Biography of Rabbi Arnold Josiah Ford
By
Rabbi Sholomo Ben Levy
Ford, Arnold Josiah (23 Apr. 1877-16
Sept. 1935), rabbi, black nationalist, and emigrationist, was born in
Bridgetown, Barbados, the son of Edward Ford and Elizabeth Augusta Braithwaite.
Ford asserted that his father’s ancestry could be traced to the Yoruba
tribe of Nigeria and his
mother’s to the Mendi tribe of Sierra Leone. According to his
family’s oral history, their heritage extended back to one of the
priestly families of the ancient Israelites, and in Barbados his family maintained
customs and traditions that identified them with Judaism (Kobre, 27). His
father was a policeman who also had a reputation as a “fiery
preacher’ at the Wesleyan Methodist Church where Arnold was baptized;
yet, it is not known if Edward’s teaching espoused traditional Methodist
beliefs or if it urged the embrace of Judaism that his son would later
advocate.
Ford’s parents intended for him to become a musician. They
provided him with private tutors who instructed him in several
instruments—particularly the harp, violin, and bass. As a young adult, he
studied music theory with Edmestone Barnes and in 1899 joined the musical corps
of the British Royal Navy, where he served on the HMS Alert. According to some reports, Ford was stationed on the island of Bermuda,
where he secured a position as a clerk at the Court of Federal Assize, and he
claimed that before coming to America
he was a minister of public works in the Republic of Liberia,
where many ex-slaves and early black nationalists settled.
When Ford arrived in Harlem around
1910, he gravitated to its musical centers rather than to political or
religious institutions—although within black culture, all three are often
interrelated. He was a member of the Clef Club Orchestra, under the direction
of James Reese Europe, which
first brought jazz to Carnegie Hall in 1912. Other black Jewish musicians, such
as Willie “the Lion” Smith, an innovator of stride piano, also
congregated at the Clef Club.
Shortly after the orchestra’s Carnegie Hall engagement, Ford
became the director of the New Amsterdam Musical Association. His interest in
mysticism, esoteric knowledge, and secret societies is evidenced by his
membership in the Scottish Rite Masons, where he served as Master of the Memmon
Lodge. It was during this period of activity in Harlem,
he married Olive Nurse, with whom he had two children before they divorced in
1924.
In 1917 Marcus Garvey
founded the New York
chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association [UNIA], and within a few
years it had become the largest mass movement in African American history.
Arnold Ford became the musical director of the UNIA choir, Samuel Valentine was
the president, and Nancy Paris its lead singer. These three became the core of
an active group of black Jews within the UNIA who studied Hebrew, religion, and
history, and held services at Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the UNIA. As a
paid officer, Rabbi Ford, as he was then called, was responsible for
orchestrating much of the pageantry of Garvey’s highly attractive
ceremonies. Ford and Benjamin E. Burrell composed a song called
“Ethiopia,” which speaks of a halcyon past before slavery and
stresses pride in African heritage—two themes that were becoming
immensely popular. Ford was thus prominently situated among those Muslim and
Christian clergy, including George
Alexander McGuire, Chaplain-General of the UNIA, who were each trying to
influence the religious direction of the organization.
Ford’s contributions to the UNIA, however, were not limited to
musical and religious matters. He and E.L. Gaines wrote the handbook of rules
and regulation for the paramilitary African Legion (which was modeled after the
Zionist Jewish Legion) and developed guidelines for the Black Cross Nurses. He
served on committees, spoke at rallies, and was elected one of the delegates
representing the 35,000 members of the New York
chapter at the First International Convention of Negro Peoples of the World,
held in 1920 at Madison
Square Garden.
There the governing body adopted the red, black, and green flag as its ensign,
and Ford’s song “Ethiopia”
became the “Universal Ethiopian Anthem,” which the UNIA
constitution required be sung at every gathering. During that same year, Ford
published the Universal Ethiopian Hymnal. Ford was a proponent of
replacing the term “Negro” with the term “Ethiopian,”
as a general reference to people of African descent. This allowed the biblical verse “Ethiopia
shall soon stretch out her hand to God,” (Psalm 68:3) to be interpreted
as applying to their efforts and it became a popular slogan of the
organization. At the 1922 convention, Ford opened the proceedings for the
session devoted to “The Politics and Future of the West Indian
Negro,” and he represented the advocates of Judaism on a five-person ad
hoc committee formed to investigate “the Future Religion of the
Negro.” Following Garvey’s arrest in 1923, the UNIA loss much of
its internal cohesion. Since Ford and his small band of followers were
motivated by principals that were independent of Garvey’s charismatic
appeal, they were repeatedly approached by government agents and asked to
testify against Garvey at trial, which they refused to do. However, in 1925, Ford
brought separate law suits against Garvey and the UNIA for failing to pay him
royalties from the sale of recordings and sheet music, and in 1926 the judge
ruled in Ford’s favor. No longer musical director, and despite his
personal and business differences with the organization, Rabbi Ford maintained
a connection with the UNIA and was invited to give the invocation at the annual
convention in 1926.
Several black religious leaders were experimenting with Judaism in
various degrees between the two world wars. Rabbi Ford formed intermittent
partnerships with some of these leaders. He and Valentine started a short lived
congregation called Beth B’nai Israel. Ford then worked with Mordecai
Herman and the Moorish Zionist Temple, until they had an altercation over theological
and financial issues. Finally, he established Beth B’nai Abraham in Harlem in 1924. A Jewish scholar who visited the
congregation described their services as “a mixture of Reform and
Orthodox Judaism, but when they practice the old customs they are seriously
orthodox” (Kobre, 25). Harlem chronicler James VanDerZee photographed the congregation with the Star
of David and bold Hebrew lettering identifying their presence on 135th
Street and showing Rabbi Ford standing in front of the synagogue with his arms
around his string bass, and with members of his choir at his side, the women
wearing the black dresses and long white head coverings that became their
distinctive habit and the men in white turbans.
In 1928, Rabbi Ford created a business adjunct to the congregation
called the B’nai Abraham Progressive Corporation. Reminiscent of many of
Garvey’s ventures, this corporation issued one hundred shares of stock
and purchased two buildings from which it operated a religious and vocational
school in one and leased apartments in the other. However, resources dwindled
as the Depression became more pronounced, and the corporation went bankrupt in
1930. Once again it seemed that Ford’s dream of building a black
community with cultural integrity, economic viability, and political virility
was dashed, but out of the ashes of this disappointment he mustered the resolve
to make a final attempt in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian government had been encouraging black people with skills and
education to immigrate to Ethiopia
for almost a decade, and Ford knew that there were over 40,000 indigenous black
Jews already in Ethiopia
(who called themselves Beta Israel,
but who were commonly referred to as Falasha). The announced coronation of
Haile Selassie in 1930 as the first black ruler of an African nation in modern
times raised the hopes of black people all over the world and led Ford to
believe that the timing of his Ethiopian colony was providential.
Ford arrived in Ethiopia
with a small musical contingent in time to perform during the coronation
festivities. They then sustained themselves in Addis Abba by performing at
local hotels and relying on assistance from supporters in the United Sates who
were members of the Aurienoth Club, a civic group of black Jews and black
nationalists, and members of the Commandment Keepers Congregation, led by Rabbi W. A. Matthew, Ford’s most loyal
protégé. Mignon Innis arrived with a second delegation in 1931 to
work as Ford’s private secretary.
She soon became Ford’s wife, and they had two children in Ethiopia.
Mrs. Ford established a school for boys and girls that specialized in English
and music. Ford managed to secure eight hundred acres of land on which to begin
his colony and approximately one hundred individuals came to help him develop
it. Unbeknownst to Ford, the U.S. State Department monitored Ford’s
efforts with irrational alarm, dispatching reports with such headings as
“American Negroes in Ethiopia—Inspiration
Back of Their Coming Here—‘Rabbi’ Josiah A. Ford,” and
instituting discriminatory policies to curtail the travel of black citizens to Ethiopia.
Ford had no intention of leaving Ethiopia,
so he drew up a certificate of ordination (shmecha) for Rabbi Matthew
that was sanctioned by the Ethiopian government in the hope that this document
would give Matthew the necessary credentials to continue the work that Ford had
begun in the United States.
By 1935 the black Jewish experiment with Ethiopian Zionism was on the verge of
collapse. Those who did not leave because of the hard agricultural work, joined
the stampede of foreign nationals who sensed that war with Italy was imminent and defeat for Ethiopia
certain. Ford died in September, it was said, of exhaustion and heartbreak, a
few weeks before the Italian invasion. Ford had been the most important
catalyst for the spread of Judaism among African Americans. Through his
successors, communities of black Jews emerged and survived in several American
cities.
Further Reading
King, Kenneth J. “ Some Notes on Arnold
J. Ford and New World Black Attitudes to Ethiopia,” in Black
Apostles: Afro-American Clergy Confront the Twentieth Century, Randall
Burkett and Richard Newman, eds. (1978).
Kobre, Sidney. “Rabbi Ford,” The Reflex 4,
no. 1 (1929): 25-29.
Scott, William R. “Rabbi Arnold Ford’s Back-to-Ethiopia
Movement: A Study of Black Emigration, 1930-1935,” Pan-African Journal
8, no. 2 (1975):191-201.
* No part of these essays may be used without the
author’s permission.
Biography of Rabbi W.A. Matthew
By
Rabbi Sholomo Ben Levy
Chief Rabbi W.A. Matthew
Matthew,
Wentworth Arthur (23 June 1892-3 Dec. 1973), rabbi and educator, is believed to have been
born in St. Marys, St. Kitts, in the British West Indies, the son of Joseph
Matthew and Frances M. Cornelius. Matthew gave seemingly contradictory accounts
of his ancestry that put his place of birth in such places as Ethiopia, Ghana,
and Lagos, Nigeria. Some of those lingering
discrepancies were partially clarified when Matthew explained that his father,
a cobbler from Lagos, was the son of an
Ethiopian Jew, a cantor who sang their traditional liturgies near the ancient
Ethiopian capital of Gondar.
Matthew’s father then married a Christian woman in Lagos and they gave their son, Wentworth, the
Hebrew name Yoseh ben Moshe ben Yehuda, also given as Moshea Ben David. His
father died when he was a small boy and his mother took him to live in St.
Kitts, where she had relatives who had been slaves on the island (Ottley, 143).
In 1913 Matthew
immigrated to New York City, where he worked as a carpenter and engaged in
prize fighting, though he was just a scrappy five feet four inches tall. He
reportedly studied at Christian and Jewish schools, including the Hayden
Theological Seminary, the Rose of Sharon Theological Seminary (both now
defunct), Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and even the University of
Berlin, but there is no independent evidence to corroborate his attendance at
these institutions. In 1916 Matthew married Florence Docher Liburd, a native of
Fountaine, Nevis, with whom he would have four
children. During the First World War, Matthew was one of many street exhorters
who used a ladder for a pulpit and Harlem’s
bustling sidewalks as temporary pews for interested pedestrians. By 1919 enough
people were drawn to his evolving theology of Judaism and black nationalism
that he was able to found “The Commandments Keepers Church of the living
God The pillar and ground of the truth And the faith of Jesus Christ.” He
attempted to appeal to a largely Christian audience by pointing out that
observance of the Old Testament commandments was the faith of Jesus; however,
it became apparent that visitors often missed this point and assumed that any
reference to Jesus implied a belief in Jesus. To avoid this confusion with
Christianity, Matthew ceased to use the title Bishop and removed all references
to Jesus from his signs and later from their papers of incorporation.
The transition from a
church-based organization holding Jewish beleifs to a functioning synagogue
that embraced most of the tenets of mainstream Orthodox Judaism was
accomplished by Matthew’s association with Rabbi Arnold Ford. Ford was a luminary in the Universal Negro
Improvement Association, a black nationalist organization led by Marcus Garvey. Rabbi Ford offered
Hebrew lessons and religious instruction to a number of laypeople and clergy in
the Harlem area. Ford worked with both
Matthew’s Commandments Keepers Congregation and the Moorish Zionist
Congregation led by Mordecai Herman in the 1920s before starting his own
congregation, Beth B’nai Abraham. In 1931, after Ford emigrated to Ethiopia he sent a letter to Matthew granting
him “full authority to represent Us in America” and furnishing him
with a Shmecah, a certificate of rabbinic ordination (Ford to
Matthew, 5 June 1931). Throughout the rest of his career, Matthew would claim
that he and his followers were Ethiopian Hebrews, because in their lexicon
Ethiopian was preferred over the term Negro, which they abhorred, and because
his authority derived from their chief rabbi in Ethiopia.
As an adjunct to his
congregation, Matthew created a Masonic lodge called The Royal Order of
Aethiopian Hebrews the Sons and Daughters of Culture. He became a U.S. citizen in 1924 and the following year
created the Ethiopian
Hebrew Rabbinical
College for the training
of other black rabbis. Women often served as officers and board members of the
congregation, though they could not become rabbis. In the lodge there were no
gender restrictions and woman took courses and even taught in the school.
Religion, history, and cultural anthropology, presented from a particular
Afrocentric perspective, were of immense interest to Matthew’s followers
and pervaded all of his teaching. The lodge functioned as a secret society
where the initiated explored a branch of Jewish mysticism called kabballah,
and the school sought to present a systematic understanding of the practice of
Judaism to those who initially adopted the religion solely as an ethnic
identity. While the black press accepted the validity of the black Jews in
their midst, the white Jewish press was divided; some reporters accepted them
as odd and considered their soulful expressions exotic, most challenged
Matthew’s identification with Judaism, and a few ridiculed “King
Solomon’s black children” and mocked Matthew’s efforts to
“teach young pickaninnies Hebrew” (Newsweek, 13 Sept. 1934).
Matthew traveled
frequently around the country, establishing tenuous ties with black
congregations interested in his doctrine. He insisted that the original Jews
were black and that white Jews were either the product of centuries of
intermarriage with Europeans or the descendents of Jacob’s brother Esau,
whom the bible describes as having a “red” countenance. Matthew
argued that the suffering of black people was in large measure God’s
punishment for having violated the commandments. When black people
“returned” to Judaism, he believed, their curse would be lifted and
the biblical prophecies of redemption would be fulfilled. Most of the black
Jewish congregations that sprung up in the post Depression era trace their
origin to Matthew or William Crowdy, a nineteenth century minister whose
followers also embraced some aspects of Judaism, but unlike Matthew’s
followers, never abandoned New Testament theology. When Matthew spoke of the
size of his following, he appeared to count many of these loose affiliations
and he also included those who expressed an interest in Judaism, not just those
who adhered to his strict doctrine of Sabbath worship, kosher food, bar
mitzvahs, circumcision, and observance of all Jewish holidays. The core of his
support came from a few small congregations in New York,
Chicago, Ohio,
and Philadelphia.
Many of his students established synagogues in other parts of New York City; often they were short-lived
and those that thrived tended to become revivals rather than true extensions of
Matthew’s organization.
During the second world
war, two of Matthews sons served in the military and the congregation watched
with horror as atrocities against Jews were reported. In 1942 Matthew published
the Minute Book, a short history of his life’s work, which he
described as the “most gigantic struggle of any people for a place under
the sun.” Matthew would later publish Malach (Messenger), a
community newsletter. Having supported the Zionist cause, the congregation
celebrated the creation of the state of Israel
in 1948, but by the 1950s their dreams of settling in Africa or Israel had been replaced by a more modest vision
of establishing a farming collective on Long Island.
The congregation purchased a few parcels of land in North Babylon in Suffolk County, New
York, and began building a community that was to
consist of a retirement home for the aged, residential dwellings, and small
commercial and agricultural industry. Opposition from local residents and
insufficient funding prevented the property from being developed into anything
more than a summer camp and weekend retreat for members, and the land was lost
in the 1960s.
When a new wave of black
nationalism swept the country during the civil rights movement, there were
brought periods of closer unity between blacks and Jews, but also painful
moments of tension in major cities. Matthew enjoyed a close relationship with Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in Harlem, with
Percy Sutton, who as Borough President of Manhattan
proclaimed a day in Matthew’s honor, and with congressman Charles Rangel,
who was a frequent guest at Commandment Keepers. Matthew also became affiliated
with Rabbi Irving Block, a young white idealist who had recently graduated from
Jewish Theological Seminary and started the Brotherhood Synagogue. Block
encouraged Matthew to seek closer ties with the white Jewish community and he
urged white Jewish institutions to accept black Jews. Matthew applied for
membership in the New York Board of Rabbis and in B’nai B’rith, but
was rejected. Publicly they said that Matthew was turned down because he was
not ordained by one of their seminaries; privately they questioned whether
Matthew and his community were Jewish at all. After reflecting on this incident
and its aftermath, Matthew said, “The sad thing about this whole
matter is, that after forty or fifty years…they are planning ways of
discrediting all that it took us almost two generations to accomplish”
(Howard Waitzkin, “Black Judaism in New York,” Harvard Journal
of Negro Affairs 1967, 1.3).
In an effort to
circumvent Matthew’s leadership of the black Jewish community, a
“Committee on Black Jews” was created by the Commission on
Synagogue Relations. They in turn sponsored an organization called
Hatza’ad Harishon (The First Step), which attempted to bring black people
into the Jewish mainstream. Despite their liberal intentions, the project
failed because it was unable to navigate the same racial and ritual land mines
that Matthew had encountered. Matthew had written that “a majority of the
[white] Jews have always been in brotherly sympathy with us and without
reservation” (New York Age, 31 May 1958), but because he refused
to assimilate completely he met fierce resistance from white Jewish leadership.
As he explained,
We’re not trying to
lose our identity among the white Jews. When the white Jew comes among us,
he’s really at home, we have no prejudice. But when we’re among
them they’ll say you’re a good man, you have a white heart. Or they’ll
be overly nice. Deep down that sense of superiority-inferiority is still there
and no black man can avoid it. (Shapiro, 183)
Before Matthew’s
death at the age of eighty-one, he turned the reins of leadership over to a
younger generation of his students. Rabbi Levi Ben Levy, who founded Beth
Shalom E.H. Congregation and Beth Elohim Hebrew Congregation, engineered the
formation of the Israelite Board of Rabbis in 1970 as a representative body for
black rabbis, and he transformed Matthew’s Ethiopian
Rabbinical College
into the Israelite
Rabbinical Academy.
Rabbi Yehoshua Yahonatan and his wife Leah formed the Israelite Counsel, a
civic organization for black Jews. Matthew expected that his grandson, Rabbi
David Dore, a graduate of Yeshiva
University, would assume
leadership of Commandments Keepers Congregation, but as a result of internecine
conflict and a painful legal battle, Rabbi Chaim White emerged as the leader of
the congregation and continued the traditions of Rabbi Matthew.
Matthew and his cohorts were
autodidacts, organic intellectuals, who believed that history and theology held
the answers to their racial predicament.
Hence, their focus was not on achieving political rights, but rather on
discovering their true identities. They held a Darwinian view of politics in
which people who do not know their cultural heritage are inevitably exploited
by those who do. In this regard, Rabbi Matthew, Noble Drew Ali, and Elijah
Mohammad differ in their solutions but agree in their cultural
assessment of the overriding problem facing black people.
Further Reading
The largest collection of
papers and documents from Matthew and about black Jews is to be found at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New
York Public Library. Smaller collections are at the American Jewish Archives in
Cincinnati.
Brotz, Howard. The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro
Leadership (1970).
Landing, James E. Black Judaism:Story of an
American Movement (2002).
Ottley, Roi. New World A-Coming: Inside Black America
(1943).
Shapiro, Deanne Ruth. Double Damnation, Double
Salvation: The Source and Varieties of Black Judaism in the United States, M.A. Thesis, Columbia University (1970).
* No part of these essays may be used without the
author’s permission.
Biography of Rabbi Yirmeyahu Yisrael
History of Kohol Beth B’nai Yisrael
and Bnai Adath Kol Bet Yisrael
By
Rabbi Sholomo Ben Levy
Rabbi Yirmeyahu
Yisrael
Rabbi Yirmeyahu Yisrael began life
as Julius Wilkins and used the name Wilkins during the early part of his
rabbinic career with Kohol Beth B’nai Yisroel and later with B’nai
Adath Kol Bet Yisroel. By
the 1960s, he used the name Yisrael, which is how he is best remembered. It is
believed that his parents migrated from the South, probably from North Carolina, to Harlem,
where Rabbi Yisrael grew up between WWI and the Depression. His mother was a
member of the Commandment Keepers Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation that was
founded by Rabbi W.A. Matthew in 1919 and was then located at 87 West Lenox Avenue. Many of the early members of Commandment
Keepers were followers of Marcus Garvey, including Rabbi Matthew’s
teacher, Rabbi Arnold J. Ford.
Rabbi Yisrael graduated from the Ethiopian Rabbinical College,
a private rabbinic institution founded by Rabbi Matthew in 1925, and was
ordained in 1940. According to Rabbi Hailu Paris, Rabbi Yisrael was very
intelligent, energetic, and ambitious. Within a few years of his ordination, he
felt that he was ready to start his own congregation, one where he could
implement changes to the community’s Judaic tradition that would bring
its liturgy further inline with those of white Orthodox Jews while maintaining
the strongly held belief that the original Jews were black people. For several
months individuals met in his home on seventh avenue before acquiring space for
their new congregation, Kohol Beth B’nai Yisroel, Inc., in the fall of
1945. Their synagogue was first located above a tailor shop and below a meeting
hall for the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) at 204 Lenox Avenue—just
a few blocks from Matthew’s similarly situated congregation. The fact
that approximately fifty members of Commandment Keepers eventually left to join
Kohol or actively supported it further added to the tension and sense of
rivalry that slowly estranged Matthew from his most dynamic student of that
period. The following invitation to the dedication ceremonies of Kohol on 25
November 1945 was addressed to the UNIA Division 100 and was found in the UNIA
collection at the Schomburg
Center for Research in
Black Culture.
The program for the dedication ceremonies indicates
that they opened with Rabbi Ford’s
original composition “Sine on Eternal Light,” they then sang
Psalm 122. Bro. Philip Evelyn presented the key to the synagogue to Rabbi
Wilkins followed by Pslam 84. Other notable features include the singing of
“They that trust in the Lord,” “Now Thank We All Our
God” and “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken.” They marched
around the synagogue seven times with the Torah which had been donated by
Eudora Paris and had a ceremonial lighting of the “Perpetual Light / Nir
Tamed.” The prayers that were said included the Kaddish by Rabbi L.
Samuels, the Shema, and the evening liturgy. An address was given by Rabbi E.J.
McCleod, who would later vie with Yisrael for control of the congregation. It
is also significant that the ceremonies included the singing of the national
anthems of America and that
of Ethiopia.
For almost ten years the new congregation grew
steadily but a rift gradually developed between the old guard, best represented
by Rabbi McLeod and the new guard, represented by Rabbi Yisrael. The minutes of a meeting that took place
on 1 July 1951, which is located in the Kohol Beth B’nai Yisrael
Collection SCM95 –27 /MG 575,
reveals that a primary area of contention
related to the content of their liturgy—particularly concerning
songs that were popular in the black Christian traditions of America and the
Caribbean and the nationalistic songs composed by Rabbi Ford. Rabbi Wilkins is
quoted as referring to the “unfitness for our service of some of the
numbers we sing.” It seems that Rabbi Yisrael and a large core of
supports were becoming uncomfortable singing songs that were strongly
identified with the black Church, even though none of the songs they used
referred to Jesus and most were drawn from the Old Testament Bible images that
characterize Negro spirituals. It is also likely that many of Rabbi
Ford’s nationalistic songs—particularly those that referred to
Ethiopia—were becoming passé by the 1950s; even members of the
Paris and Piper families who attempted to emigrate to Ethiopia in the 1930s had
become somewhat disillusioned. The songs, prayers, and customs that Rabbi
Yisrael wanted to replace aspects of the older tradition were often chants,
hymns, and practices that were popular in white Orthodox synagogues.
A split occurred shortly before 2 May 1954 because on
that date a meeting was called. The minutes from this meeting refer to
“cruel actions” taken by Rabbi Wilkins that were “out of
place.” It also indicates that Rabbi Wilkins “has discontinued his
service as Rabbi; he is demanding $2,000 and 2 Torahs and 50% of the Temple books.” The congregation continued under the
leadership of Rabbi McLeod for several more years. In January 1957 overtures
were made byRabbi Abel Respes who founded Temple Adat Beyt Moshe in Philadelphia in 1951 (the congregation later moved to Elwood, New
Jersey in 1962, chose to live communally, and
underwent a formal conversion to Judaism in 1971).
Rabbi Respes attempted to get Kohol to pursue new efforts to integrate with
white Jews. Rabbi C. Moses, who
founded Mt. Horeb
congregation in the Bronx 1945, was present at
this meeting and was troubled by Rabbi Respes reputation for soliciting white
Jews for financial support and Moses expressed grave concerns about how
receptive white Jews would be to them. Sister Paris cautioned the group that
“white Jewry has controversy within itself;” this remark most
likely refers to the deep theological division between the Orthodox, Reform,
and Conservative branches of American Judaism. Joining white Jews would require
taking sides with one of the main divisions.
Rabbi Yisrael’s second congregation,
B’nai Adath Kol Beth Yisroel, was located in Harlem
at 4 West 121 Street and was incorporated on 1 May 1954. Mrs. Myrtle Pilgrim was elected
Secretary of the congregation and Victor A. George was among the first ten
charter members. Unlike Kohol, B’nai Adath would attract newer, younger
followers who did not have prior affiliations with older black Jewish
congregations. Later in the year,
the congregation moved to modest accommodations at 131 Patchen Avenue in Brooklyn.
The congregation experienced rapid growth during the 1960s, growing to several
hundred members. Many of the new adherents were attracted to Judaism because of
the new wave of black consciousness that, like the Garveyment of the 1930s,
stressed discovering the true identity of black people. Around the mid 1960s,
B’nai Adath took possession of a huge synagogue building at 1006 Green Avenue
after the dwindling Orthodox community that built the edifice around the turn
of the century could no longer sustain it.
With the capacity of seating several hundred worshipers, B’nai
Adath became the largest congregation founded by one of Rabbi Matthew’s
students.
During the 1970s, B’nai
Adath served as the principal meeting place for a group of black rabbis that
included Rabbi Yisrael’s peers in Rabbi Woods and Moses, but also a third
generation of Rabbi Matthew’s students that included Rabbi Y. Yahonatan
(J. Williams), Rabbi Levi Ben Levy (L. McKethan), and Rabbi Paris, who had, in
fact, been Bar Mitzvahed by Rabbi Yisrael in 1947. In 1971 this group organized themselves
into the Israelite Board of Rabbis (IBR) and in 1973, the same year in which
Rabbi Matthew died, the IBR renamed their alma mater, the Ethiopian
Hebrew Rabbinical
College, to become the Israelite Rabbinical Academy.
Rabbi Yisrael was undoubtedly surprised and disappointed when the body elected
him to the post of vice president and chose the much younger Rabbi Levy to be
their president. Rabbi Levy has recently acquired a large synagogue at 730 Willoughby Avenue
in Brooklyn to become the home of Beth
Shalom. For the remainder of the
decade, Rabbi Yisrael remained a supporter of the IBR and encouraged the men
who would later succeed him at B’nai Adath to enroll in the Israelite Rabbinical Academy.
They were: Rabbi K.Z. Yeshurun, Rabbi Amasiah Yehudah, Rabbi Betzallel Ben
Yehudah, and Rabbi Cadmiel Ben Levy. Rabbi Yisrael was a world traveler who
sought out black Jews in Israel,
Ethiopia, and various
countries in West Africa. Rabbi Gershom,
leader of the Abayudaya, reports that Rabbi Yisrael left a lasting impression
on the black Jews or Uganda
during one of his early trips. Following Rabbi Yisrael’s retirement in
the early 1980s, Rabbi Yeshurun become the spiritual leader of B’nai
Adath. Rabbi Yisrael and his wife Cora retired and spent most of their
remaining years in the 1980s
traveling and living abroad in the Virgin Island.
* No part of these essays may be used without the
author’s permission.
Biography of Rabbi Levi Ben Levy
History of Beth
Shalom and Beth Elohim
By
Rabbi Sholomo Ben
Levy
Rabbi Levi Ben Levy
1935-1999
Chief Rabbi Levi Ben Levy was
one of the most dynamic black rabbis in America. He provided vital
leadership for his people during the second half of the twentieth century as a teacher,
speaker, community-organizer, founder of synagogues, and builder of
organizations. Together with his many colleagues, he provided continuity with
the past by preserving the work and memory of his teacher and our founder,
Chief Rabbi W. A. Matthew. By
combining vision with action, Chief Rabbi Levy helped to define who we were as
a people and greatly influenced the direction of our progress. His
accomplishments completed part of our foundation. Therefore, an understanding
of his live is necessary to anyone who wants to know and appreciate our
history.
This great leader was born on
February 18, 1935 to a God-fearing family in Linden, North Carolina.
It was there that he met and married his childhood sweetheart Deborah Byrd. In
1950, he came to New York City.
After managing a restaurant and attempting a small business, the young Rabbi
Levy enrolled at City
College in 1957. He took
courses at night while working for the Long Island Railroad to support his
growing family. At this point, however, the hand of fate altered his path when
his friend and coworker, Mr. Arnold Manot, invited him to attend the
Commandment Keepers Congregation in Harlem,
New York. It was there that he
met the person who had the most profound affect on his life, Chief Rabbi
Matthew. First, Rabbi Levy became a member of the congregation, then he was
invited to joins its secret society called “The Royal Order of Ethiopian
Hebrews Sons and Daughters of Culture.” After completing his Hebrew
studies, his teachers and the mothers of the congregation, encouraged him to
enter the Ethiopian
Hebrew Rabbinical
College in 1960. Through
much hard work, sacrifices, and challenges he graduated six years later and was
ordained by Chief Rabbi Matthew with great public acclaim in 1967.
Immediately upon graduation and
ordination, Rabbi Levy knew that he was destined to do great things. He was
trained and equipped with the truth to awaken the “lost House of
Israel.” With Chief Rabbi
Matthew’s blessing, Rabbi Levy started his first congregation, which he called
Beth Shalom, in the living room of his Queens
apartment with only eight members. For the first few years, as increasing
numbers of people wanted to worship with them, they rented halls at various
locations before acquiring their first building at 609 Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn, N.Y.
In 1968, Rabbi Levy negotiated an
arrangement with the Young Israel of Williamsburg that allowed him to move his
congregation into the present home of Beth Shalom E. H. Congregation at 730 Willoughby Avenue.
In
1971, Rabbi Levy together with Rabbi Yisrael, Rabbi Yahonatan, Rabbi Woods, and
Rabbi Paris—all students of Chief Rabbi Matthew—set out to revive
their alma mater, the Ethiopian Hebrew Rabbinical College that was established
in 1925. They expanded the curriculum and renamed their college The Israelite
Rabbinical Academy. As other rabbis joined their ranks, and eager, dedicated
men enrolled as students, a unified organizational body emerged which was first
known as the Israelite Board of Rabbis and later, after establishing boards and
chapters in other cities and then in Barbados, became the International
Israelite Board of Rabbis. Four years after the death of Chief Rabbi Matthew in
1973, the rabbis of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis elected Rabbi
Levy to be the next “Chief Rabbi.”
In 1983, Chief Rabbi Levy
founded his second synagogue, Beth Elohim Hebrew Congregation, in Queens New
York. In 1988, he installed his eldest son, Rabbi Sholomo Levy as the Spiritual
Leader of the Congregation. Throughout the 1990s, Chief Rabbi Levy provided
counsel and direction to those who sought his wisdom from his retirement home
in North Carolina.
Amazingly, Chief Rabbi Levy
managed to enjoy a full and wholesome family life despite his endless
commitments and obligations. He and his wife, Deborah, were partners in love
and life. Their marriage of over forty-six years produced six children:
Deborah, Yehudith, Tamar, Zipporah,
Sholomo, and Benyamin. At the time of his passing, he had nine grandchildren
and many nieces, nephews, and God-children.
Chief Rabbi Levy gave honor to
God and distinguished himself by founding two thriving congregations, Beth
Shalom and Beth Elohim, an educational institution in the Israelite Rabbinical
Academy that has produced most of the black rabbis in America, a unified
leadership organization in the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, and
gave us a quality publication in the The Hakol newsletter, and the first
Israelite presence on the Internet. During his life, he received dozens of
awards, plaques, and citations. He ran a half-hour radio program on radio
station WWRL, he appeared on television programs such as “Black
Pride,” and “Good Morning America” and he spoke to audiences
internationally. For all these accomplishments and more, Chief Rabbi Levy is
remembered as one of our greatest rabbis.
* No part of these essays may be used without the
author’s permission.
List
of Black Rabbis in America
|
Living Black Rabbis
|
Rabbis of
Blessed Memory
|
|
Avraham Ben Israel
|
Abihu Ruben
|
|
Baruch Yehudah
|
Amasiah Yehudah
|
|
Benyamin B. Levy
|
Arnold J. Ford, First Rabbi
|
|
Bezallel Ben Yehudah
|
B. Alcids
|
|
Calib Yehoshua Levy
|
C. Harrel
|
|
Capers Funnye
|
C. Woods
|
|
D. Yachzeel
|
Chaim White
|
|
*
Daton Nasi
|
Curtis Hinds
|
|
David Dore
|
D. Small
|
|
Eliezer Levi
|
David Levi
|
|
Eliyahu Yehudah
|
E. M. Gillard
|
|
Hailu Paris
|
E.J. Benson
|
|
* James Hodges
|
G. Marshall
|
|
Joshua
Ben Yosef
|
H.S. Scott
|
|
K.Z. Yeshurun
|
James Bullins
|
|
Lehwi Yhoshua
|
James Y. Poinsett
|
|
Nathanyah Halevi
|
Jonah
|
|
Richard Nolan
|
Kadmiel Levi
|
|
Shelomi D. Levy
|
L. Samuel
|
|
Sholomo B. Levy
|
Lazarus
|
|
Yehoshua B. Yahonatan
|
Levi Ben Levy, Chief Rabbi
|
|
Yeshurun Eleazar
|
M. Thomas
|
|
Yeshurun Levy
|
Matthew. Stephens
|
|
Zacharia Ben Levi
|
Moses
|
|
Zakar Yeshurun
|
Patiel Evelyn
|
|
Zidkiyahu Levy
|
Raphael Tate
|
|
|
W. O. Young
|
|
|
Walcott
|
|
|
Wentworth A. Mathew, Founder
|
|
|
Yirmeyahu Ben Israel
|
* Rabbis who graduated from institutions
other than the Israelite
Rabbinical Academy
This list only covers members of the International Israelite Board of
Rabbis
** Honorary
Titles
|
|
* No part of these essays may be used without the
author’s permission.