U.S.: Abraham's children, too

This is a follow up to Blacks increasingly joining a true religion of peace. Upon looking closer, I'm discovering that many blacks who become Jews do not regard it so much as conversion, but more as "returning to what they have always been."

Interestingly, Islam and Roman Catholicism (Vatican II variety) claim all men for themselves. While I have no idea of Islam's doctrinal term for the idea that all men are Muslim, even if they don't know it, Romanism calls it "the anonymous Christian." That phrase signifies that even if a man has never heard the Gospel and been baptized he is a Christian. Such a concept is antithetical to Biblical Christian doctrine.

The claim that Rabbi Funnye and others are making is not a doctrinal one, but is historical. Perhaps, aware of this historical connection, Islam's adherent have been advancing some wild ideas about the historical presence of Islam around the globe in their bid to stake a claim to the whole world for Islam. See this story that I commented on on 5/30/04. Rabbi Funnye isn't making any such claim.

Absent from the historicity of African Judaism is any mention of wars of conquest and forcible conversion, enslavement, mutilation, rapes, and dhimmitude. Africa has a long historical connection with Judaism, stemming all the way back to the Queen of Sheba, and beyond to the Rameses.

Rabbi Capers Funnye, head of the predominantly Black Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, says Ashkenazi Jews should acknowledge that Judaism does not belong to one race, but is a tradition that cuts across races and cultures. When they do that, he argues, Blacks will be forced to re-examine their own assumptions about Jews.

Funnye's congregation is an offshoot of the Commandment Keepers, a Black Jewish movement founded in New York around 1930 by Rabbi Wentworth A. Matthew, a self-proclaimed Jew who argued that many Blacks had been Jewish in Africa before they were uprooted and packed onto slave ships. Today, the Ethiopian Hebrews -- not to be confused with the Jews of Ethiopia, who now are almost all in Israel -- have congregations in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, Boston and other cities.

But many rabbis in the three main branches of Judaism -- Reform, Conservative and Orthodox -- do not recognize Ethiopian Hebrew congregations as legitimate Jews. They argue that Ethiopian Hebrews were not born Jewish and must undergo conversions if they want to be considered Jews.

Funnye, born to a family of African Methodist Episcopalians in South Carolina, did formally convert in 1985 and is now a certified kosher Jew. But he is not recognized as a rabbi by any of the mainstream national rabbinical organizations because he attended the Israelite Rabbinical Academy in Queens, N.Y., a small school for Black rabbis that is not approved by the mainstream groups. There have, however, been recent discussions between Funnye and the Reform Jewish community. Talks have centered around Funnye's congregation becoming an affiliate of the Union of America Hebrew congregation.

Rabbi Mordecai Simon, executive vice president emeritus of the Chicago Board of Rabbis, questions Funnye's credentials: "The established Jewish community does not recognize that seminary that [Funnye] refers to, as an institution that could certify and graduate ordained rabbis in a way that the general Jewish community would recognize." Simon casts doubt as well on the Judaic authenticity of Funnye's congregation: "This is a particular congregation that recognizes themselves...as Jews. This doesn't necessarily meet the basic requirements of the traditional faith for being considered a Jew."

Funnye, who has not applied for membership in Simon's rabbinical group, requires that newcomers to his congregation be initiated according to Jewish law. A man must be circumcised or, if he already is, have a drop of blood drawn from his penis to symbolize a commitment to the Jewish covenant with God. Women must have mikvah, the ritual immersion. But Funnye does not call those procedures conversion. He insists that Blacks who become Jewish are not converting, but only "returning to what they have always been." He talks of a Jewish diaspora that existed in central, western and southern Africa for centuries.

History may bolster his claim. Members of the Balemba, a tribe of about 150,000 scattered throughout southern Africa, believe they are the descendants of Israelites who fled Israel about 2,500 years ago and headed south through Africa. They practice a number of Jewish customs, including circumcision for men, adherence to kosher dietary laws and ritual cleansing of women following menstruation. In the 1930 book, Hebrewisms of West Africa, Joseph J. Williams says that several centuries before the Common Era, Jewish merchants and refugees migrated south along the Nile, then cut west past Lake Chad and settled along the Niger River in West Africa.

"We have never denied the Ashkenazi community its right to exist or questioned its loyalty to Judaism, and in return we would appreciate that same respect," Funnye says.

Also:

Ironically, some black ministers have been reluctant to embrace African-American Jews, he said, because the Ashkenazi have laid claim to being the real Jews. Funnye said the ministers fear that if they recognize black Jews as legitimate, white Jews may consider them anti-Semitic.

Funnye strives to dispel the notion of Judaism as a primarily European, Ashkenazi-based faith and culture.

"To us," Funnye said, "nothing could be further from the truth. Jews certainly are from various parts of Europe, but Jews are also from various parts of Asia and various parts of Africa, and it is the continent of Africa that we must bring back to the fore when we have these discussions."

Among 300 African tribes of the Limba Cultural Association, the Ibo of Nigeria, the Tutsis and the Ashante of Ghana, at least eight major tribal groups identify themselves as being of Hebraic stock, said Funnye, who believes Jewish scholars are well aware of the African branch of the Jewish family tree.

"Why is it that they have been seemingly not interested at all in swinging the doors of Judaism open to embrace these people?" he asked. "I do not want to venture to say.

"We must see Judaism in the eyes of the prophet who declared that God's house is a house of prayer for all people, and not be blinded by the [presence] of persons who don't happen to look like us and sound like us," Funnye said. "I think that only hurts Judaism."