Honorable Mention / 2012 / Press / Political

Manifesto

  • Photographer
    Catalin Parau, Romania

An image that is trying to depict the street manifesto of one congregation in the USA, with the events taking place downtown Houston/TX, MMXI Anno Domini.

The group, though simply named "The Black Jews", was entirely represented by men (including male children), yet their beliefs are more complex than the simplicity of their title would suggest.

Their religious truth gravitates around the following creed :

"JER, 14:2
The so called White Jews are not the true Biblical jews,
they are imposters and liars.
The true hebrew israelites are those whose fathers are of indian
and negro descent throughout North, Central and South America.
The only real jews are the negroes brought to North America in slavery."

Grossly simplified, their message was to inform the people about the true origin of the Bible's dramatis personae, including both the Old and New Testament.
Also, they felt that the history of the jewish people (in this case, themselves) in the last two millennia had been severely falsified.
Therefore, the spread of false information through "the religious media" has helped convince people of some things they completely disagree with.
Though not denying Christ nor the Prophets, their belief is that the Saviour is negro of origin and so is Moses, among others, thus making the other visual representations of Biblical icons as tools of indoctrination.

All the quotes (as is the one above from JER, 14:2) and other references seen here or the other images of the series are taken from their own version of the Bible.