Yosef Ben-Jochannan

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Yosef A.A. (Alfredo Antonio) Ben-Jochannan (born February 14, 1918, Gondar, Ethiopia)^{[citation needed]} is an American historian.

Ben-Jochannan claims to have been born to a black Puerto Rican Jewish mother and an Ethiopian Jewish father^{[citation needed]}. He claims to have been educated in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Spain, earning degrees in engineering and anthropology^{[citation needed]}. In 1945 he was appointed chairman of the African Studies Committee of the newly-founded UNESCO^{[citation needed]}, a position which he stepped down from in 1970. From 1976-87, he was an adjunct professor at Cornell University.

Ben-Jochannan, also known as "Dr. Ben", is the author of numerous books, primarily on ancient Nile Valley civilizations and their impact on Western cultures. In his writings, he states that the original Jews were Black, while the "white Jews" later adopted Jewish faith and customs^{[citation needed]}. Dr. Ben lives in New York City, where he used to run a successful business organizing trips to Egypt and the monuments of ancient Africa^{[citation needed]}.

He has made pseudohistorical claims, as well as many unsubstantiated claims about his own life. Among these are that Aristotle traveled to Egypt with Alexander the Great, and that he took Egyptian philosophy from the library at Alexandria back home to Greece. In fact Aristotle never traveled to Egypt, and the library founded at Alexandria was established well after the deaths of both Aristotle and Alexander. ^[1]

In October 2005 his son Nnandi Ben-Jochannan was shot and murdered in Harlem.^[2]