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They do not eat pork, they practise male circumcision, they ritually slaughter their animals, some of their men wear skull caps and they put the Star of David on their gravestones.
Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago.
It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which have confirmed their Semitic origin.
These tests back up the group's belief that a group of perhaps seven men married African women and settled on the continent. The Lemba, who number perhaps 80,000, live in central Zimbabwe and the north of South Africa.
And they also have a prized religious artefact that they say connects them to their Jewish ancestry - a replica of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant known as the ngoma lungundu, meaning "the drum that thunders".
The object went on display recently at a Harare museum to much fanfare, and instilled pride in many of the Lemba.
Members of the priestly clan of the Lemba, known as the Buba, were even discovered to have a genetic element also found among the Jewish priestly line.
"This was amazing," said Prof Tudor Parfitt, from the University of London.
"It looks as if the Jewish priesthood continued in the West by people called Cohen, and in same way it was continued by the priestly clan of the Lemba.
"They have a common ancestor who geneticists say lived about 3,000 years ago somewhere in north Arabia, which is the time of Moses and Aaron when the Jewish priesthood started."
Prof Parfitt is a world-renowned expert, having spent 20 years researching the Lemba, and living with them for six months.
The oral traditions of the Lemba say that the ngoma lungundu is the Biblical wooden Ark made by Moses, and that centuries ago a small group of men began a long journey carrying it from Yemen to southern Africa.
The object went missing during the 1970s and was eventually rediscovered in Harare in 2007 by Prof Parfitt.
"Many people say that the story is far-fetched, but the oral traditions of the Lemba have been backed up by science," he says.
Carbon dating shows the ngoma to be nearly 700 years old - pretty ancient, if not as old as Bible stories would suggest.
But Prof Parfitt says this is because the ngoma was used in battles, and would explode and be rebuilt.
The ngoma now on display was a replica, he says, possibly built from the remains of the original.
"So it's the closest descendant of the Ark that we know of," Prof Parfitt says.
Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago.
It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which have confirmed their Semitic origin.
These tests back up the group's belief that a group of perhaps seven men married African women and settled on the continent. The Lemba, who number perhaps 80,000, live in central Zimbabwe and the north of South Africa.
And they also have a prized religious artefact that they say connects them to their Jewish ancestry - a replica of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant known as the ngoma lungundu, meaning "the drum that thunders".
The object went on display recently at a Harare museum to much fanfare, and instilled pride in many of the Lemba.
Members of the priestly clan of the Lemba, known as the Buba, were even discovered to have a genetic element also found among the Jewish priestly line.
"This was amazing," said Prof Tudor Parfitt, from the University of London.
"It looks as if the Jewish priesthood continued in the West by people called Cohen, and in same way it was continued by the priestly clan of the Lemba.
"They have a common ancestor who geneticists say lived about 3,000 years ago somewhere in north Arabia, which is the time of Moses and Aaron when the Jewish priesthood started."
Prof Parfitt is a world-renowned expert, having spent 20 years researching the Lemba, and living with them for six months.
The oral traditions of the Lemba say that the ngoma lungundu is the Biblical wooden Ark made by Moses, and that centuries ago a small group of men began a long journey carrying it from Yemen to southern Africa.
The object went missing during the 1970s and was eventually rediscovered in Harare in 2007 by Prof Parfitt.
"Many people say that the story is far-fetched, but the oral traditions of the Lemba have been backed up by science," he says.
Carbon dating shows the ngoma to be nearly 700 years old - pretty ancient, if not as old as Bible stories would suggest.
But Prof Parfitt says this is because the ngoma was used in battles, and would explode and be rebuilt.
The ngoma now on display was a replica, he says, possibly built from the remains of the original.
"So it's the closest descendant of the Ark that we know of," Prof Parfitt says.
