European settlers explained Zimbabwe ruins as Jewish in origin rather than African-built

Evidence

By the end of the nineteenth century the white conquest of what is today South Africa was practically complete and the Ndebele and Shona tribes of what was by then called Rhodesia had also succumbed. As white settlers moved into the fertile lands north of the Limpopo River they were astonished to discover stone buildings, old mine workings, and most of all the remarkable ruins known as the Great Zimbabwe complex. These ruins had first been discovered by a German, Karl Mauch, in 1871. Immediately Mauch declared his conviction that these ruins had been erected by the queen of Sheba and were in fact a copy of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem and that this entire area was the Ophir of the Bible—Solomon’s gold lands. It stood to reason therefore that Jews had once lived here and within a short time the Karanga-speaking Shona people and specifically the Lemba tribe were being defined in precisely the same way as the Hottentots, Xhosa, and Zulus. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 334 (#expands, via linked claim)

It is one of the ironies of history that Algerian Jews are often considered to be descendants of French colons, indeed pieds-noirs, rather than as what they historically were in their majority, namely, indigenous Jews of Algeria. A number of European Jews, coming for the most part from Alsace-Lorraine, did begin to arrive after the 1870 Franco- Prussian war. Yet even the local French authorities disregarded this immigration and continued to relate to Jews as indigenous, reminding the Jews of that fact, for example, on census forms. Hence, until 1931, the official census forms still asked whether one had gained citizenship via the Cremieux decree or was a descendant of someone who had so benefited (“Etes-vous israelite naturalise par le decret de 1870 ou issu d’un israelite naturalise par ce decret?” Quoted in Allouche-Benayoun and Bensimon, juifi d’Algerie). — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 790 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Settlers attributed Great Zimbabwe’s ruins to biblical Jews rather than Africans — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 334; European settlers catalogued Zulu ritual parallels to ancient Jewish practice — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 332; Europeans classified southern African peoples as descendants of biblical Jews — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 328 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Settlers attributed Great Zimbabwe’s ruins to biblical Jews rather than Africans #expands (1.00) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 334
• Algerian Jews were indigenous North Africans, not European settlers #complicates (0.74) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 790