The life of singer Whitney Houston has become increasingly rocky, rife with rumors of drug abuse, family estrangements and marital problems.
But now it seems to have taken an even stranger course.
Houston went to Israel and stayed with a bizarre “cult” called the “Black Hebrews.”
She referred to its members as her “brothers and sisters,” reports News 24.
Houston was supposedly “looking for inspiration for her upcoming Christmas album,” reports USA Today.
But this group of polygamists seems like a dubious source for Christmas spirit.
Ben Carter, a former Chicago resident who now calls himself “Ben Ammi Ben Israel,” leads the “cult.”
Carter claims that the “Archangel Gabriel told him that many African Americans were descendants of the lost Israeli tribe of Judah.”
He led his “lost…tribe” to Israel in 1969.
First the group lived on the dole as refugees, but later achieved resident status through the clout of the US government and no doubt due to the influence of some African American leaders.
However, the “Black Hebrews” claim of ancient Jewish heritage has never been proven or officially recognized.
Carter created an idiosyncratic religion that includes a vegetarian diet and polygamy.
Largely through the practice of polygamy the group has increased and now numbers about 2,000 in Israel, though it claims to have 30,000 members worldwide.
As Houston left Israel she waved her arm referring to the Jewish State as “my land.”
What did she mean?
Her parting statement seems eerily consistent with Carter’s teachings about Israel as the “Promised Land” of the “Black Hebrews.”
Has Whitney Houston joined a “cult”?
Her spokesperson said, “She is a spiritual woman and wanted to…touch the land and be around the saints of Dimona,” reports the Denver Post.
Accepting this “cult’s” hospitality may be the worst choice the pop singer has made since saying “I do” to bad boy Bobbie Brown.
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