Help Jews Connect With Their Hebrew Igbo Ancestry

Shalom,

My name is Yehudah Webster, and I'm on a continuous journey of Teshuvah, returning to right relationship with YHWH/HaShem and connecting with my ancestral Hebrew Igbo roots through my Ima's (mother's) side of the family. After reconnecting with my fellow Hebrew Igbos in Nigeria in January of 2024, I'm organizing a trip for a delegation of Jews with confirmed and potential Igbo ancestry to visit, learn, and get grounded in their Torah-based history, customs and traditions in January 2025.

The funds raised would help subsidize the tickets, visa, and accommodations to be with Jewish communities in Igbo land in Nigeria for 10-12 Jews of African descent, helping create the access to deepen relationships and build bridges to support each other in growing our collective community.

More About The Trip Organizer, Yehudah Webster

About 7 years ago at the Yaffa port I was asked the question, where does history begin for you? At the time I was deeply disturbed as I was unable to fully answer that question given the historical, cultural, and spiritual erasure of the Transatlantic slave trade. While my Ima’s family has known that we are descendants of Igbo people and thus ancestrally Jewish, we’ve been disconnected for generations from our history, culture and spiritual customs and traditions that root us in who we are. Today I’m grateful to HaShem to share that thanks to my brother Yitzchak, the community and elders of Ogidi, and Professor Ogueri Duru, I’m now grounded in where history begins and continues for me and my family, making clearer the path of Teshuvah my family and I are making to help us flourish into the future.

Today, Yehudah is a spiritual activist and community organizer who works to animate and integrate anti-racist behaviors and culture in communities, supporting the collective organizing, advocacy and direct service efforts to dismantle racism systemically. As the Program Director/co-creator of the Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out curriculum and Core Faculty Member at Kirva, Yehudah equips communities with the daily concrete spiritual tools of Mussar to subvert racism within ourselves and others through facilitating workshops, consulting with organizations, and building communities of anti-racist practice. He has presented in a wide variety of settings, including staff developments for organizations, college campuses, communal institutions, and youth group programs. Yehudah is a graduate of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice’s Grace Paley Organizing Fellowship, Bend the Arc’s Selah Leadership Program, and Kirva's Ovdim Fellowship, and a recipient of the Pomegranate Prize through the Covenant Foundation.

May Yah bless all of us who are descendants of enslaved people to be able to connect to our ancestral roots and fill in the missing links of our history.