IGBO - ISRAEL

<p>The legend of The Lost Tribes of Israel remained for<br />scholarshistorians archeologists anthropologists and Hebraists<br />a fascinating topic for millennia. When Israel faced an imperial<br />conquest in the hands of the Assyrian empire in 722 B.C. as earlier<br />warned by prophets Isaiah and Hosea the nation also went on<br />exile and into what seemed oblivion. A people who for penalty of<br />apostasy became a dispersed people across the globe for nearly<br />three thousand years creating a puzzle of identity and location<br />for so long has suddenly began to emerge from the shadows of<br />time. The account of their journey and experiences over this<br />period had largely remained conjectures as they assimilated<br />amongst foreign cultures. The Igbo sojourned in the two sides of<br />lower Niger one of Africa's great rivers second only to the Nile<br />and like other exiled tribes of Israel was relatively unknown to<br />those who never had any contacts with them. The era of trans<br />- Atlantic forced migrations and European colonization opened<br />this connection. The exposition of a people's beliefs behavior<br />attitudes and values within religious cultural and political context<br />had only affi rmed their origin and identity.</p>