Sometimes I wonder if I am as crazy as Momma
has told me more than once that I am. Sometimes I
do not know what is real. Is it this holiness that only
I seem to believe in, or is it the sit-in demonstrations
my friends went on with religious fervor? Is it the deep
quiescence of night when I sit alone in my room,
reading and listening to classical music on a Chicago
radio station, or jazz on one from New Orleans? Only
when I am alone am I not divided against myself, Mind
arguing with Soul. When I am alone, I am as uniform
and indivisible as the night.
— Lovesong, Becoming A Jew
ulius Lester's mother wants to
know why he loves synagogue so
much.
"You hated church when you
were young," she tells him. "So
why is it you spend three hours
every week in synagogue?"
"I did hate church?' Lester says.
"I mean I really hated it. I remember
I used to go in and look for an empty
pew at the back. Then I'd lie down and
go to sleep.
"And when I became an adult, I
made sure that I was always in bed
until 11 a.m. on Sunday. I just
wouldn't get up until then!"
These days Lester, a former radio
talk show host, folksinger and civil
rights activist, spends most of his
mornings writing on his computer.
His latest book, Lovesong, Becoming
a Jew tells of his conversion to
Judaism, which he describes as "an
emotional homecoming?'
Lester, 49, was in town this week
as the guest of the Hillel foundations
of metro Detroit, the Jewish Com-
munity Council and various student
groups of Oakland University. He
discussed black-Jewish relations, his
books, the importance of education
and his love for Judaism.
Lester's passion for Judaism
began at an early age — just about
the time his mother was making him
go to church.
Nobody tells him to go church
now Nobody tells him to do anything.
Except God.
Lester keeps kosher and is
shomer Sitabbat. He serves as chaz-
zan in his synagogue, B'nai Israel in
Amherst, Mass., on the High Holy
Days. He loves going there. And he ad-
mires religious Jews, who are quick
to accept him, he says. "They unders-
tand why I wanted to be Jewish. They
know that Judaism is the greatest
thing in the world."
Sometimes, Lester stops by on his
way to shul to visit his 92-year-old
mother, who lives in a nursing home
nearby. That's when she asks him
why he's going to synagogue all the
time since he hated church so much.
It's not surprising Lester's mother
is a little bewildered. It isn't every
woman whose husband was a
Methodist minister and whose son
converts to Judaism. She and her
family lived in the South, where they
were supposed to drink from foun-
tains marked COLORED ONLY and
sit on the back of the bus (though
Lester's father refused to do either).
Wasn't all that enough?
t started with Lester's great-
grandfather, Adolph Altschul, a
Jewish immigrant from Ger-
many. Altschul married former
slave Maggie 'Carson when he
came to the United States. The cou-
ple had several children, including a
daughter, Emma.
It was by reading the name —
Altschul — on his grandmother Em-
ma's mailbox that Lester first learn-
ed of his Jewish relative.
"My great-grandfather was a Jew,
I say to myself," Lester writes in
Lovesong. "I don't know what that
means, not if meaning is confined to
words and concepts. But meaning is
also feeling and sensation and wonder
and questions."
It also meant answers, though
those came later.
From the time he was a young
boy, Lester felt inexplicably drawn to
Judaism. It wasn't anything in par-
ticular, just a sense. Like the way he
loved playing Kol Nidre on the piano
and the way he felt after reading
Exodus.
Through Exodus, a copy of which
he received from a fellow English ma-
jor in college, Lester learned for the
first time of the Holocaust.
When he finished the book, Lester
told the woman who lent it to him: "I
think I could die for Israel. If any peo-
ple deserve a country of their own, it's
Jews," he says in Lovesong.
Lester says he always felt drawn
to Israel, in large part because of the
Holocaust. Jews, he says, must have
their own country or they cannot con-
tinue to exist.
Lester's feelings of anguish about
the Holocaust and his support for
Israel — which he maintained even
when it resulted in bitter conflicts
with other prominent blacks — came
early. His decision to join the Jewish
people did not.
First, he had to journey. Like the
biblical Joseph, Lester acquired a
coat of many colors. One patch was
red, white and blue as he traveled for
10 years across the United States.
Another patch was royal purple — the
Catholic mysticism into which he
delved. And a third was deep black,
for the Black Power politics with
which he became identified.
Lester says his image as deeply
involved with Black Power is false.
Rather than choosing that role, it
chose Lester. He became the
spokesman for Black Power, one ex-
pression of which was his book Look
Out, Whitey, Black Power's Gon' Get
Your Mamal.
Today, Lester smiles when
reminded of Whitey. It's almost as if
it was another life. "I identify with
the Jewish community?' he says. "I
don't identify with the black com-
munity!'
Such words would probably have
come as a surprise to many Jews who,
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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