The Jews of Madagascar

[Yuval]

"Are most Malagasies the descendants of ancient Israelites, and who are the few Jews living there now?":

https://www.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Repo...-secret-415164

See this map of ancient Jewish migrations, it shows the migration of Jews from Yemen to Madagascar:

https://i.imgur.com/BSt2wde.png



How they look today, I guess they've mixed with the locals (are there genetic studies about them)?:





Some of them migrated further south and settled in Zimbabwe, their descendants are the Lemba tribe:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8550614.stm

The Lemba are descended mostly from Jewish men but almost exclusively from local African women:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemba_people#DNA_testing

[Yuval]

Later in history, Madagascar was among places where a Jewish homeland was planned to be created:

http://assets3.bigthink.com/system/t...jpg?1475345292



Here is a very informative video about it, many anti-Semites supported that idea, but also some Jews:



http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/ten...side-palestine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propos...a_Jewish_state

^^^
But I disagree with that video's claim that Madagascar was a place unsuitable for European settlement. At the beginning of the 20th century the island had only 2 million inhabitants, and it seemed like it could not sustain many more. But today it has over 25 million people and they aren't starving at all, they live quite well. I think Madagascar could sustain a large European population. It's not like the desert of Palestine was a much better place for Jewish settlement - they just managed to transform it into a human-friendly environment. I think Jews would also succeed in building a modern and prosperous state in Madagascar.

Palestine was - just like Madagascar - also a desolate, sparsely populated territory plagued by malaria:



Jews have transformed Palestine into what it is today.

They could have achieved the same in Madagascar.