Pentecostal Ethiopian Jews and Nigerian Members of Olumba Olumba: Manifestations of Christianity in Israel

Following the waves of African migrants to Israel beginning in the early 1980s, a new religious space was created, one that had links to the existing Christian arena of the Holy Land, to religious roots in Africa, and to the fluid global Pentecostalism. This space had to be flexible enough to accommodate the majority of its members, but also attuned to the specificities of Israel and the Holy Land. The chapter analyzes groups of African migrants, namely: Ethiopians who immigrated in the early 1980s as part of the Ethiopian Jewish migration, but continued to practice their Christian identity, Ghanaians and Nigerians who came in the beginning of the 1990s and established diverse types of independent churches, and asylum seekers from Eritrea who started arriving in 2006. At the heart of our analysis are the different Pentecostal churches established by Ethiopians, Ghanaians and Eritreans; and Olumba Olumba, a Nigerian based NRM.