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Melungeon Jews

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Ethnic group
Melungeon Jews
יהודי מלנג'ון
Languages
American English
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Atlantic Creoles, Melungeons, Lumbee, White Southerners, Black Southerners, and other Jews

Melungeon Jews (Hebrew: יהודי מלנג'ון) are a small group of American descendants of historically tri-racial isolate groups who have converted to Judaism.

Descendants believe that some of their ancestors were Sephardi crypto-Jews who remained isolated in the Southern United States, primarily Appalachia. Current historical and genetic research does not support the claim of recent Sephardi descent or Crypto-Judaism among any Melungeon families.

Research has shown Melungeon descendants to be overwhelmingly of European descent, with direct paternal and maternal lines being predominately of African, European, or more rarely, Native American origin. Some families also have descent from early East Indian indentured servants.

Rabbi Arnold Belzer of Congregation Mickve Israel in Savannah, Georgia, a historic colonial-era Reform synagogue founded by Western Sephardim, endorsed the view that Melungeons should return to Judaism and did not require conversion.

Origin

Main article: Melungeon

Some modern researchers believe that early Atlantic Creole slaves, descended from or acculturated by Iberian lançados and Sephardi Jews fleeing the Inquisition, were one of the pre-cursor populations to modern American tri-racial isolate groups. Many creoles, once in British America, were able to obtain their freedom and many married into local white families.

Report of Indians Taxed and not Taxed within the "Tennessee" report, "The civilized (self-supporting) Indians of Tennessee, counted in the general census numbered 146 (71 males and 75 females) and are distributed as follows: Hawkins county, 31; Monroe county, 12; Polk county, 10; other counties (8 or less in each), 93. Quoting from the report:

The Melungeans or Malungeans, in Hawkins county, claim to be Cherokees of mixed blood (white, Indian, and negro), their white blood being derived, as they assert, from English and Portuguese stock. They trace their descent primarily to 2 Indians (Cherokees) known, one of them as Collins, the other as Gibson, who settled in the mountains of Tennessee, where their descendants are now to be found, about the time of the admission of that state into the Union (1796).

Surnames of Iberian origin

Some families descended from early free people of color in colonial America have Iberian surnames, likely originating from lançados in West Africa and African creoles in Portuguese colonies, such as:

Sources

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