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Add to NewsvineThe AJC says the number is at 150,000 in the U.S. alone -- and rising. The paper profiles a former evangelical couple who are making the conversion. "For a black male to put on a kipah and go wandering around in a predominately black community, you get the strangest looks," said Pamela Harris.
Highland, where Pamela Harris works as the senior nonclerical staff member, at least eight of the roughly 20 people learning about Judaism with Rabbi Hillel Norry are black.The numbers here seem a little large. I've been to dozens of synaogues in the last few years and I can count the number of black Jews I've seen on one hand. Am I missing something?At the Marcus Jewish Community Center in Dunwoody, roughly 20 percent of the nearly two dozen people enrolled in Steven Chervin's introduction to Judaism classes are black.
Although there are no sound statistics on the subject, anecdotal evidence suggests that, in the past 15 years, increasing numbers of black Americans are exploring Judaism, said Gary Tobin, president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research in San Francisco.
"Ten years ago, it was almost unheard of that a black person would come in and want to convert," said Rabbi Ilan Feldman, who is working with the Harrises and two other black people pursuing conversion.
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I am a fourth generation black Jew. We've been around for quite a while...
Posted by: Samantha | June 24, 2008 12:38 PM
I have known one african american lady who did convert to judaism. I believe she has been very sincere because she has maintained being a jew for many years. I have seen her out having coffee with her Rabbi.
I know she as raising her daughter to be jewish.
Posted by: erey | June 24, 2008 3:22 PM
Black Jews?!!!! Surely you jest! This can't be true if America is just discovering this......
Everyone knows that Jesus was a Hollywood star with blue contacts and long flowing locks from using Ultress. I don't see any resemblance to a Jew in Jesus. He's White, I tell you!
Posted by: MrMissy | June 26, 2008 6:15 PM
Rabbi Joshua Nelson once spoke at my synagogue. He was great and had no problem expressing his love of and pride in Judaism, as well as his amusement about how people perceived him.
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meshil
Posted by: meshil | July 19, 2008 8:37 AM
As an African-American woman in her 40's, who grew up in a predominantly African-American church going neighborhood, one would never suspect that by the age of four I was reading Hebrew and learned to read Hebrew before I learned to read English. All of my brothers and sisters followed this path. My parents, both African-American and from the South, raised all of us under the shadow of the Torah. No one converted to Judaism. My way of life is based on a rich oral tradition whispered in any number of groves and fields in the South. At one point as a kid, the other kids on our block, knew that we could not go outside to play on Shabbat and they would wait until after they heard my father recite the Havdalah and the Ma'ariv before coming to asking if we could play. My father passed away seven years ago, and it wasn't until at his funeral services that I realized the impact we may have had on our neighbors and friends, when they joined all our family in singing the Shema, in my father's memory. None of these people are Jewish and did not attend services, except what they heard coming from our house.
All of this is a long way to say that there are many black Jews here in America. Like me, many of them know nothing else. Also, like me,
our story, challenges and path through history differ a little from mainstream or Euroethnic Jews here in America or abroad. Nevertheless, it is rich and is a source of pride.
I am glad to see that there is a promise for Jews of all ethnicities to come together and rejoice before the L-rd with all our similarities and embracing our differences.
Posted by: Devorah | August 7, 2008 8:14 PM
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