By Eli Bass, Director of Jewish Life
As we close out Black History Month, I want to focus on the question of diversity in the Jewish community. Approximately one in four people in the American Jewish community are Jews of color. These include Jewish people with a variety of backgrounds, including African Americans.
From biblical times, the Jewish community has been composed of a variety of different ethnicities. The historic Jewish kingdom sat in a crossroads-trading center between Asia, Africa and Europe. The destruction of the second temple in 70 A.D. ended the Jewish kingdom. Faced with a lack of Jewish kingdom, Jewish centers grew in Europe, Asia and Africa.
Next month, the Jewish community will celebrate Purim. Purim is a story of how in ancient Persia, a Jewish queen was able to rescue the Jews in her kingdom. The story describes the kingdom as being from Ethiopia to India. These Jews were almost all likely brown.
Identity markers are a piece of what makes us rich in our identities. Being Jewish is an identity marker just like skin color, gender, sexual identity, disability and experience. Most black Jews are born into Judaism. Others join through marriage, adoption or conversion. A complex mixture of identity markers and experiences shape us into being complex people.
Ma Nishtana is a writer and thinker about what it means to be both black and Jewish. He is asked often if he is more black or Jewish. He responds that both identities are core to who he is: “Honestly? I’m tired of this question. When I walk down the street do you see a Jewish guy with black skin or are you curious about the black guy with a yarmulke on his head?” His experience gives us a glimpse of some of the challenges of being a minority subset of a minority community.
I am proud to be a part of a community that continues to work on addressing this diversity challenge. Rabbi Capers Funnye serves as the Rabbi of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in my hometown of Chicago.
In Chicago, he is the only black clergy on Chicago’s board of rabbis. His congregation incorporates the culture of its African American congregants with the practices of traditional Judaism. His congregation is a diverse community. Funnye also serves as chief rabbi of a growing network of black Hebrew congregations.
Also in Chicago is rabbinical student Tamar Manasseh. Manasseh grew up in the South Side of Chicago. Raised in Rabbi Funnye’s synagogue, she is a committed part of the black Jewish community. Manasseh was educated in a Jewish day school, reinforcing her commitment to her religious tradition as well as her inner-city neighborhood. Her work in Chicago as a part of Moms Against Senseless Killings is something she sees as core to her Jewish identity.
MASK views getting community leaders out on the street as critical to recognize and stop violence. As a rabbinical student, Manasseh is using the neighborhood streets as her pulpit to reduce gun violence. She is also working to mobilize the Jewish community to engage in neighborhoods that are often ignored or avoided.
Our identities and life journeys shape us into the people we are. Learning about the black Jewish community both inspires me and challenges me as a Jewish communal professional. It is a reminder to me of parts of my community that I need to learn about more deeply. Black History Month is committed to sharing stories that need to be told. I know that is true both broadly and within my community.
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