Story
Faith, Belief and Community.
When the Internet was introduced into the more rural parts of southeast Nigeria, it opened the eyes of a few young Igbo people and began answering some difficult questions of identity. For Shmuel (who was then called Samuel), the nagging question he wanted answered was whether there was any truth to the long-told lore that the Igbo people were once Jews. He began by comparing Hebrew traditions to Igbo traditions, and what he found astounded him. The similarities were so convincing that it sent him off on a journey in the quest to find other Igbo who might be practicing Judaism.
“RE-EMERGING: The Jews of Nigeria” is a journey into the heart of Igboland and into the lives and culture of the Igbo people. The film introduces the world to the many synagogues that dot the land, and a handful of passionate, committed, and diverse people – each striving to fulfill their historical legacy with few resources and unbeknownst to most of the world. Individual stories are woven together with key facets of history, tracing the Igbo from Biblical times up to the brutal 1960s Biafran War, which killed over 1 million Igbo. A wide range of American academics help detail this history, including shedding new light on the Igbo origins of tens of thousands of slaves captured during the Atlantic Slave Trade and brought to American shores. The film delves into this history and travels to the southeast coast of Georgia, where locals still speak of the Igbo spirit at a riverbed called “Ibo Landing”.
