renewed visibility, at least through various forms of rebirth, revival or recognition …
The language as well as the substance of Judaism can, in fact, take on the appearance of an esoteric science, so that this is the place to seek the encounter between the word and the thing it represents. Jewish thought is deeply rooted in African thought and culture.