Lemba people have long held that they are Jews by descent. In the 1990s and early 2000s scientists set out to determine whether this could be genetically substantiated.

Tudor Parfitt, the protagonist of the NOVA documentary "Lost Tribes of Israel," made a journey through southern Africa to study the unusual traditions of a black African tribe called the Lemba.

A southern African tribe with tantalizing claims to an ancient Jewish heritage, the Lemba dispatched Parfitt on a journey of discovery that would take him halfway across Africa and into a remote ...