Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa: The Human and Nonhuman Creatures of Nigeria

Abstract

Clearly, they are trembling on the cusp of a shift in religious allegiance. It is difficult to believe that much time will elapse before such folk join what Devir calls the normative synagogue. Devir is fully aware of the wider ramifications of these processes, as his excellent earlier work New Children of Israel amply demonstrates. In the earlier book he rightly suggested that the adoption of Judaism by millions of people in the Global South was surely the greatest possible challenge for the Jewish people and for the State of Israel, and here he confirms what is undoubtedly the case: that these developments are more than likely to “radically alter the religious demographics of the African continent” (209).