In Vodun (Voodoo), Lemba is a loa worshipped in Brazil and Haiti.

The Lemba or Lembaa are a tribe of people in southern Africa. Although they speak Bantu languages similar to their neighbours, they have specific religious practices similar to those in Judaism, and a tradition of being a migrant people with clues pointing to an origin in the Middle East or North Africa.

They have restrictions on intermarriage with non-Lemba, with it being particularly difficult for male non-Lemba to become part of the tribe. The presence of a disproportionate number of particular polymorphisms on the Y chromosome known as the Cohen modal haplotype suggests an ancestral link to the Kohanim or priests, a distinct subsection of Jews. Also they have a large percent of genes often found in non-arab semites. To mention in one of the Lemba clans 52% percent of the members had the Cohen modal haplotype.

See also

• African Jew
• Beta Israel
• Y-chromosomal Aaron

External link

• "Y chromosomes traveling south" (abstract of a genetic paper on relationship between Jews and Lemba)
• "Webpage discussing the Lemba"(Shows the route the Lemba believe they took from Israel.)