WIKIPEDIA: According to the Bible, Galilee was named by the Israelites and was the tribal region of Naphthali and Dan, at times overlapping the Tribe of Asher's land.
Bnei Bilhah are of an ancient origin. In the Hebrew migratory tradition begun more than two millennia ago, an Israeli remnant migrated into Africa with many Danites from Northeast Africa migrating back to their tribal allocations in Israel, such as Tel Aviv, besides emerging Naphtalite communities throughout Mainland Africa, including Levitical Islanders from Haiti, Jamaica, and Madagascar, as well as a Mixed Multitude comprising the African Diaspora from the United States of America settling Southwest of the Sea of Galilee.
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Wil Gafney: No comfort is offered to Bilhah in the text. Was she supported by other slave women, by Zilpah who shared her lot in life?
Wil Gafney: when I pray the Amidah, I add Hagar, Bilhah and Zilpah
Wil Gafney: Given the absence of Lavan’s wife from the narrative it is entirely possible that Lavan used Bilhah sexually
Wil Gafney: Bilhah’s body is used again in Gen 35:22. Re’uven ben Leah, Ya‘aqov’s firstborn son, rapes Bilhah. That Bilhah does not consent is indicated by the Hebrew, vayishcav et-bilhah, "he lay Bilhah." There is no "with" indicating consent.
Wil Gafney: Bilhah’s sexual subordination to Rachel (with or without the possibility that Lavan used her sexually previously) evokes for me the sexual abuse of enslaved Africans in the United States, Caribbean and other places.
Aaron Finestone: It could be argued that Bilhah and Zilpah were omitted as Imahot because of race and class.
betsy teutsch: Some of the rejection of Bilhah and Zilpah is due to class and race issues.
Judy Bolton-Fasman: Bilhah and Zilpah understand women who feel marginalized.
Israel's chief Rabbi's determined in 1973 that the Ethiopian Jews are descended from the Tribe of Dan and were entitled2emgigrate to Israel.
— Voi$. Cornerstone (@VoisCornerstone) April 5, 2012
BILHAH - JewishEncyclopedia: it is not improbable that the portion of Dan which settled in the north came into intimate relations with the adjacent tribe of Naphtali
NAPHTALI, TRIBE OF - JewishEnyclopedia: The proximity of Naphtali to Phenicia led to constant intercourse with the people of that country. Hiram, the famous worker in brass whom Solomon brought from Tyre, was the son of a woman of Naphtali and a man of Tyre [I Kings vii. 13-14; comp. II Chron. ii. 14; there may have been a fusion of the northern Danites with the Naphtalites].
Tziporah Heller: Bilhah’s role in life was to be Rachel’s disciple; her shadow, so to speak, so the more selfless Bilhah was, the more she would become Rachel to the point that becomes herself the Greater she was; so she’s also part of Am Israel, but she merges into Rachel, which, of course, is what she would always want.
Joseph and Aseneth 25:5-7: And Naphtali and Asher said to Dan and Gad, "Why must you plot again against our father Israel and against our brother Joseph? For God looks after him as if he were the apple of his eye. Did you not once sell Joseph as a slave, and to-day he is king of the whole earth, and its saviour, and gives us corn? And now, if you make plots against him again, he will call upon the God of Israel, and he will send fire from heaven, and it will burn you up, and the angels of God will fight against you."
In the apocryphal Testaments of the Patriarchs, Dan is portrayed as having hated Joseph and having been the one that invented the idea of deceiving Jacob by the smearing of Joseph’s coat with the blood of a kid; in the apocryphal Prayer of Asenath, Dan is portrayed as plotting with the Egyptian crown prince against Joseph and Asenath.
Joseph and Aseneth 24:2: And his servants whispered in his ear, "Lo, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, the maidservants of Leah and Rachel, Jacob’s wives, hate Joseph and Aseneth and are jealous of them, and they will do what you want."
