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By the 1930s, however, in the U.S., a strain of anti-Semitism started to permeate the movement (though some maintained traditional beliefs - and a small number of traditionalists still exist in the U.S.). Originally, believers viewed contemporary Jews as descendants of those ancient Israelites who had never been "lost." They might be seen critically but, given their significant role in the British-Israel genealogical scheme, not usually with animosity.
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Once on American shores, British-Israelism began to evolve.
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Nevertheless, British-Israelism remained small and obscure. The foremost American believer was New Englander Howard Rand (1889-1991), whose Anglo-Saxon Federation distributed thousands of pieces of literature. British-Israelites began to lecture and publish across the nation, especially in New England, the Midwest and along the West Coast. Although eccentric, British-Israelites seem to have had no ambitious political agenda or animus, and were probably no more racist or anti-Semitic than the mainstream of Western culture at that time.īy the late 19th century, British-Israelite doctrines began to migrate to the United States they had a particular appeal to some of the many Americans who believed that the country had a special destiny in God's eyes. According to Michael Barkun, the leading historian of Christian Identity, the British-Israel movement in Great Britain peaked in the 1920s with approximately five thousand adherents. These peculiar views-arrived at through creative interpretation of scripture, language, and history-never became widely popular. The Lost Tribes had purportedly made their way to Europe, and from them descended the modern European nationalities. Identity's current influence ranges from Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups to the anti-government militia and sovereign citizen movements-yet most Americans are unaware that it even exists.Ĭhristian Identity's origins can be traced back to the nineteenth century in Great Britain, where a small circle of religious thinkers advanced the idea, known as British-Israelism or Anglo-Israelism, that modern Europeans were biologically descended from the ancient Israelites of the Old Testament-specifically, from the "Lost Tribes" scattered by invasions of Hittites, Assyrians and Babylonians. Adherents have committed hate crimes, bombings and other acts of terrorism. Penetrating existing racist and anti-Semitic groups and movements, it has inflamed their bigotry with religious fervor and also sparked the creation of many new groups. One of the most remarkable developments in the extreme right in the United States in the past few decades has been the rise of an obscure religious ideology known as Christian Identity.