Ben Ammi Ben Israel (October 12, 1939 – December 27, 2014) was the spiritual leader and co-founder of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. His followers considered him to be the messiah, and he was said to have received messages directly from God.
Born Ben Carter in Chicago, Illinois, he dropped out of high school (but later earned his equivalency diploma), served in the U.S. army, and worked as a metallurgist. In February 1966, he claimed that the Angel Gabriel appeared to him while he was meditating and revealed that it was time to return to the Promised Land and establish the Kingdom of God, as prophesied in Daniel 2:44. This vision prompted the “exodus” of about 350 African Americans to Liberia the following year.
He lived in Dimona, in a small house in the African Hebrew Israelites’ Village of Peace, and had four wives and more than 20 children at the time of his death in 2014.
