It started in elementary school in the sixth grade.
My first encounter with the word Jew was one Wednesday at a friend's home. My
friends name was Dennis Stubbs. He lived on Sheridan Road in Peoria. Dennis’
sister was walking on the front porch at their home and I was about to knock on
the door. She spoke to me and said, “I’m a Jew.” The word had me perplexed. Not
until years later did I have the understanding of the word Jew meaning one from
the tribe of Judah, one of the sons of Jacob, or a person whose religion is
Judaism. The years went by and I enrolled at Lincoln University in Jefferson
City, Missouri. The living God began working with me! A Jewish family invited
me to the synagogue. I attended the services that weekend. My path crossed a
white Jewish Christian at Word of Faith church in Jefferson City, but it did not
mean anything to me at the time.
I moved back to Peoria in 1983 because I was being treated for Myasthenia Gravis. The Holy Spirit directed me to attend Christian Assembly Church. There I became a friend with Sister S. Powell. We would talk about spiritual things. One day she began to reveal to me under the power of God that many blacks were under the tribes of Israel and that I was a Jew. Many times after that, the Holy Spirit would say this to me in my ear. The Holy Spirit encouraged me to study Ethiopian Jewish history. A couple of years went by and I accumulated some information about this subject. In 1985 I was under the leadership of Dr. Anthony Bright of Peoria. The Word of Knowledge by the Spirit would continue working with me and was very persistent about this, telling me that I was a Jew and that my ancestors were Ethiopian Jews from the House of Judah, the Tribe of Benjamin, and not to forget it.
In the Spirit I would see the Star of David appear on my forehead many times during Dr. Bright's meetings. Charles Allen, author of Generation Exodus (a book that reveals the Hebrew-Egyptian heritage of the Africans brought to America as slaves), reported to me in a personal telephone conversation that he had the Star of David appear to him, too. Dr. Edward Boze, Jr., a pastor in North Carolina, has also expressed to me that he has had the Star of David appear unto him many times. Dr. Boze is a black Hebrew who practices Torah with faith in Y'shua.
In 1991 I left the Bright ministry. This period in my life was very lonely and sorrowful. My first wife left me for another man and divorced me. At times I would tell her that I was an Ethiopian Jew. She thought I was crazy.
The Creator was still ordering my footsteps, reconciling me back to Himself, as a Jew that was lost, through Jesus Christ. During my time of grief and sorrow, the Lord sent me April. We both confirmed that Saturday was God's Sabbath. We both are Spirit filled.
Months after our marriage we heard that someone had started a Messianic Jewish congregation in Peoria. This was in 1995. The name of the congregation was The Gates of Eden and the congregational leader's name was Daniel Botkin.
We grew more and more in the ways of Yahweh at the Gates of Eden. During this time I was moved by the Holy Spirit to get circumcised. The Lord changed my name to Baruk and He changed my wife's name to Sawrah. I was still saying to others that I was Jewish, but people made fun of me. One day one of the elders said to me, “ The Lord confirmed to me that you indeed have Hebrew roots.” He was my first witness. My second witness was a brother who said to me one day, after I had preached to the congregation at the Gates of Eden, “The Lord showed me that you are an Ethiopian Jew, a Hebrew Israelite.”
Throughout the years from 1995 to the preset, there have bee many other ways the Creator has confirmed these facts to me. From sixth grade up to now, the Lord has visited me with many visions and spiritual experiences. He has done it also by means of books, history, and other people in the Messianic Movement.
We teach our children to believe they are Jews from the House of Judah of the Tribe of Benjamin with faith in Y'shua our Messiah. My children attended a Hebrew Day School from 1999 to 2002 and learned more about their Jewish heritage. We home school now. My wife and I both believe that we are Jewish, with the Ruach Hakodesh (Holy Spirit) in us and Y'shua as out Savior and Lord.
My mother also reminded me that Elder Jack Deadwyler taught the members of the First Apostolic Church, where my family attended when I was growing up, that we were Jews. My uncle on my natural father's side also confirmed to me that his mother always told him that they were Hebrews and that this was passed down from her mother and my great, great grandmother's father and mother.
Steven Jacobs, author of The Hebrew Heritage of Black Africa, is a European Jewish historian who proves conclusively that most people of African descent living in America and other parts of the Western Hemisphere, as a result of the African Slave Trade (1517-1808), are offspring of the ancient Israelites. Jacobs quotes eminent eyewitness anthropologists, archeologists, professors and historians, Including Professor Joseph J. Williams of Boston College, and presents information that has for too long been suppressed. Williams did eleven years research into the subject before writing his own notable book entitled Hebrewisms of West Africa.
I strongly believe that my mission on this Earth is to help re-gather the Lost Sheep of Israel back to Yahweh through faith in Jesus Christ/Y'shua. Many of these Lost Sheep are African Americans who are descendants of the tribes of Judah and Ephraim.
Written by Baruk Ben Benjamin.
