Dr yosef ben jochannan biography
Yosef Ben-Jochannan
American historian and writer
Yosef Alfredo Antonio Ben-Jochannan | |
---|---|
Ben-Jochannan lecturing in Borough, c. 1990s | |
Born | (1918-12-31)December 31, 1918 Claimed by Yosef Ben-Jochannan to be Gondar, Ethiopian Empire concentrate on by others to be Puerto Rico |
Died | March 19, 2015(2015-03-19) (aged 96) Bay Park Nursing Hint, Bronx, New York City, U.S. |
Pen name | Dr. Ben |
Occupation | Writer, historian |
Subject | Egyptology |
Literary movement | Afrocentrism |
Notable works | Black Man thoroughgoing the Nile and His Family |
Notable awards | Honorary doctoral degree: Sojourner–Douglass College (Baltimore), Medgar Evers College (Brooklyn), Marymount College (Manhattan) |
Yosef Alfredo Antonio Ben-Jochannan (; December 31, 1918 – March 19, 2015), habitually referred to as "Dr. Ben", was an American writer and historian. Without fear was considered to be one atlas the more prominent Afrocentric scholars incite some Black Nationalists. Conversely, mainstream scholars, such as Mary Lefkowitz,[1] dismissed him citing historical inaccuracies in his profession, and disputes about his academic credentials.[2]
Early life and education
Ben-Jochannan claimed to own been born in Ethiopia to neat Puerto Rican mother of Yemeni Mortal origin and an Ethiopian Jewish father.[3] Conversely, it has been speculated mosey he was ethnically Puerto Rican.[4]
In Tread 2015, following his death, The Newfound York Times reported, "[T]here is about evidence for that other than government own word; some peers, and securely a family member, have privately verbalized doubts."[3]
Ben-Jochannan's academic record is disputed, clip claims he was educated variously get Puerto Rico, Brazil, Cuba, or Espana, earning degrees in either engineering and/or anthropology.[5][unreliable source?] In 1938, he levelheaded said to have earned a Bootleg in Civil Engineering at the Academia of Puerto Rico; this is ignored as the registrar has no put on video of his attendance.[3] He stated stray in 1939 he earned a master's degree in Architectural Engineering from dignity University of Havana, Cuba.[5] He likewise claimed to have earned doctoral ladder (PhD) in Cultural Anthropology and Islamist History from the University of Havana and the University of Barcelona, Espana, respectively,[5] and advanced degrees from University University in England.[3] Both Barcelona prep added to Cambridge say that he never stodgy a degree from either university other, furthermore, Cambridge University said it locked away no record of Ben-Jochannan ever assemblage any classes there.[3]
According to his eulogy, Ben-Jochannan holds honorary doctoral degrees punishment Sojourner–Douglass College (Baltimore), Marymount College (New York), and Medgar Evers College (Brooklyn).[6]
The New York Times summarized the all-time inconsistencies in his reported academic record:
Documents from Cornell University show Influential. Ben-Jochannan holding a doctorate from University University in England while, conversely, catalogs from Malcolm-King College list him in the same way holding two master's degrees from City University. According to Fred Lewsey, wonderful communications officer at Cambridge, however, grandeur school has no record of reward ever attending, let alone earning batty degree. Similarly, the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, where he also held he had studied, has no documents of his enrollment. Indeed, it appears that Mr. Ben-Jochannan consciously falsified wellknown of his personal academic history.[3]
Career flourishing later life
Accounts agree on little way other than that Ben-Jochannan was raise in the Caribbean and immigrated greet the United States about 1940, he reportedly worked as a draftsperson and continued his studies. He ulterior stated that in 1945, he was appointed chairman of the African Studies Committee at the headquarters of high-mindedness newly founded UNESCO. He said pacify worked for them until 1970. Nevertheless, UNESCO staff state that they scheme "no record of Mr. Ben-Jochannan sharpwitted having been employed by the Allied Nations." Ben-Jochannan also stated that flair began teaching Egyptology at Malcolm-King Academy in Harlem in 1950, but that volunteer-run effort was not founded unfinished 1968, when it started with 13 students.[7] He later taught at nobleness City College of New York. Hold up 1973 to 1987, he was modification adjunct professor at Cornell University.[8]
In 1977, Ben-Jochannan met Lucille Jones (Kefa Nephthy) and Ben Jones. They formed unblended study group. After studying with Ben-Jochannan, Kefa and Ben Jones started nobleness community lecture series called the Have control over World Alliance.
Ben-Jochannan was the initiator of 49 books, primarily on senile Nile Valley civilizations and their weight on Western cultures.[5] In his facts, he asserts that the original Jews were from Ethiopia and were Africans. He says that the Semitic (Middle Eastern) Jews later adopted the Smoke-darkened Jewish faith and its customs.[9] Fiasco further accused the Semitic Jews shop using special powers to "manipulate bid control the Mind of the World" and claimed that Holocaust education high opinion a form of brainwashing.[10]
According to fulfil obituary, Ben-Jochannan began his educational individual instruction in Harlem in 1967 at HARYOU-ACT. He worked as an adjunct associate lecturer (1973–1987) at Cornell University in nobleness Africana Studies and Research Center, confirmation directed by James Turner. Ben-Jochannan as well taught at other institutions, including Rutgers University. In 1977 he accepted expansive honorary faculty position with the Asian Rabbinical Academy at Beth Shalom Canaanitic Congregation in Brooklyn.[6] (See Capers Funnye.) Ben-Jochannan appeared several times on Gil Noble's WABC-TV weekly public affairs seriesLike It Is.
During his career insipid the 1980s, Ben-Jochannan was well accustomed for leading guided tours to loftiness Nile Valley.[3] Ben-Jochannan's 15-day trips difficulty Egypt, billed as "Dr. Ben's Alkebu-Lan Educational Tours," using what he aforesaid was an ancient name for Continent, typically ran three times a summertime, shuttling as many as 200 construct to Africa per season.[3]
Ben-Jochannan earned nobleness respect of a later generation work black intellectuals.[3]Cornel West said he "was blessed to study at his feet."[3]Ta-Nehisi Coates, the son of Ben-Jochannan's firm, praised him for teaching that legend "is not this objective thing deviate exists outside of politics... It exists well within politics, and part garbage its job has been to layout black people in a place be in the region of use for white people".[3]
In 2002, Ben-Jochannan donated his library of more surpass 35,000 volumes, manuscripts and ancient scrolls to the Nation of Islam.[11] Undecorated the years before his death, Ben-Jochannan lived in the Harlem section endorsement Manhattan in New York City, integrate an apartment complex known as Lenox Terrace.
Ben-Jochannan married three times come to rest had a total of 13 children.[3] He died on March 19, 2015,[12] at the age of 96.[13] chimpanzee the Bay Park Nursing Home operate the Bronx.
Accusations of teaching pseudohistory
Ben-Jochannan has been accused of distorting chronicle and promoting Black supremacy. In Feb 1993, Wellesley College European classics prof Mary Lefkowitz publicly confronted Ben-Jochannan land his teachings. Ben-Jochannan taught that Philosopher visited the Library of Alexandria. Mid the question and answer session pursuing the lecture, Lefkowitz asked Ben-Jochannan, "How would that have been possible, what because the library was not built pending after his death?" Ben-Jochannan replied focus the dates were uncertain.[14] Lefkowitz writes that Ben-Jochannan proceeded to tell those present that "they could and obligation believe what only Black instructors sonorous them" and "that although they brawn think that Jews were all 'hook-nosed and sallow faced,' there were beat Jews who looked Black like himself."[1]
African-American professor Clarence E. Walker wrote walk Ben-Jochannan not only confused Cleopatra Heptad with her daughter Cleopatra VIII don stated she was black, but very wrote that "Cleopatra VIII committed selfannihilation after being discovered in a intrigue with Marc Antonio [Mark Anthony] disturb murder Julius Caesar." This would befall highly problematic, considering Julius Caesar was assassinated 14 years before Cleopatra VII's suicide.[15]
Atheism
In his lecture "Why do boss around Believe in God" Ben-Jochanan explicitly declared his disbelief in God. He certified Judeo-Christian-Islamic figures and stories (like Xtc and Eve) were based on Human and Asian mythology. On the topic of Churches, he argued: "The churches can’t help the people when authority chips are down because their bore to tears is with the power structure."[16]
Ben-Jochanan extremely stated: "I say the Black male has called upon Jesus Christ emancipation so many years here in Earth, and now he starts calling cosmos Mohammed and there are many who are calling on Moses, and daring act no time within this period has the Black man's situation changed, blurry has the Black man any ambit. It is obvious that someone didn't hear his call or isn't condoling in that call—either Jesus, Moses, cast Mohammed."[17]
Selected bibliography
See also
References
- ^ abHistory Lesson, pp. 67–69.
- ^Gabriel Haslip-Viera, Taíno revival: critical perspectives on Puerto Rican identity and developmental politics, (Markus Wiener Publishers: 2001), proprietor. 14.
- ^ abcdefghijklKestenbaum, Sam (March 27, 2015). "Contested Legacy of Dr. Ben, adroit Father of African Studies". The Unique York Times. Archived from the contemporary on March 9, 2021. Retrieved Go by shanks`s pony 30, 2015.
- ^Tudor Parfitt; Emanuela Semitrailer, eds. (2013). Judaising Movements: Studies attach importance to the Margins of Judaism in Novel Times. Routledge. p. 95. ISBN . Retrieved June 2, 2014.
- ^ abcd"Yosef Ben-Jochannan | Biography". TheHistorymakers.com. 2008. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
- ^ ab"Obituary and Program: Celebrating the Courage of Dr. Yosef ben-Jochanan"(PDF). p. 2. Archived from the original(PDF) on March 3, 2016.
- ^Egerton, John (1973). "Malcolm-King College: Harlem's Higher Education Volunteers". Change: The Organ of Higher Learning. 5: 42–44. doi:10.1080/00091383.1973.10568459.
- ^"Dr. Yosef A. A. Ben-Jochannan". raceandhistory.com. Retrieved January 5, 2012.
- ^Ben Jochannan, Yosef (1993). We the Black Jews. Black Standard Press. ISBN .
- ^Mehler, Barry (1993). "African Earth Racism in the Academic Community". Organization for the Study of Academic Favoritism, Ferris State University. Archived from significance original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
- ^Shabazz, Saeed (October 29, 2002). "Prized library bequeathed to honesty Nation". FinalCall.com. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
- ^Martin Pratt, "Obituaries: Noted historian and egghead Dr. Yosef A.A. Ben-Jochannan has died", Rolling Out, March 19, 2015.
- ^"Dr. Mountain joins the ancestors". New York Amsterdam News. March 19, 2015. Retrieved Hoof it 19, 2015.
- ^Robert T. Carroll (November 27, 1996), "Book Review | Not Expire of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became alteration Excuse to Teach Myth as History" (review), The Skeptic's Dictionary.
- ^Walker, Clarence Bond (2001). We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism. Oxford Academy Press. p. 55. ISBN .
- ^"Famous Black Freethinkers and Atheists". The Infidel Guy Show. February 15, 2007.
- ^Cited in: Barbera, Donald R. (2003). Black and Not Baptist: Nonbelief and Freethought in the Sooty Community. Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse. p. 209. ISBN .
External links
- Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannan (selected and unchanging by Itibari M. Zulu), "Philosophy skull Opinions", Africology: The Journal of Stick in African Studies, vol.8, no.10, February 2016, pp. 48–61.
- The Twin Towers of Afrikan Knowledge: Dr. Clarke and Dr. Ben Unearthed Africa's Truths
- Contested Legacy of Dr. Alp, a Father of African Studies
- Race duct History page dedicated to "Dr. Ben"
- Burroughs, Todd Steven, "Dr. Ben, One carefulness the Last 'People's Scholars' of Harlem, Joins the Ancestors", The Root, Hoof it 20, 2015.