From: jake@bony1.bony.com (Jake Livni)
Subject: Re: African-American Jews?
Organization: The Department of Redundancy Department
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 92 00:08:35 GMT

In article <1992Dec3.221845.10047@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> sethr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (seth.r.rosenthal) writes:

>There was a N.Y. Times article about African-American Jews
>about 2 or three years ago (magazine section I think).
>They visit an Orthodox Synagogue in Harlem where all the
>members are Black.  Seems that in the 1920's there was
>an earlier "Christianity is the slave religion" movement,
>and Islamic groups weren't actively missionizing A-A's yet,
>so some decided to become Jewish.
>I believe they were converted under Orthodox rules,
>but they found that many congregations didn't make
>them feel comfortable.  I'm not sure in what shape
>that group is today as a result.

If we're talking about the same article, it only had pictures of 
African-Americans in a synagogue in Harlem.  I was so surprised to 
see these photos that I asked around informally about this community.
No one I spoke to knew anything about them.  It's not all that clear
to me that they are Jewish at all.

I might point out that I have several times found A-As on the streets
of New York proclaiming out loud to anyone who will listen that THEY 
are the "True Jews", the Chosen People, and that the White Jew is the 
"Imposter Jew" who must be killed, that the "True Jew" will liberate 
the Promised Land (of Palestine) and annihilate the "imposter Jews".

Thus a community of AAs calling themselves Jewish, and even practicing
some Jewish rituals isn't evidence to me of actual Jewishness.

>I have no idea how many A-A's are Jewish.

There is a guy who I saw several years ago in a variety of shuls in
different neighborhoods, obviously an American Black man.  He spoke a
moderate Hebrew and dressed in a dark jacket and hat, but used a pair
of Tzitzit as a scarf.  Apparently, he had lived in Israel with a
Black Hebrew group from the USA.  The general consensus was that he
wasn't Jewish at all, but he sure liked coffee and cake served in shul
and badgering people for Tzedaka.  He was often quite abusive in his
pursuit of Tzedaka.  Incidentally, when someone asked him once if he
was Jewish, he answered, and I quote exactly, : "I'm a nigger - Ani
Ger!" (Translation, I'm a Convert).  He then laughed his way to the
next Shul breakfast down the road. 

In another case, I was on the Lower East Side one afternoon and
dropped in to one of the shuls to daven Mincha.  The shuls there are
quite old and somewhat empty, the community having largely moved or
died off.  There was a young Black man there, apparently waiting for
the services.  I noted that he held the Siddur upside-down, so I
figured that he probably didn't know how to read Hebrew and probably
wasn't Jewish at all.  Imagine my amazement when I later saw him open
the Siddur to the right page and then continue through the end of the
services, always keeping to the right page, but holding the Siddur
upside down!  I asked one of the other congregants about this.  He
said that he didn't who this guy was but perhaps that's how he learned
to read, wherever he learned to read, in a circle of young students,
all around a lone printed book.  The one who always sat opposite the
teacher may well have learned to read upside-down!  I still haven't
figured out this story, or if he was American or Jewish at all.

>Someone once told me the Lubavitcher Rebbe's (the group in Crown Heights
>for anyone who isn't aware) secretary is a Black woman who is a
>convert to Judaism.  Not sure if this is true.

I'm no expert on Lubavitch, but the Rebbe has several "secretaries"
who are (all?) men who have served him faithfully for decades.  I am
not aware of any women on this staff.

About 12 years ago, I davened in Crown Heights in a minyan of Black
Jews.  These appeared to be African-Americans who were quite properly
Jewish, either through immediate conversion or descendants of
converts, who lived in the neighborhood.  There ARE Black Jews, but
not all African-Americans who claim to be Jewish are, in fact, Jewish.

-- 
Jake Livni  jake@bony1.bony.com              10 years from now, George Bush will
American-Occupied New York                   have replaced Jimmy Carter as the
My opinions only - employer has no opinions. standard of a failed President.