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Searching for Zion
“A brilliant illustration of the ways in which race is an artificial construct that, like beauty, is often a matter of perspective.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Frank and expansive . . . Each impressionistic, deeply personal vignette is a building block, detailing [Raboteau’s] far-flung search for ‘home’—a ‘promised land’ that’s as brick-and-mortar tangible as it is spiritually confirming.”—Chicago Tribune
A decade in the making, Emily Raboteau’s Searching for Zion takes readers around the world on an unexpected adventure of faith. Both one woman’s quest for a place to call “home” and an investigation into a people’s search for the Promised Land, this landmark work of creative nonfiction is a trenchant inquiry into contemporary and historical ethnic displacement.
At twenty-three, Raboteau traveled to Israel to visit her childhood best friend. While her friend appeared to have found a place to belong, Raboteau couldn’t relate. As a biracial woman from a country still divided along racial lines, she’d never felt at home in America, unable to find her “Zion,” which she defined as a metaphor for freedom. But in Israel, the Jewish Zion, Raboteau was surprised to discover black Jews. Inspired by their exodus, Raboteau sought out other black communities that had left home in search of a Promised Land. Her question for them is the same she asks herself: have you found the home you’re looking for?
On this ten-year journey back in time and across the globe, Raboteau visits Jamaica, Ethiopia, Ghana, and the American South to explore the complex and contradictory perspectives of Black Zionists. She talks to Rastafarians, African Hebrew Israelites, Evangelicals and Ethiopian Jews, and Katrina transplants from her own family, overturning our ideas of place and patriotism, and displacement and dispossession, in a disarmingly honest and refreshingly brave take on the pull of the story of Exodus.
“Frank and expansive . . . Each impressionistic, deeply personal vignette is a building block, detailing [Raboteau’s] far-flung search for ‘home’—a ‘promised land’ that’s as brick-and-mortar tangible as it is spiritually confirming.”—Chicago Tribune
A decade in the making, Emily Raboteau’s Searching for Zion takes readers around the world on an unexpected adventure of faith. Both one woman’s quest for a place to call “home” and an investigation into a people’s search for the Promised Land, this landmark work of creative nonfiction is a trenchant inquiry into contemporary and historical ethnic displacement.
At twenty-three, Raboteau traveled to Israel to visit her childhood best friend. While her friend appeared to have found a place to belong, Raboteau couldn’t relate. As a biracial woman from a country still divided along racial lines, she’d never felt at home in America, unable to find her “Zion,” which she defined as a metaphor for freedom. But in Israel, the Jewish Zion, Raboteau was surprised to discover black Jews. Inspired by their exodus, Raboteau sought out other black communities that had left home in search of a Promised Land. Her question for them is the same she asks herself: have you found the home you’re looking for?
On this ten-year journey back in time and across the globe, Raboteau visits Jamaica, Ethiopia, Ghana, and the American South to explore the complex and contradictory perspectives of Black Zionists. She talks to Rastafarians, African Hebrew Israelites, Evangelicals and Ethiopian Jews, and Katrina transplants from her own family, overturning our ideas of place and patriotism, and displacement and dispossession, in a disarmingly honest and refreshingly brave take on the pull of the story of Exodus.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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February 20, 2013
Searching for Zion by Emily Raboteau is a soul-bearing contemplative journey seeking an answer to the question – “So, where is my home?” Growing up in the privileged environment of Princeton, New Jersey where her father was a professor specializing in antebellum African-American Christianity, Emily was aware she was different. Finding kinship with another girl, Tamar, who was also different as her father was a professor in medieval Jewish history, the girls learned and bonded around their connected history of oppression and the concept of the Promised Land. Disillusioned by America’s false hope of equality, her family’s unspoken ghosts of past racial transmissions, acerbated by her father’s leaving the family, Emily spent most of her young adult life in a “blanket of low-burning rage” until a vile humiliating incident with EL Al security staff turns up the flame. Emily realizes despite whatever imperfections that may exist, her friend, Tamar had her Zion – Israel, a real physical place that she can call home, and her mind is screaming where is my Promised Land (home). Thus the seed for the author to explore places Blacks have sought out to settle and establish a sense of home was germinated.
This fluidly-written book takes the reader on an honest and intimate voyage to Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Ghana and the American South. At each stop, Emily pays attention to the truth of each community and the reality of their situation while getting to the bottom of identity, citizenship, acceptance, and commitment. Always asking the frank questions why are you here in this place, are you better in this place, would you leave this place and did your mind, body, spirit find the solace you were seeking.
As an African-American female, this is a subject close to my heart as I have often asked the same question, especially in young adult years – where is my home, a place that will unconditionally accept me. I was immediately engaged and the storylines appealed to me on many levels – the seamless weaving of historical, political, cultural, and personal information gave deepness and made all of the situations more poignant. The physical and emotional geography are well-played out so the vibe of the diverse communities has their own signature. I appreciate the author’s candid exploration of her family history against the background of the stories of others. For each of us reading this book, it will be a personal journey as it was for the author. But the commonality for all of us is - home is where the heart is for better or worse.
Overall, it was a profoundly beautiful read – sobering, exhilarating, contemplative and achingly tender. I recommend this book for readers of memoirs and those who enjoy stories about displacement, citizenship and the many guises of freedom.
This book was provided by the publisher for review purposes.
Reviewed by Beverly
APOOO Literary Book Review
This fluidly-written book takes the reader on an honest and intimate voyage to Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Ghana and the American South. At each stop, Emily pays attention to the truth of each community and the reality of their situation while getting to the bottom of identity, citizenship, acceptance, and commitment. Always asking the frank questions why are you here in this place, are you better in this place, would you leave this place and did your mind, body, spirit find the solace you were seeking.
As an African-American female, this is a subject close to my heart as I have often asked the same question, especially in young adult years – where is my home, a place that will unconditionally accept me. I was immediately engaged and the storylines appealed to me on many levels – the seamless weaving of historical, political, cultural, and personal information gave deepness and made all of the situations more poignant. The physical and emotional geography are well-played out so the vibe of the diverse communities has their own signature. I appreciate the author’s candid exploration of her family history against the background of the stories of others. For each of us reading this book, it will be a personal journey as it was for the author. But the commonality for all of us is - home is where the heart is for better or worse.
Overall, it was a profoundly beautiful read – sobering, exhilarating, contemplative and achingly tender. I recommend this book for readers of memoirs and those who enjoy stories about displacement, citizenship and the many guises of freedom.
This book was provided by the publisher for review purposes.
Reviewed by Beverly
APOOO Literary Book Review
November 22, 2012
Excellent Modern Black Religious History
Emily, whose mother was white and her father black, and her best childhood friend, white Tamar Cohen, lived in their own little worlds, Emily being raised as a Catholic and Tamar as a Jew. Emily’s father was Henry W. Putnam, Professor of Religious History at Princeton teaching antebellum African American Christianity and Tamar’s father was a Professor of Religious History teaching medieval Jewish History. Both girls remained apart from others, enjoying each other. When they went to college, they grew apart. Emily’s father abandoned the family when she was sixteen, which caused her to feel homeless and she carried her father’s prejudice against whites because his grandfather had been murdered in Mississippi in 1943.
Although Emily had a good education and never suffered any disadvantages from being black, she always felt displaced.
After she graduated from college, she worked to earn enough money to travel and when she ran out of money, she returned home to work again. When she was twenty-three, Tamar, who was now married and resident in Israel, invited her to visit and the Israel airport inspectors gave Emily such a bad time about her name and where she came from that she highly resented it. She admits that she also gave them a lot of smart lip until she realized she would be there forever if she didn’t’ straighten out.
Tamar told Emily that Israel had many black Jews from all over the world. The Falashas or Beth Israel were Ethiopian Jews; there were black Americans from Chicago squatting in the desert. Under the Jewish Law of Return, airlifts in 1984 and 1991 brought Beta Israels from Africa to an absorption center in Haifa. The living conditions were terrible, food was scarce, few bathrooms and the only things they were taught in order to adjust to Israel were dietary laws, Hebrew and hygene. Then they were shunted off to slum ghettos where the young people never adjusted because Israeli schools don’t allow for any adjustments.
Black slaves always felt a kinship to the Hebrew slaves in the Bible and as a young woman, Emily had all of the Bob Marley records, him being a Jamaican promoted returning to Zion or Ethiopia and that Haile Selasse was their Ethiopian Messiah. Eventually Emily traveled to Jamaica. Bob Marley had started the Rastafari movement which urged a repatriation of black people to Ethiopia or Africa. Through her travels and searches, Emily went to Ethiopia, Ghana and the American South. Eventually she settled down, married and resided in New York. Then she began to investigate many of the black American preachers who raised thousands of dollars from their congregation and their spiels that convinced their congregations to give til it hurt. She visited relatives who lived through and sustained damage from hurricane Katrina and the failure of the U.S. government to provide as they should have.
When the book ends, she is still searching, although it isn’t clear for what. Her explicit and intelligent revelations of her search is educational with enough drama and emotional reactions to draw any reader into her journey. I heartily recommend it.
Emily, whose mother was white and her father black, and her best childhood friend, white Tamar Cohen, lived in their own little worlds, Emily being raised as a Catholic and Tamar as a Jew. Emily’s father was Henry W. Putnam, Professor of Religious History at Princeton teaching antebellum African American Christianity and Tamar’s father was a Professor of Religious History teaching medieval Jewish History. Both girls remained apart from others, enjoying each other. When they went to college, they grew apart. Emily’s father abandoned the family when she was sixteen, which caused her to feel homeless and she carried her father’s prejudice against whites because his grandfather had been murdered in Mississippi in 1943.
Although Emily had a good education and never suffered any disadvantages from being black, she always felt displaced.
After she graduated from college, she worked to earn enough money to travel and when she ran out of money, she returned home to work again. When she was twenty-three, Tamar, who was now married and resident in Israel, invited her to visit and the Israel airport inspectors gave Emily such a bad time about her name and where she came from that she highly resented it. She admits that she also gave them a lot of smart lip until she realized she would be there forever if she didn’t’ straighten out.
Tamar told Emily that Israel had many black Jews from all over the world. The Falashas or Beth Israel were Ethiopian Jews; there were black Americans from Chicago squatting in the desert. Under the Jewish Law of Return, airlifts in 1984 and 1991 brought Beta Israels from Africa to an absorption center in Haifa. The living conditions were terrible, food was scarce, few bathrooms and the only things they were taught in order to adjust to Israel were dietary laws, Hebrew and hygene. Then they were shunted off to slum ghettos where the young people never adjusted because Israeli schools don’t allow for any adjustments.
Black slaves always felt a kinship to the Hebrew slaves in the Bible and as a young woman, Emily had all of the Bob Marley records, him being a Jamaican promoted returning to Zion or Ethiopia and that Haile Selasse was their Ethiopian Messiah. Eventually Emily traveled to Jamaica. Bob Marley had started the Rastafari movement which urged a repatriation of black people to Ethiopia or Africa. Through her travels and searches, Emily went to Ethiopia, Ghana and the American South. Eventually she settled down, married and resided in New York. Then she began to investigate many of the black American preachers who raised thousands of dollars from their congregation and their spiels that convinced their congregations to give til it hurt. She visited relatives who lived through and sustained damage from hurricane Katrina and the failure of the U.S. government to provide as they should have.
When the book ends, she is still searching, although it isn’t clear for what. Her explicit and intelligent revelations of her search is educational with enough drama and emotional reactions to draw any reader into her journey. I heartily recommend it.
March 22, 2022
A history of people who are searching for a lost home and for the promised land.
Emily Raboteau, daughter of an eminent historian and herself a student of history, writes a personal and family history as well as a story of people searching for the promised land. An African-American, of mixed race, she grows up envying her childhood best friend, a Jew, who emigrates to Israel to find her promised land. So she travels to Israel to visit her friend, and see if she found the promised land, and that sparks off her interest in other people looking for a promised land, and what she finds is ambiguous.
The trouble with a promised land it that one usually finds other people already living there, and so it is and was with modern and ancient Israel. Raboteau meets "Black Jews" who came from Ethiopia, and had left Ethiopia because they saw Mount Zion in Jerusalem as the promised land.
But for Rastafarians, Ethiopia itself is the promised land, so her journey takes her to Jamaica, drawn partly by her interest in Bob Marley's music, and the fact that Marley, like herself, was of "mixed" ancestry.
She then visits Ethiopia, and Rastafarian settlements there, and looks at the relations between the incomers and the native Ethiopians. Then Ghana, where many African-Americans, influenced by Marcus Garvey, sought their home and promised land, only to find that most the the Ghanaians saw America as the promised land, and would sacrifice a great deal to go there.
She returns to the USA, and visits a Neopentecostal prosperity church, which for many black Americans seems to offer a different kind of promised land. And finally she visits the US South, recently ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, where many of her own relatives have become displaced people, but her cousin refuses to speak the language of victimhood and says they are not victims, but survivors.
In reading it, I was reminded of two other books I had read: The long Road Home by Ben Shephard, about people who were displaced after the Second World War, many of whom had no homes to return to. The second is From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple. about following in the footsteps of a couple of pilgrims of antiquity, and visiting the places they visited in modern times. It, like Searching for Zion, bring the personal touch to history, and Emily Raboteau's Odyssey is a personal pilgrimage as well as a study of other pilgrims.
Other historians, and sociologists and anthropologists have written about such people, in a dry, objective and academic manner. But Emily Raboteau does not. She looks at the history from both sides, and analyses her own reactions, and this is what makes the book really worth reading. She tells other people's stories well, but weaves them with her own.
Emily Raboteau, daughter of an eminent historian and herself a student of history, writes a personal and family history as well as a story of people searching for the promised land. An African-American, of mixed race, she grows up envying her childhood best friend, a Jew, who emigrates to Israel to find her promised land. So she travels to Israel to visit her friend, and see if she found the promised land, and that sparks off her interest in other people looking for a promised land, and what she finds is ambiguous.
The trouble with a promised land it that one usually finds other people already living there, and so it is and was with modern and ancient Israel. Raboteau meets "Black Jews" who came from Ethiopia, and had left Ethiopia because they saw Mount Zion in Jerusalem as the promised land.
But for Rastafarians, Ethiopia itself is the promised land, so her journey takes her to Jamaica, drawn partly by her interest in Bob Marley's music, and the fact that Marley, like herself, was of "mixed" ancestry.
She then visits Ethiopia, and Rastafarian settlements there, and looks at the relations between the incomers and the native Ethiopians. Then Ghana, where many African-Americans, influenced by Marcus Garvey, sought their home and promised land, only to find that most the the Ghanaians saw America as the promised land, and would sacrifice a great deal to go there.
She returns to the USA, and visits a Neopentecostal prosperity church, which for many black Americans seems to offer a different kind of promised land. And finally she visits the US South, recently ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, where many of her own relatives have become displaced people, but her cousin refuses to speak the language of victimhood and says they are not victims, but survivors.
In reading it, I was reminded of two other books I had read: The long Road Home by Ben Shephard, about people who were displaced after the Second World War, many of whom had no homes to return to. The second is From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple. about following in the footsteps of a couple of pilgrims of antiquity, and visiting the places they visited in modern times. It, like Searching for Zion, bring the personal touch to history, and Emily Raboteau's Odyssey is a personal pilgrimage as well as a study of other pilgrims.
Other historians, and sociologists and anthropologists have written about such people, in a dry, objective and academic manner. But Emily Raboteau does not. She looks at the history from both sides, and analyses her own reactions, and this is what makes the book really worth reading. She tells other people's stories well, but weaves them with her own.
June 30, 2013
Emily Raboteau takes us on a journey that we all need to take if we care about tolerance, diversity, the world, humankind. She illuminates a subject that is present in so many minds: where is home for the displaced? Zion captures the imagination of multitudes: from the Jews, to Christians, to blacks, to native peoples of every continent. It is the place of belonging, where we can feel at home in our skin, our beliefs, our speech, our rhythms. Zion to me is nature; my mind was captured by Utah’s Zion National Park as a fortress and refuge and oasis in the deserts of southern Utah that shelters wildlife, trees, and me. As half-black, half-white, Raboteau idolizes and follows in the footsteps of her father, a renowned history of African-American studies/religion; but she can “pass” and in fact is mistaken for white in Africa, Arabic/Lebanese in Israel, and much in between, so she is looking for something different, a place where her mixed status can be welcomed. She is honest, unflinching, funny, and heartbreaking. It is cliché, but I laughed and cried and this is non-fiction, fairly un-poetic and unemotional, but still powerful.
She travels the globe to see where others have sought and found Zion: black Jews in Israel, Rastafarians in Jamaica, Ethiopia, and Ghana; Jews in Ethiopia; African Americans in Ghana; Evangelicals in the American South; Hurricane Katrina transplants; and weaves in her own history and experience. She is a devotee of Bob Marley, so she spends more time than I could take on the Rastafarians, and I wonder if she is still a devotee because her experiences are negative each place she encounters them. I had no idea that they emigrated to Africa, or even that they thought Haile Selassie was a living god; and I had to work hard not to discount them outright and try to be tolerant. Raboteau says she is a seeker, which unfortunately makes her susceptible to quacks, charlatans, and the like, but it just peppers her writing and analysis in a lovely, novel way because ultimately, she is too smart to completely give in, but she gives them all a chance in her heart.
In Ghana, she talks about Sankofa, an Ghanaian Akan word, that can mean “go back and take” or be understood as “it is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten” or “we need to look to the past to understand the present.” It is symbolized by a heart with some embellishment, and was a tattoo on a Ghanaian woman, who richly and convolutedly, was actually from Hungary, married to a Ghanaian. It was also found on a coffin found buried in Manhattan which led to the discovery of 419 coffins; that area possibly held more than 20,000 slave remains and it is under what is now Ground Zero. Raboteau reminds us that, “that is over seven times the number of victims of the September 11th attacks.” She participated in the ceremony to rebury and rededicate the remains and says, “there I stood in the light autumn rain, with a crowd of onlookers at South and Wall Streets, once the site of the second largest slave market in America…the funeral was a feat of improvisation-two parts mourning, one part circus.” I can’t even imagine the feelings of that moment, and she doesn’t dwell on it much here, but later talks about her grandfather’s death by beating in the South that made her grandmother flee to Michigan, and cut her father and later, herself, from her Southern roots. Incidentally, the group Sankofa is a bluegrass offshoot of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, both of which I recommend highly and it ties into the lyrics below.
When she visits the South to take the Civil Rights tour, and ultimately reunites with some distant cousins for Easter, she talks about how both she and her father always felt that Mississippi was home even though she was never there except to visit. Her father said, “it was never my home, it was the only home I ever knew.” That is so hard to understand. When I briefly lived on the Florida Panhandle, arguably part of the Deep South since it was within shouting distance of Alabama, but less inhabited by blacks, I was astonished to learn that a town in Mississippi integrated its prom for the first time in 2008. A documentary was made about it:
“In 1997, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the senior prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi under one condition: the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer was ignored. In 2008, Freeman offered again. This time the school board accepted, and history was made. Charleston High School had its first-ever integrated prom - in 2008. Until then, blacks and whites had had separate proms even though their classrooms have been integrated for decades. Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman follows students, teachers and parents in the lead-up to the big day. This seemingly inconsequential rite of passage suddenly becomes profound as the weight of history falls on teenage shoulders. We quickly learn that change does not come easily in this sleepy Delta town. Freeman's generosity fans the flames of racism - and racism in Charleston has a distinctly generational tinge. Some white parents forbid their children to attend the integrated prom and hold a separate white-only dance. "Billy Joe," an enlightened white senior, appears on camera in shadow, fearing his racist parents will disown him if they know his true feelings. PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI captures a big moment in a small town, where hope finally blossoms in black, white and a whole lot of taffeta. -David Courier, Sundance Film Festival”
But I understand now.
“On the airplane my father expressed excitement about his return. We didn’t speak of it, but we both suspected it could be his last. He looked frail to me as he scrounged through his tote bag for the Chinese tea pills meant to help with the prostate cancer. The baby inside me was only the size of one of his pills. I felt now what I’d known from the beginning. Zion is within. I understood that I would forget this fact and, as with love, or faith, have to learn it again.”
And the Carolina Chocolate Drops sing:
I was raised in the country that's a natural fact
Food on the table from the garden out back
Everyone working to make the land their own
Red clay crackin' where the silver queen grows
Runnin' with your cousins from yard to yard
Livin' was easy but the playin' was hard
Didn't have much nothing comes for free
All you needed was your family
Chorus
I am a country girl
I've been around the world
And every place I've been
Ain't quite nothin' like
Livin' in the south
Oh, honey, shut your mouth
I am a country girl
I am a country girl
Biscuits in the morning and gravy too
Fried chicken in the afternoon
Jaw draggin' eatin' sweet potato pie
Takin' half an hour to say goodbye
Blackberry patches, scuppernong vines
Sweet Georgia peaches and dandelion wine
The best kind of food is made by hand
The only place to get it is from the land
CHORUS
All day I dream about a place in the sun
Kinda like where I'm from
With the tall grass blowin' in the breeze
Runnin' barefoot round the tall oak trees
All day I dream about a place I've been
A place where the skin I'm in
Feels like its supposed to be
And anyone around who looks at me says
Chorus
I am a country girl
I've been around the world
And every place I've been
Ain't quite nothin' like
Livin' in the south
Oh, honey, shut your mouth
I am a country girl
I am a country girl
She travels the globe to see where others have sought and found Zion: black Jews in Israel, Rastafarians in Jamaica, Ethiopia, and Ghana; Jews in Ethiopia; African Americans in Ghana; Evangelicals in the American South; Hurricane Katrina transplants; and weaves in her own history and experience. She is a devotee of Bob Marley, so she spends more time than I could take on the Rastafarians, and I wonder if she is still a devotee because her experiences are negative each place she encounters them. I had no idea that they emigrated to Africa, or even that they thought Haile Selassie was a living god; and I had to work hard not to discount them outright and try to be tolerant. Raboteau says she is a seeker, which unfortunately makes her susceptible to quacks, charlatans, and the like, but it just peppers her writing and analysis in a lovely, novel way because ultimately, she is too smart to completely give in, but she gives them all a chance in her heart.
In Ghana, she talks about Sankofa, an Ghanaian Akan word, that can mean “go back and take” or be understood as “it is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten” or “we need to look to the past to understand the present.” It is symbolized by a heart with some embellishment, and was a tattoo on a Ghanaian woman, who richly and convolutedly, was actually from Hungary, married to a Ghanaian. It was also found on a coffin found buried in Manhattan which led to the discovery of 419 coffins; that area possibly held more than 20,000 slave remains and it is under what is now Ground Zero. Raboteau reminds us that, “that is over seven times the number of victims of the September 11th attacks.” She participated in the ceremony to rebury and rededicate the remains and says, “there I stood in the light autumn rain, with a crowd of onlookers at South and Wall Streets, once the site of the second largest slave market in America…the funeral was a feat of improvisation-two parts mourning, one part circus.” I can’t even imagine the feelings of that moment, and she doesn’t dwell on it much here, but later talks about her grandfather’s death by beating in the South that made her grandmother flee to Michigan, and cut her father and later, herself, from her Southern roots. Incidentally, the group Sankofa is a bluegrass offshoot of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, both of which I recommend highly and it ties into the lyrics below.
When she visits the South to take the Civil Rights tour, and ultimately reunites with some distant cousins for Easter, she talks about how both she and her father always felt that Mississippi was home even though she was never there except to visit. Her father said, “it was never my home, it was the only home I ever knew.” That is so hard to understand. When I briefly lived on the Florida Panhandle, arguably part of the Deep South since it was within shouting distance of Alabama, but less inhabited by blacks, I was astonished to learn that a town in Mississippi integrated its prom for the first time in 2008. A documentary was made about it:
“In 1997, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the senior prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi under one condition: the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer was ignored. In 2008, Freeman offered again. This time the school board accepted, and history was made. Charleston High School had its first-ever integrated prom - in 2008. Until then, blacks and whites had had separate proms even though their classrooms have been integrated for decades. Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman follows students, teachers and parents in the lead-up to the big day. This seemingly inconsequential rite of passage suddenly becomes profound as the weight of history falls on teenage shoulders. We quickly learn that change does not come easily in this sleepy Delta town. Freeman's generosity fans the flames of racism - and racism in Charleston has a distinctly generational tinge. Some white parents forbid their children to attend the integrated prom and hold a separate white-only dance. "Billy Joe," an enlightened white senior, appears on camera in shadow, fearing his racist parents will disown him if they know his true feelings. PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI captures a big moment in a small town, where hope finally blossoms in black, white and a whole lot of taffeta. -David Courier, Sundance Film Festival”
But I understand now.
“On the airplane my father expressed excitement about his return. We didn’t speak of it, but we both suspected it could be his last. He looked frail to me as he scrounged through his tote bag for the Chinese tea pills meant to help with the prostate cancer. The baby inside me was only the size of one of his pills. I felt now what I’d known from the beginning. Zion is within. I understood that I would forget this fact and, as with love, or faith, have to learn it again.”
And the Carolina Chocolate Drops sing:
I was raised in the country that's a natural fact
Food on the table from the garden out back
Everyone working to make the land their own
Red clay crackin' where the silver queen grows
Runnin' with your cousins from yard to yard
Livin' was easy but the playin' was hard
Didn't have much nothing comes for free
All you needed was your family
Chorus
I am a country girl
I've been around the world
And every place I've been
Ain't quite nothin' like
Livin' in the south
Oh, honey, shut your mouth
I am a country girl
I am a country girl
Biscuits in the morning and gravy too
Fried chicken in the afternoon
Jaw draggin' eatin' sweet potato pie
Takin' half an hour to say goodbye
Blackberry patches, scuppernong vines
Sweet Georgia peaches and dandelion wine
The best kind of food is made by hand
The only place to get it is from the land
CHORUS
All day I dream about a place in the sun
Kinda like where I'm from
With the tall grass blowin' in the breeze
Runnin' barefoot round the tall oak trees
All day I dream about a place I've been
A place where the skin I'm in
Feels like its supposed to be
And anyone around who looks at me says
Chorus
I am a country girl
I've been around the world
And every place I've been
Ain't quite nothin' like
Livin' in the south
Oh, honey, shut your mouth
I am a country girl
I am a country girl
February 11, 2017
I took a lot of notes while reading this book, which is always a good sign to me. Raboteau includes a ton of interesting research about the Black Israelites, Rastas, Haile Selassie, Ethiopia, etc. The book itself is a solid read. Like most memoirs, it slows down in some places that make the reader want to flip ahead, but overall, it has a good pace and Raboteau is an engaging storyteller.
April 15, 2017
This book was really interesting. I didn't really like or dislike it, but it tackled some topics that were new to me in a manner that was also quite fascinating to read. I appreciated the opportunity to have my eyes opened to new ways of thinking.
April 16, 2013
This fascinating and powerful memoir took me to places I didn't know I wanted to go and considered questions I didn't know I had. When author Emily Raboteau visits her lifelong best friend at her new home in Israel it sets Raboteau off on a ten year quest to find a homeland of her own. With a black father and white mother giving her an appearance that made it difficult for people to classify her, Raboteau often had the sense that she didn't fit in anywhere. She became intrigued with the idea of a black Zion, or homeland, and that led her first back to Israel to visit the Beta Israelis, Jews from Ethiopia with a long religious tradition who are renamed and re-educated when they immigrate to Israel, and also a community of African American Israelis who have lived for decades in the Negev Desert .
After that she travels to Jamaica to understand more about the culture and beliefs of Rastafarians, Ethiopia to see the settlement created there by Jamaican transplants who are convinced Ethiopia is their promised land, and Ghana to talk to African Americans who relocated there seeking connection with the continent of their ancestors. Raboteau is deeply curious about these peoples, why they moved where they did and how they feel about it now, and this book provides a mesmerizing inside look at their subcultures. She treats everyone she meets with sincere respect, but doesn't gloss over or ignore their shortcomings and inconsistencies--for instance in Ethiopia it's the Jamaicans who are colonizers and they don't always treat the locals well, in spite of their own experience of colonization.
The book ends with Raboteau visiting her Hurricane Katrina displaced relatives in the American South, where she tours sites of the Civil Rights Movement and again considers questions of what makes a home. I learned a lot reading this book, and enjoyed the journey immensely. As an added bonus, Raboteau has a wonderful way with words, deftly picking out details to set a scene or describe the many people she met in her travels.
After that she travels to Jamaica to understand more about the culture and beliefs of Rastafarians, Ethiopia to see the settlement created there by Jamaican transplants who are convinced Ethiopia is their promised land, and Ghana to talk to African Americans who relocated there seeking connection with the continent of their ancestors. Raboteau is deeply curious about these peoples, why they moved where they did and how they feel about it now, and this book provides a mesmerizing inside look at their subcultures. She treats everyone she meets with sincere respect, but doesn't gloss over or ignore their shortcomings and inconsistencies--for instance in Ethiopia it's the Jamaicans who are colonizers and they don't always treat the locals well, in spite of their own experience of colonization.
The book ends with Raboteau visiting her Hurricane Katrina displaced relatives in the American South, where she tours sites of the Civil Rights Movement and again considers questions of what makes a home. I learned a lot reading this book, and enjoyed the journey immensely. As an added bonus, Raboteau has a wonderful way with words, deftly picking out details to set a scene or describe the many people she met in her travels.
January 27, 2013
This book is a combination of a travel journal and a memoir. For the most part, I think it works well, because she uses conversations to tell her story. Where I think it falls short, is when she is expressing her displeasure for some place or thing. I know she was attempting to be humorous, but it often comes across as mean. She says of a Rasta pioneer gathering in Ethiopia, "at that moment they looked to me liked an ancient order of Smurfs." There are other passages like this, and I find them superfluous and unnecessary.
Having said that, the book has some teachable moments and through the many conversations she has in Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia and Ghana you can learn bits about these countries and their customs, and how "outsiders" are viewed. Emily as a "bi-racial" was trying to find where her personal "Zion" exists. Light enough to pass for white, but often mistaken for Hispanic, Arab, or some combination, but rarely as a Black person. This longing for foundation sets her on a physical journey to give answer to the question she has never quite cared for; "what are you?"
So, it is an interesting journey for Emily, and although the book drags in places, it moves at a pace that keeps you reading. I think it's an ok read, and you learn some intriguing things and are privy to some amusing conversations in one woman's search for that mythical place called Zion.
Having said that, the book has some teachable moments and through the many conversations she has in Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia and Ghana you can learn bits about these countries and their customs, and how "outsiders" are viewed. Emily as a "bi-racial" was trying to find where her personal "Zion" exists. Light enough to pass for white, but often mistaken for Hispanic, Arab, or some combination, but rarely as a Black person. This longing for foundation sets her on a physical journey to give answer to the question she has never quite cared for; "what are you?"
So, it is an interesting journey for Emily, and although the book drags in places, it moves at a pace that keeps you reading. I think it's an ok read, and you learn some intriguing things and are privy to some amusing conversations in one woman's search for that mythical place called Zion.
August 19, 2018
This was really interesting because it wasn’t all memoir, but more of an anthropological journey through the diaspora. Raboteau’s voice is so confident (the airport scene had me legit worried about her). I don’t think I’ve ever learned so much, factually, while reading about someone else’s journey.
March 8, 2013
This book was excellent and inspirational. It provided a much needed investigation into ideas of identity, belonging, and ultimately salvation. This book is a must read.
March 30, 2013
Wonderful combination of travelogue, social history and memoir.
March 7, 2022
3.5 but I’ll round up instead of down because to be fair, I did not finish this book. I read sections 2 and 3 for class, and while I considered continuing / finishing it, I find that I’m annoyed by Emily’s inner voice. A lot of what she discovers seems pretty common-sense to me, and she’s continually surprised by so much stuff that she shouldn’t be. Many of her revelations are ones that are pretty basic, and she spends the entire journey expecting the answers she seeks to be handed to her on a silver platter by one person.
What she’s searching for is something she refers to as “zion” but its more than that, and its also extremely specific to her. Sure, readers can relate to her search for belonging, but so much of this book is hyper-specific. That’s not to say that it’s bad, but I do think it could’ve benefited from a sharper editing hand.
While I don’t know if she found the zion she was looking for, since I did not finish it, I can safely say that she was going about it in an almost child-like way. It’s almost like she expected to find a one-answer-fits-all, but for such soul-searching questions, the answer always has to be tailor made. No one can give you a solution for something like that, it’s something you need to realize for yourself, and while I respect her for going on such a long journey, I do think that her authorial tone was too skewed and wide-eyed for me to enjoy.
What she’s searching for is something she refers to as “zion” but its more than that, and its also extremely specific to her. Sure, readers can relate to her search for belonging, but so much of this book is hyper-specific. That’s not to say that it’s bad, but I do think it could’ve benefited from a sharper editing hand.
While I don’t know if she found the zion she was looking for, since I did not finish it, I can safely say that she was going about it in an almost child-like way. It’s almost like she expected to find a one-answer-fits-all, but for such soul-searching questions, the answer always has to be tailor made. No one can give you a solution for something like that, it’s something you need to realize for yourself, and while I respect her for going on such a long journey, I do think that her authorial tone was too skewed and wide-eyed for me to enjoy.
July 5, 2019
The author comes from a background where her father is African American and her mother is Irish. Being in the USA she describes the struggle of fitting in with people who see her as different whether African American or White. She talks about her relationship in growing up with her best friend Tamar who is Jewish and her emigrating to Israel under the Law of Return.
While continued to feel unsettled, Tamar now had a divine return to the Promised Land, a place to belong, and a people who embraced her. . . . Here she was in Zion.” On visiting Israel she discusses her distaste from the way she is treated by Israeli security services to the way Palestinians are treated. She is amazed to find black Jews exist and goes in search of them. Many were looking for Zion from Ethiopia but treated as second class citizens in Israel.
Her other travels are in Jamaica, Ethiopia and Ghana as well as the deep south in America. A lot of important political and social issues are covered.The book finishes with around the time of Obama's presidency and a more optimistic time politically. A fascinating insight into where is home and where we feel we belong. This was a travel memoir with an important message.
While continued to feel unsettled, Tamar now had a divine return to the Promised Land, a place to belong, and a people who embraced her. . . . Here she was in Zion.” On visiting Israel she discusses her distaste from the way she is treated by Israeli security services to the way Palestinians are treated. She is amazed to find black Jews exist and goes in search of them. Many were looking for Zion from Ethiopia but treated as second class citizens in Israel.
Her other travels are in Jamaica, Ethiopia and Ghana as well as the deep south in America. A lot of important political and social issues are covered.The book finishes with around the time of Obama's presidency and a more optimistic time politically. A fascinating insight into where is home and where we feel we belong. This was a travel memoir with an important message.
October 8, 2019
I learned about the author from the podcast Kind World. It was talking about her short essay about the Moving Man. I fell in love with Emily's voice and writing style and I immediately ordered this book from the library.
https://www.wbur.org/kindworld/2019/0...
This is the story of Emily's quest to find who she is, as she explores the different heritages she has and the history of her family at the same time. While it didn't all hit, the story was compelling and her questions were pointed. A good read, and now I've added the rest of her books to my ever-growing TBR pile.
https://www.wbur.org/kindworld/2019/0...
This is the story of Emily's quest to find who she is, as she explores the different heritages she has and the history of her family at the same time. While it didn't all hit, the story was compelling and her questions were pointed. A good read, and now I've added the rest of her books to my ever-growing TBR pile.
April 4, 2021
This book was the perfect mix of informative, entertaining, and insightful. Raboteau writes with detail and honesty. Whether you are religious or not, this book will make you think about religion and spirituality, the concepts of identity and home. Especially if you cannot travel on your own search for Zion (because of Covid or other reasons), this book is an escape into far-off places that will let you access circles you know nothing about and make you think more about your own definition of "Zion" and "home."
Thank you Emily Raboteau for this refreshing and intricate piece of travel writing! (I love strong solo female travel writers.)
Thank you Emily Raboteau for this refreshing and intricate piece of travel writing! (I love strong solo female travel writers.)
September 16, 2020
If you want a comprehensive analysis/history of any of the religious traditions Emily Raboteau interacts with, you won't get it here. It's more of a memoir of her interactions with the traditions, with some history thrown in. I wish more time had been spent on the section on the Black Belt and on some of the other, non-Rasta religious groups in Ethiopia, but overall a moving, insightful book.
October 30, 2023
This book was definitely a journey….I learned more about Black Jews, Rastafarianism, Haile Selassie and Hurricane Katrina than I ever have before. It’s more nonfiction than memoir, though there are some personal thoughts sprinkled throughout, mostly the feeling of not belonging. Not sure who I would recommend this to…
November 1, 2019
Part travelogue, and wholly a soul search, Emily Raboteau weaves together a kaleidoscope of countries and characters who reveal their own truths about their quests to find home in a world of contradictions.
July 31, 2020
This is a deep look into a biracial woman’s search for her racial and spiritual home. She goes from country to country studying how Africans and Hebrews struggled out of bondage. It was enlightening and depressing at the same time.
April 9, 2024
This was an interesting read and I appreciated the geographical scope of Zion that is explored in this book. It was a bit meandering at times, but I enjoyed being adrift along with the author on her travels.
Want to read
August 17, 2019Informative, innovative and entertaining but not very gripping. I'm stills truggling to finish it
June 27, 2020
Searching for Zion was an enjoyable book. I felt like I was on a journey with the writer and those are my favorite kind of reads. I highly recommend.
September 16, 2020
Provocative and interesting. A little long for the content.
I had never really thought about the African Diaspora before.
I had never really thought about the African Diaspora before.
October 21, 2020
This is a well-conceived memoir.
September 28, 2022
I wanted more from the author, more connection personality, but I stuck with it and am glad I did.
January 19, 2023
Aren't we all searching in some way? Thank you for putting it in such beautiful, hearfelt words.
February 25, 2024
Really good, but a bit long for me. I liked the parts about Obama's reception in Africa the best.
April 1, 2024
wtf was she doing in israel she should’ve been at the club
June 6, 2024
I didn't like this book that much; it seemed like a story about searching for something, written by someone who just discovered what it means to search.
May 5, 2013
I appreciated Searching for Zion for its subject--"The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora," as the subtitle reads--and for its breadth in covering that subject. Raboteau, the U.S. daughter of black professor and a white mother, travels to Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and Ghana to talk with members of the African diaspora who have physically relocated in an attempt to "return" to their spiritual and/or ethnic homeland. Raboteau also visits southern U.S. cities that were important in the Civil Rights Movement, such as Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma, and members of her family who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Unfortunately, the breadth of Raboteau's coverage results at times in a feeling that her discussion of each individual group or topic is limited and perhaps does not convey a complete picture of the group or individual whom she is describing. I think Raboteau spends no more than a week in most of the locations she writes about, which makes me wonder what nuances she was unable to pick up on and what observations a longer stay would have revealed to her, and through her, to us, the readers.
Still, I appreciated the mission and scope of the book. I think someone really interested in this topic (well, like me) will probably be left wanting to read a book about each of the five sections. For example, before reading Searching for Zion, I read All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou, which is about Angelou's experiences moving to Ghana in the 60s. I think Raboteau's section on Ghana was a great complement to Angelou's book, so similarly, I'd love to read a book that is solely dedicated to one of each of the other four areas Raboteau discusses.
I think I also failed to be moved by Raboteau's personal journey in the end as much as I expected to be based on the book's beginning. I identified with her mixed identity struggles in the beginning and middle of the book, but as the book wore on I didn't find Raboteau's description of her personal journey to be satisfying. I think she had so much research to do and information to communicate that her personal story kind of faded into the background at the end. So I didn't have the same feeling, for example, that I had at the end of Kenji Yoshino's book Covering where he uses his identity as a starting point to examine civil rights, or Eboo Patel's Acts of Faith about religious pluralism, where I felt like the book came full circle both in the book's social topic and the author's personal journey.
But in the grand scheme of things, I feel like that last point's a minor quibble and also a highly subjective quibble. Probably many other readers won't feel that way at all. The important thing is, it's a great book and I respect Raboteau deeply for her thoughtful coverage of such a huge and important topic, and for her bravery and initiative in diving into a topic that has been so complicated for her personally to let others benefit from her research and expertise.
Unfortunately, the breadth of Raboteau's coverage results at times in a feeling that her discussion of each individual group or topic is limited and perhaps does not convey a complete picture of the group or individual whom she is describing. I think Raboteau spends no more than a week in most of the locations she writes about, which makes me wonder what nuances she was unable to pick up on and what observations a longer stay would have revealed to her, and through her, to us, the readers.
Still, I appreciated the mission and scope of the book. I think someone really interested in this topic (well, like me) will probably be left wanting to read a book about each of the five sections. For example, before reading Searching for Zion, I read All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou, which is about Angelou's experiences moving to Ghana in the 60s. I think Raboteau's section on Ghana was a great complement to Angelou's book, so similarly, I'd love to read a book that is solely dedicated to one of each of the other four areas Raboteau discusses.
I think I also failed to be moved by Raboteau's personal journey in the end as much as I expected to be based on the book's beginning. I identified with her mixed identity struggles in the beginning and middle of the book, but as the book wore on I didn't find Raboteau's description of her personal journey to be satisfying. I think she had so much research to do and information to communicate that her personal story kind of faded into the background at the end. So I didn't have the same feeling, for example, that I had at the end of Kenji Yoshino's book Covering where he uses his identity as a starting point to examine civil rights, or Eboo Patel's Acts of Faith about religious pluralism, where I felt like the book came full circle both in the book's social topic and the author's personal journey.
But in the grand scheme of things, I feel like that last point's a minor quibble and also a highly subjective quibble. Probably many other readers won't feel that way at all. The important thing is, it's a great book and I respect Raboteau deeply for her thoughtful coverage of such a huge and important topic, and for her bravery and initiative in diving into a topic that has been so complicated for her personally to let others benefit from her research and expertise.
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