https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/nyregion/black-hebrew-israelites-jersey-city-suspects.html
The Black Hebrew Israelites are often known for their inflammatory sidewalk ministers who employ provocation as a form of gospel, preaching a theology that says the chosen ones are black, Native American and Hispanic people.
Now, one of the two suspects in Tuesday’s attack on a kosher market in Jersey City that ended with six dead, including a police officer, appears to have been connected to the group, an official said.
The suspects, who were killed inside the Jersey City Kosher Supermarket, were identified by officials as David Anderson and Francine Graham. Mr. Anderson, the official said, had posted anti-Semitic and anti-police screeds on internet forums in the past.
A manifesto-style document was found in the van that the assailants abandoned in the parking lot of the supermarket. But the official said it was rambling and gave no clear motivation for the attack.
The belief system of Black Hebrew Israelites, which is not associated with mainstream Judaism, varies among the dozens of groups into which the century-old theology has splintered over the years.
Broadly speaking, followers reject the notion of race, and instead believe that the 12 tribes of Israel defined in the Old Testament are different ethnic groups, or nations, and that whites are not among them.
“They mostly trade in Antisemitism; they view Jews as impostors,” said Heidi Beirich, the director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups and has labeled Black Hebrew Israelites as a hate group. “They call them sometimes devilish impostors or devils, because they think of themselves as the true Israelites.”
Ms. Beirich added: “The group is not known for committing mass acts of violence. It doesn’t have a record of violence that white supremacists have in the United States.”
In January, a video of a confrontation involving students from Covington Catholic High School in northern Kentucky at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington went viral, appearing to show the students yelling at a Native American activist.
The students later said they had been responding to a group of Hebrew Israelites, and further video footage showed the group had begun screaming invective at them and the activist.
After the conflagration, some of the Hebrew Israelites involved described it as a win, for elevating the fringe group to the national stage.