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Sena | |
|---|---|
 A Lemba man from the Gutu District | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| South Africa (esp. Limpopo Province), Malawi, Mozambique, | |
| Languages | |
| Presently Venda, IsiNdebele, Karanga and Pedi (Previously Old South Arabian languages) | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Islam, Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Swahili, Shirazi, Hadhrami |
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| Judaism |
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The Lemba, or Beta EzraEl are an Israelitish community who migrated from Yemen down the eastern coast of Africa to South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, of mixed Bantu and Yemeni ancestry under the leadership of the Sons of Solomon whose court is seated today in Venda, South Africa.[1]
Since the late twentieth century, there has been increased media and scholarly attention about the Lemba's common partial descent from Semitic peoples of West Asia.[2][3] Genetic Y-DNA analyses have established a paternal West Asian origin for the majority of the Lemba population, while the matrilineal origins are exclusively from Sub Saharan Africa.[4][5]
- ^ "Beta Ezrael Kingdom".
- ^ Parfitt, Tudor (1993/2000) Journey to the Vanished City: the Search for a Lost Tribe of Israel, New York: Random House (2nd edition)
- ^ Parfitt(2002), "The Lemba", p. 39
- ^ Spurdle, AB; Jenkins, T (November 1996), "The origins of the Lemba "Black Jews" of southern Africa: evidence from p12F2 and other Y-chromosome markers.", Am. J. Hum. Genet., 59 (5): 1126–33, PMC 1914832, PMID 8900243
- ^ Soodyal, H (2013). "Lemba origins revisited: Tracing the ancestry of Y chromosomes in South African and Zimbabwean Lemba". South African Medical Journal. 103 (12). Retrieved 9 May 2014.