The Rising Black American Jewish Population June 18, 2008

Baruch Hashem v’yishtabach Shmo for this story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Rachel Pomerance.

Black Americans make up a “significant portion of those learning about Judaism” in Atlanta, a sign of a growing Black American Jewish population:

At Congregation Shearith Israel, a conservative synagogue in Virginia-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.

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.

Until their conversion courses intensified last year, the Harrises led a weekly learning/support group in Decatur for about a dozen African-Americans interested in Judaism.

Putting aside issues and debates regarding halachic status — this shows a sociological occurrence which deserves to be noted: namely that, in at least one congregation, 40% of the new people coming in as debutantes to Jewish observance will be African-American. About 12 black people interested in Judaism coming to a support group. Baruch Hashem Black Jewish visibility is increasing and ken yirbu, may Jewish communities of all ethnicities continue to thrive.

While this particular family, the Harrises, happen to be in Atlanta, the founder of Temple University’s Center for Afro-Jewish Studies says that Black Jews have long been all over America:

The 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey, conducted by the United Jewish Communities, North America’s central Jewish fund-raising organization, found that 1 percent of Jewish adults, or 37,000 people, identified as black or African-American. An additional 1 percent of Jewish adults called themselves biracial or multiracial. However, that was based on a total estimate of 5.2 million Jews in America, a number that [Institute for Jewish & Community Research President Gary] Tobin and other key Jewish demographers have called too low. Tobin believes the number of black Jews in America exceeds 150,000.

The notion of black Jews is hardly new. The Jewish history of worldwide migration has led to Jews of every ethnicity. But much of the black Jewish experience in this country has flown under the radar of other Americans, [Center for Afro-Jewish Studies founder Lewis] Gordon said. That’s because many black Jews historically practiced privately or in segregated communities, he said. The population was “swept up in the tides of racism in scholarship and institutions” that saw Jews as exclusively white, even though American Jews of European descent did not consider themselves white until recent decades, Gordon said.

“There have always been communities of either black people who are already Jewish or black people considering coming to Judaism. What is different is that institutional structures are changing,” he said. Gordon speculates that as many as 1 million black people in the United States have Jewish roots, among them African-Americans, African and Caribbean immigrants and Afro-Latinos.

Which is why Gordon thinks that, among the rising numbers of black Americans coming to Judaism, some of them are simply returning to it.

The next logical question then becomes, if a black person knows that their mother is a Jew, why would they not identify themselves as Jewish? The answer to that lies not only in racial and cultural alienation — both the black and Jewish communities have elements which perceive their counterparts as the epitome of “the Other” — but also in the pervasive racism and anti-Semitism which unfortunately permeates many areas of American culture. We grow up in a world where unfortunately pervasive — but by no means ubiquitous — racism and anti-Semitism make being standoffish a norm, and to embrace both identities becomes more difficult. But the more black Americans who are already Jews begin to realize that Judaism as practiced is for them, the more Jewish neshamot living in bodies of black Americans will come home — upon seeing all the familiar faces.

May we see the uniting of the Jews from all four corners of the earth — speaking all their languages and looking as distinct from each other as G-d intended — speedily in our days.