10 Facts About Lemba people

The Lemba people Association complained that "we like many non-European Jews are simply the victims of racism at the hands of the European Jewish establishment worldwide".

However, while the Lemba people do identify with their religious Judaism, many practice Christianity as well.

Lemba people helped trace the origin of their ancestors back to Senna, an ancient city which they believe was located on the Arabian peninsula, in present-day Yemen.

The genetic MtDNA data of the Lemba people has not shown any descent from female Jewish ancestors.

Lemba people wrote in his 1937 book that the other tribes considered the Lemba outsiders.

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Lemba people tradition tells of a sacred object, the ngoma lungundu or the "drum that thunders", which they brought from the place which was called Sena.

Lemba people's book was adapted into a television documentary that aired on the History Channel, tracing the Lemba's claim that the ngoma lungunda was the legendary Ark of the Covenant.

Lemba people did not touch the ngoma because they considered it an intensely sacred object.

Subsequent study which was conducted in 2000 revealed that a substantial number of Lemba people men carry a particular haplotype of the Y-chromosome which is known as the Cohen modal haplotype, as well as a haplogroup of Y-DNA Haplogroup J which is found in some Jews, as well as in other populations which live across the Middle East and Arabia.

When blood groups and serum protein markers were used, the Lemba people were indistinguishable from the neighbors among whom they lived; the same was true for mitochondrial DNA which represented the input of females in their gene pool.