Dimona, Israel ? Israel’s “Black Hebrews,” a close-knit group of vegan polygamists who arrived in the country from the United States in 1969, are celebrating the government’s announcement that they are finally eligible for citizenship in the Jewish state.

In the desert town of Dimona in southern Israel, home to about 1,500 Black Hebrews, there was a feeling Monday that a 34-year history of statelessness was coming to an end with news of their permanent resident status.

“There’s going to be a lot of dancing, singing, shouting and eating,” said former Chicagoan Adiv Ben-Yehuda. “It’s the greatest day since the community arrived in Israel.”

Other members of the 2,500-strong group live in Arad and Mitzpeh Ramon, other towns in Israel’s south.

As permanent residents, members will be able to serve in the Israeli army and establish their own residential communities, an Interior Ministry statement said. Under normal practice, permanent resident status would lead to full citizenship after an unspecified period of time.

The exodus from Chicago of the Black Hebrews — the self-styled African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem — is one of the stranger odysseys of the 1960s.

About 350 black Americans left the United States in 1967 as followers of Ben Carter, a Chicago bus driver who changed his name to Ben Ammi Ben-Israel after receiving, he said, a visitation from the angel Gabriel informing him he was God’s representative on Earth.

Believing that black Americans are one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel, Ben Ammi and his followers set out — first for Liberia, then, their numbers diminished, for Israel in 1969.

The group’s members dress in colorful, self-made clothes, practice polygamy, shun birth control, and refrain from eating meat, dairy products, eggs and sugar.

The new arrivals met with skepticism and bafflement from many Israelis. A succession of Israeli interior ministers resisted upgrading the Black Hebrews’ status as temporary residents, with limited legal and civil rights.

Arriving in Israel on tourist visas, they lived through the 1970s and 1980s unrecognized by the government as Jews and occasionally deported by the dozen after their visas expired.

Housed in a huddle of bungalows in Dimona — a poverty-stricken town in the Negev desert — the Black Hebrews persevered. They established businesses in crafts and tailoring, formed a respected gospel choir, started a factory producing tofu ice cream and set up several successful vegan restaurants.

Over the years, the group has accumulated high-profile supporters — politician Jesse Jackson campaigned for them to receive Israeli citizenship, and singer Whitney Houston visited them this May.