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Photo by Susan Boruh
Harlem' Hebrews
Rabbi Chaim White: A question of Jewish law?
EDWARD R. SILVERMAN
Special to The Jewish News
Quietly, unobtrusively, the members of the
Commandment Keepers Ethiopian
Hebrew Congregation gather for services
in their synagogue near Marcus Garvey
Park. But they are disturbed that the
white Jewish Establishment won't accept
them unqualifiedly as Jews.
A
gentle, cold rain is
falling this morning in
Harlem's Marcus
Garvey park. Quietly, a pair
of stray dogs sift through
garbage cans. Every few min-
utes, a police car slowly rolls
by as early morning shoppers
descend from nearby brown-
stones.
Across the way, at the cor-
ner of West 123rd Street, the
first worshippers arrive at the
neighborhood synagogue.
First one car, then another,
pulls up to a small building
that dates from the turn of
the century. Huddling under
Edward R. Silverman is a
staff reporter at New York
Newsday.
umbrellas, each person makes
a point of gently touching the
mezzuzah on the door frame
before hurrying inside.
Within minutes, nearly 20
people are drying off in the
foyer, exchanging greetings of
"Shabbat Shalom." Rabbi
Chaim White, a small middle-
aged man with a neatly
trimmed gray beard, dons a
navy blue robe and elaborate
head-covering before ad-
justing the heat, turning on
the lights and proceeding
upstairs to the sanctuary. He
is joined there by Rabbi Betz-
alel Ben Israel, an older gen-
tleman who wears an ancient-
looking amulet and carries a
gold specter.
Little time is wasted before
prayers begin. The congre-
gants take their places. A few
men and their sons move to
the rows closest to the ark,
while the women and their
daughters sit further back.
For a moment, all is quiet and
services get underway just as
at any other synagogue. But
then the rabbis do something
unexpected. They call out the
names of the "brothers and
sisters" to be honored with
aliyahs.
Brothers and sisters? Wel-
come to the Commandment
Keepers Ethiopian Hebrew
Congregation, the largest and
longest-running organized
group of black Jews in New
York City.
"We're not clowns, we're for
real. We're trying to mind our
own business. We just want
to be left alone." It's a couple
of weeks later and Rabbi
White, who runs his own gas
station in Newark, N.J., is a
little testy. He is annoyed by
questions that he feels chal-
lenge his heritage. And he
bristles at being confused
with blacks who profess to be
the only real Jews, such as
Yahweh.
He's also concerned that
this may be yet another en-
counter with a curiosity
seeker, someone who may be
insensitive to his desire to
practice his faith without be-
ing placed under a micro-
scope. For these reasons, he
has avoided granting me an
interview for nearly three
weeks. Only after insisting
that the feelings of his con-
gregants won't be hurt by
this story does he agree to
discuss his roots and
legitimacy.
"We're Hebrews, Israelites.
Our Hebraic culture was
handed down by our parents
and their parents . . .When
the Hebrews — the 10 tribes
— were dispersed, they went
into the interior of Africa, all
parts of Africa . . . And later
they were taken as slaves and
deprived of their rights and
heritage . . . It doesn't matter
if people call us Hebrews or
Israelites or Jews. We're all
brothers."
But are we? This simple
question has been left un-
answered for several decades
as blacks in New York and
other cities, most notably
Chicago, have argued that
they should be recognized as
members of the Israelite na-
tion, the greater Jewish com-
munity at large.
In the 1960s, bridges were
built between black congrega-
tions in Harlem and white
Jewish leaders elsewhere in
New York. Rabbi Hailu Paris,
who was actually born in
Ethiopia and now heads a
tiny congregation in the
Bronx, estimates that there
were as many as 10,000 black
Jews at that time who attend-
ed more than a dozen syna-
gogues in the New York area.
(None of the black Jewish
leaders have reliable esti-
mates on today's numbers,
but there are about half a
dozen small congregations
still surviving in the greater
New York area.
"We've also suffered from
intermarriage and people los-
ing their spirituality," says
Rabbi Paris.
Mirroring concern over civil
rights, an integrated youth
group called Hatzaad Hari-
shon (First Step) was created
to foster dialogue. But these
efforts were later dismantled
after halachic disputes over
the blacks' claims to Jewish
origins and their belief that
certain biblical passages sug-
gest that heritage is deter-
mined by the father, not the
mother. Some say racism has
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