21 Middle Eastern Family, Part I: Judaism

WHAT JEWS BELIEVE

JEWS IN AMERICA

JEWS IN CANADA

HASIDISM

BLACK JEWS

SOURCES

Pan-Denominational Jewish Organizations

Conservative Judaism

Orthodox Judaism

Reform Judaism

Hasidic Judaism

African American Judaism

Additional Jewish Groups

When your son asks you in times to come, saying: What do the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which the LORD our God hath commanded you, mean, then you shall say to your son:

We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

And the LORD showed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his house, before our eyes.

And He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land which He swore unto our fathers.

And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.

And it shall be righteousness unto us, if we observe to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as He hath commanded us.

Deuteronomy 6:20–25.

In this passage from Deuteronomy, the story of the origin of the Jewish people is briefly recounted. The expanded story would include an account of the life of Moses, an Israelite who became the adopted son of a pharaoh of Egypt. Reared a prince, Moses forsook his palace to lead his enslaved people out of Egypt, into the wilderness and to the very edge of their new home in Canaan, where he mediated to them the Covenant Law (Torah). These events and the subsequent movement into Canaan welded the nomadic tribes into a nation and made Moses the founder of one of the world’s great faiths. While the story of the Jews begins in Genesis, with creation, and with Abraham and his descendents, it was the Exodus-Sinai event that made them a nation. The history of the Jewish people is found in the Torah, Prophets, and Writings, which together comprise the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Rabbinic literature, the other great body of Jewish sacred texts, includes exegetical commentary on scripture, traditions, and law. Its texts include the Mishnah (c. 200 c.e.) and the Talmud (c. 500 c.e.).

The next major event shaping Israel’s history was the emergence of the Diaspora in Babylonia following the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 b.c.e. and the exile of the Jews to Babylon. After the fall of Babylon, some Jews returned to Jerusalem. From this point forward, Jewish communities existed simultaneously both within, in the land of Israel, and without, in Diaspora communities.

Later in the first century of the new millennium, during the Roman occupation of Judea, the Jews revolted. After four years of war, the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 c.e. With the destruction of the Temple and the end of its sacrificial cult, Jewish religious life changed. Its new centers became the synagogue (congregation), and prayer, study of the ever-expanding body of Jewish law, and deeds of loving kindness became its chief attributes. Several centuries later in the wake of the decline of the Roman Empire, other Jewish communities, notably the Jewish community of the Neo-Persian Empire, became major centers of Jewish religious life

During the Middle Ages, Jews established communities throughout northern, western, and later eastern Europe. Times of tolerant acceptance were interspersed with persecution, attempts at forced conversion, expulsion, and the emergence of a few Jews as prominent moneylenders. Lending money for profit, an almost necessary practice in modern states, was denied Christians at this time, and became a stereotype associated with anti-Jewish animus.

In the modern era, Jews established major communities in important urban settings—including Berlin, Paris, London, and Warsaw. Modernity challenged Judaism and these Jewish communities. The challenges posed by emancipation from disabling anti-Jewish legislation and historic persecution led many to modify and some to reject the Judaism of the past. The result led to a plethora of varieties of Jewish expression and enabled some, among them Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and Karl Marx (1818–1883), to become molders of Western culture.

Nonetheless, the anti-Judaism of the past morphed into racial anti-Semitism. One cannot understand contemporary Jewish life without grasping the reaction to the most brutal episode of the Diaspora: the Holocaust. During World War II (1937–1945), as the Nazis occupied Europe, they exterminated more than six million Jews—men, women, and children—in an almost successful attempt to eliminate them from the continent

Following the Holocaust, an independent Jewish state was finally established in Palestine, as the Romans had renamed the historic homeland of the Jewish people. The establishment of Israel in 1948 was the culmination of a national political movement called Zionism, which began in the late

nineteenth century. It rested on the ancient religious teaching that Zion, another name for Judea, remained the historic homeland of the Jewish people.

Jewish beliefs hark back to the Exodus. It was this event that initially called the community together and it is from this event that the community draws its life. Beliefs and morals, ritual and custom, are all ultimately derived from or inspired by the story of God’s redemption of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and the covenant made at Sinai. A central demonstration of these beliefs is the prayer known as the Shema, which is repeated in three daily synagogue services: “Hear O Israel, the Lord Our God is One Lord’’ (Deuteronomy 6:4).

Integral to the relationship of Israel and its God and God’s law was the concept of the covenantal relationship. In the covenant, God promised the Jews that they would become a nation in the land of Canaan. In return, God asked that they offer him their obedience to his laws. These laws were far-ranging. They included what has popularly become widely known in the Christian community as the Ten Commandments, and covered basic religious commandments (from monotheism to Sabbath observance), basic ethical perspectives within the community (relative to murder, theft, and attitude to one’s neighbor), and dietary restrictions (to eat food from only certain animals, to refrain from mixing milk and meat). Some laws govern civil relations (what to do if an ox destroys property), and others emphasize the welfare of the poor (care for the widow and the orphan). In the centuries following the giving of the law, a process of scriptural (and legal) interpretation (already evident in the prophetic writings) developed, which greatly assisted Judaism to survive for millennia by repeatedly adapting to new situations and circumstances.

WHAT JEWS BELIEVE

While making creeds has never been a Jewish preoccupation, on a number of occasions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, attempts to summarize Jewish belief have been made. Many of these draw on the twelfth-century creed authored by Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), the most acceptable traditional summary of Jewish belief. In 13 statements, Maimonides affirmed belief in one God who is incorporeal and eternal, the only object of true prayer. The biblical Moses is cited as the greatest prophet due to his reception of God’s law, which will never be changed or superseded. God acts in history to punish evildoers and reward the just. At some point in the future, a messiah will come. Also, there will be a resurrection from the dead.

Out of the encounter with modernity, the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist branches of Judaism arose. (Orthodox Judaism has not escaped the challenges of modernity, as seen, for example, in the enhanced religious education that young Orthodox girls currently receive.) Each of these more liberal movements within Judaism, however, has produced statements summarizing its disagreements with traditional Judaism and setting forth its distinctive teachings. For example, the Columbus Platform of 1937, one of several statements issued by the ever-evolving Reformed Jewish movement, speaks to the issue of law (Torah), in which it differs from Orthodoxy, but then goes on to speak to issues of ethics, social justice, peace, and the nature of the religious life, not mentioned by Maimonides. (The texts of these various statements were compiled in J. Gordon Melton, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Religions: Religious Creeds [1988].)

Basic to Judaism is the concept of Torah. Narrowly, Torah is the Five Books of Moses (also included in the Christian Old Testament): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It is the story of God’s calling a nation. More broadly, however, Torah means teaching, a way of life based on the dictates of Israel’s God given in the written Torah. At the heart of the Torah is the covenant God made with his people of Israel.

No description of Jewish life would be complete without mention of the notion of the chosen people: “For you are a people consecrated to the LORD your God: of all the peoples on the earth the LORD your God chose you to be His treasured people” (Deuteronomy 7:6). While the exact significance of this passage has been widely debated, it remains a controlling concept. The effect on Jewish life of this idea has been tremendous, both in keeping the Jews from too-ready assimilation in their many surrounding cultures and in making them easy targets for persecution.

Also important to Judaism are its holidays. The great pilgrimage festivals appear in the Torah, when in ancient times Jews were to make a pilgrimage to sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem. Passover, in early spring, is a commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt with specific reference to the Lord’s passing over Jewish homes when he slew the first-born in each household in Egypt (Exodus 12). Shavuot, sometimes translated as Pentecost, follows in late May or early June, and commemorates the revelation at Mt. Sinai. Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, marks the Jewish wanderings in the desert for forty years after the Exodus (Exodus 23:14, 34:23). Other holiday celebrations include the Feast of Lights or Hanukkah, which celebrates the purification of the Temple in 164 b.c.e. by the Maccabees, who waged a war against the Greek/Syrian rulers who had defiled it. Purim honors the rescue of the Jewish people by Mordecai and Esther, as recounted in the biblical book of Esther.

The high holidays in the Jewish calendar begin with Rosh Hashanah, or New Year’s Day, which is followed by 10 days of penitence. This period culminates in the single most important day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, a day of fasting and prayer.

The basic organization of Judaism is the congregation or synagogue, which may be constituted wherever there are 10 males to form the prayer quorum known as a minyan. (Some liberal congregations include women in the minyan.) This is the basic governing body in Judaism, which is congregationally structured. The synagogue has as its spiritual leader a rabbi (teacher). The congregation usually sponsors an array of educational programming for all ages, including a school for children. Often its primary goal is to prepare children for Bar Mitzvah (Bat Mitzvah for girls), the coming-of-age ceremony for Jewish youth, which allows Jewish youth to take their places as adults in communal worship.

JEWS IN AMERICA

The story of Jews in the Americas began in the fifteenth century with the arrival of Christopher Columbus (1451–1506). Several of the members of the crew were converted Jews, victims of Spanish persecution. Spanish and Portuguese Jews helped finance Columbus’s voyages, and many early Jews in America were Marranos, forced converts who had, as a result of persecution, accepted Christian baptism but secretly practiced Judaism, a practice that could bring them before the Inquisition as heretics. Others were refugees, Jews exiled from Spain in 1492 and forcibly converted in Portugal after its edict of expulsion in 1497.

Many refugees fled to Holland and prospered there. That community produced the philosopher Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza (1632–1677), but excommunicated him for his deviations from religious tradition. When the Dutch made war in Brazil and South America in the early 1600s, many Marranos there sided with them. The first openly Jewish community in the Americas—Kahal Kodesh, the Holy Congregation—was founded in Recife, Brazil, in the 1630s. Recife fell to the Portuguese in 1654, and the Jews had to emigrate. Many returned to Holland; others moved to new Dutch colonies. CuraÁao, a Dutch island off Venezuela, became the location of a congregation in 1656, the oldest still in existence in the New World.

Twenty-three Jews fled to New Amsterdam (later New York City), where they found a few Jewish traders. Peter Stuyvesant (c. 1612–1672), the governor, desiring religious conformity, tried to expel the Jews but was overruled by the Dutch West India Company, which owned the colony. Eventually, the community established a cemetery, a congregation, and a synagogue. A corner of its first cemetery still exists in Manhattan.

In 1682, sometime after New York had become English property, toleration was granted and a building was rented for use as a synagogue. In 1728 the group organized as Congregation Shearith Israel, the Remnant of Israel, and built its first synagogue. The next colonial Jewish community to emerge in what is now the United States was in Newport, Rhode Island. Religious toleration and the opportunity to trade attracted Jewish settlers. The cemetery, founded there in 1677, is older than the remaining one in New York. The synagogue, built in 1763, still stands, and is known as the Touro Synagogue, but its congregation dispersed during the American Revolution (1775–1783) when the British captured Newport.

Early America’s Jews also settled in other port cities—Philadelphia, Charleston, and Savannah—and during the Revolutionary War, a community emerged in Richmond, Virginia. Perhaps 1,500 Jews lived in the United States by the eve of the Revolution. While most Jews were Patriots, some stood with the Loyalists. In any event, they shared in the founding of the nation, and the group has grown with the nation as an integral part of its history. In this respect, the Jews differ dramatically from other non-Christian religious communities that established their first organizations in America in the nineteenth century.

Although most of America’s first Jews were Sephardim (that is, they came from Spain and Portugal or were descendants of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula), by the mid-eighteenth century, Ashkenazim (that is, Jews from Germany and elsewhere in Western and Eastern Europe) constituted the majority. Still, all six pre-nineteenth-century congregations followed the Sephardic religious ritual. There were differences of rite between the two groups, and there was also a feeling among the Sephardim that they were the elite of the Jewish community. Until the nineteenth century, the synagogue defined the community. Only after 1802 in Philadelphia and 1825 in New York City, when second synagogues emerged in each city, did the American Jews begin to become a community of synagogues. These immigrants started out as poor peddlers; in time, as some of them became merchants and storekeepers, they formed new Jewish communities in small towns and cities across the expanding American frontier.

Eastern European Jews had arrived in small numbers in the eighteenth century and, in 1848, the first Eastern European synagogue was formed in Buffalo, New York. But motivated by pogroms and Russia’s anti-Jewish decrees, mass immigrations began in 1881. To the 250,000 Jews in the United States in 1880 were added almost two million from Eastern Europe. In 1880 there were 270 synagogues; in 1916, before World War I (1914–1918) halted the immigration, there were 1,902.

Contemporaneous with the arrival of the Eastern European Jews in America, a new issue arose within the Jewish community—Zionism. In contradistinction to German Jews, who tended to see Judaism as primarily a religion, Eastern European Jews tended to see it more as a total religious culture and nationality. Following the lead in 1896 of Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl (1835–1902), they began to clamor for a Jewish homeland. The first Zionist Congress was held in 1897, with four American Jews in attendance. Enthusiasm for the cause was slow to spread. The Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform) reacted by unanimously condemning Zionism, while the large majority of Eastern European Jews who came to the United States manifested a decision to cast their lot with America rather than Zion. They were, by and large, poor and too concerned with making a living initially to pay much attention to Zionism.

The early recognition of the growth of Zionism came with the 1917 Balfour Declaration that committed England to the Zionist cause. The United States endorsed the declaration in 1922, along with its acceptance of the British protectorate of Palestine. These actions, and the dedication to the cause by outstanding Jewish leaders such as Louis D. Brandeis (1856–1941), finally swung the support of American Jews behind Zionism. When World War II ended, the great majority of American Jews favored a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine. The founding of Israel has turned Zionism mainly into a program of support for Israel, a program of fundraising and political lobbying.

During the twentieth century, the Jewish community in America grew from over four million in 1930 to around 6 million by 1970. Jewish life thrived in America, especially as antiSemitism declined after World War II. Jews built an array of institutions to sustain Jewish life: synagogues and schools, including parochial schools; community centers and homes for the aged; and a network of social and cultural organizations designed to link American Jews to one another and to Jews all over the world. Various national fellowships of rabbis and congregations formed as divisions on ritual law and the nature of Judaism concretized. The main organizations were formed around the boundaries of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and, more recently, Reconstructionist Judaism. Less well known was the development of a tiny Hasidic community in Brooklyn after World War I, which grew after World War II as a result of large migrations of survivors of the Holocaust. The Hasidim, at one time a sizable minority of European Jewry (and the majority party in western Ukraine and eastern Poland), pulled the American Jewish community toward Orthodoxy in the last decades of the twentieth century. It grew significantly through both evangelistic efforts and a high birth rate.

From a tiny immigrant group, Jews found a home in America, where they were both influenced by the wider culture and played important roles in contributing to it. They became a part of American life, and yet stood apart from it to some degree. Jews are best known for their contributions to medicine, psychotherapy, law, entertainment, and business. Given their emphasis on education, Jews have excelled in every field in the academy. Their slow but steady entry into prominence in the national political scene reached a new peak in 2000 with the nomination of Senator Joseph Lieberman as the Democratic candidate for vice-president. Lieberman is an observant Orthodox Jew whose religious life has not been found by his predominantly non-Jewish Connecticut constituency to detract from his active role in the U.S. Senate, nor was it seen as a barrier precluding the possibility of his assuming the second highest office in the land.

JEWS IN CANADA

Though the first Jews in what is today Canada came there during the French era, they were officially banned by the French government from settlement in New France. Hence it was not until the British founding of Halifax in 1749 that a Jewish community became visible. A small Sephardic community organized very early in Halifax, and is known from its purchase of a cemetery in 1750. It was short-lived, however, and a more permanent settlement of primarily British Jews, most of whom were merchants, emerged at the end of the decade in Lower Canada (Quebec). Congregation Shearith Israel, modeled on the Sephardic congregation in London and on the one with the same name in New York City, opened as the first such synagogue in Canada. A building was erected in 1777. A second synagogue was founded at Three Rivers at the end of the century. The community grew slowly, and 50 years after the congregation was founded, there were still fewer than 100 Jews in the Canadian colonies.

The 1840s saw the emergence of a Jewish community in Toronto, Upper Canada (now Ontario). In 1849 the Toronto Hebrew Congregation was founded. It was followed in 1856 by the Sons of Israel congregation, organized by English Jews. These congregations merged in 1858 to become the Toronto Hebrew Congregation–Holy Blossom Temple. Other early congregations were founded in Hamilton and Kingston. Most of the Jews came to Canada from England, and few German Jews ventured that far north. As a result, a Reform Jewish community never developed there.

In 1881 Czar Alexander II (r. 1855–1881) was assassinated, and a pogrom against the Jews began that year. Russian Jews began a mass exodus to North America. During the 1880s, a string of congregations was established across Canada. Many of the newcomers went west into the newly opened territories, especially Winnipeg, which developed Canada’s third-largest Jewish community. In 1881 there were only 2,393 Jews in Canada (more than 2,000 of whom were in Quebec and Ontario). By the end of the century, that number had grown to 16,000. By 1920 it had grown to more than 125,000. As the community grew, it continued to concentrate in the three cities of Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg.

The absence of the wave of German Jewish immigration that so altered American Jewry contributed to Canadian Jewry’s more distinctively Orthodox cast. By 1953 there were but three Reform congregations, though 10 more were added by 1970. The majority of the nineteenth-century congregations have become Conservative in orientation, and by 1960 there were more than 20 such centers affiliated with the United Synagogues of America. In contrast, by 1970 there were approximately 175 Orthodox congregations, some affiliated with the congregational associations in the United States and some unaffiliated.

By 1981 there had been some shift in the community, including a consolidation of synagogues and the emergence of a stronger Conservative element, though the community remained decidedly Orthodox. Of 112 synagogues reported that year, 53 were Orthodox, 43 were Conservative, 14 were Reform, and 2 were Reconstructionist. At the end of the decade, among Canadian Jews who identified themselves religiously, the Orthodox represented about 19 percent (compared to 9 percent in the United States), the Conservatives about 37 percent (38 percent in the United States), Reform only 11 percent (43 percent in the United States), and 32 percent identified themselves as “other” (9 percent in the United States). As the twenty-first century began, Orthodoxy gave the appearance of being the most vibrant segment of the Canadian Jewish community.

As early as 1919, there was an attempt to organize a Canadian Jewish Congress, but it soon dissolved. It was revived in 1934, in the face of the Nazi threat, and is noteworthy in facilitating the immigration of over 40,000 Jews to Canada after World War II. Today, it is headquartered in Montreal.

HASIDISM

The phenomenon of the mystic who reacts to formal religion by seeking a closer direct experience of the divine is common in religious history. Judaism has had a long mystical tradition. In the early modern period, the messianic claimant Shabbetai Zevi (1626–1676) offered such a direction. In the following century, a more stable style of mysticism would arise in Hasidism, a form of mystical pietism attributable to the efforts of Israel Baal Shem Tov (c. 1700–1760), a rabbi in Ukraine.

Hasidic teachings are plainly Orthodox in that they emphasize fulfillment of all Jewish precepts and ritual, but they incorporate the mystical. The Baal Shem Tov taught that all men were equal before God and that piety, devotion, purity, and devotion in prayer were more important than study, learning, or ascetic practices. In communing with God, the virtues of shiflut (humility), simcha (joy), and hitlahavut (enthusiasm) were emphasized. The movement spread rapidly and, at its height, attracted large numbers of Jews in Eastern Europe, particularly those in Poland and Ukraine.

After the Baal Shem Tov’s death, local charismatic leaders called zaddikim, or righteous ones, took over, and the movement diffused. Unlike the rabbi, or teacher, known for his scholarship and wisdom, the zaddik, who might also be a rabbi, was honored also for his mystical powers—miracle working, shamanism, and personal magnetism. Organizationally, zaddikim came to lead segments of the movement, and eventually created various Hasidic dynasties, passing on leadership to sons or followers. Thus schools or subsects, as in Sufism, were formed.

The Hasidic movement aroused the indignation of Jews who came to be called “opponents,” and a lengthy, bitter era of polemic followed. Eventually, a modus vivendi was reached. The twentieth century brought new problems as pogroms began in Russia. Some Hasidim even migrated. The Holocaust, of course, all but wiped out European Hasidism. Fortunately, many of the rebbes, a common title for the zaddikim, escaped and sought new homes for their followers in Israel and America.

The first Hasidim in America were members of that initial wave of Eastern European immigrants to America that began in the 1880s. For lack of a Hasidic synagogue or zaddik (all of whom were still in Europe), they often became indistinguishable from other Orthodox Jews. Separated from their zaddik, they became discouraged in the attempt to perpetuate Hasidism. After World War I, several zaddikim came to the United States, including the Ukrainian Twersky Zaddik. They gathered followers, but did not begin to reach outward to seek new believers. The real era of Hasidic growth in the United States began after World War II. Led by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Hasidic zaddikim, especially from Poland and Hungary, came to the United States after escaping from Adolf Hitler (1889–1945).

The Hasidim, as a group, settled in Brooklyn in the section designated as Williamsburg. There they created a social structure unique in all of American Judaism—an isolated urban religious culture. Williamsburg is a haven of “true” Judaism. They have been able not only to survive but even to prosper, in spite of an economic system that seeks to assimilate them. The vitality of Hasidism is shown in the emergence of new Hasidic groups among younger Jews. A strong emphasis on tradition, social service, celebration, communal life, and experiment with radical ideas is characteristic of their lifestyle. Though largely ignored by writers on American Judaism prior to the 1980s, in the last generation the Hasidim became the fastest growing segment of American Judaism. This growth comes from both proselytization within the wider Jewish community and a high birth rate.

BLACK JEWS

Among the black population of the early nineteenth century were some individuals who became legends as regular worshipers at the local synagogues. Possibly the most famous was Old Billy, who in the first half of the nineteenth century was a faithful attendant at the Charleston, South Carolina, synagogue. He described himself as a Rachabite (Jeremiah 35:2ff) and, accordingly, abstained from all wines and liquor. Other black members have been noted by various authors. To this day, and in growing numbers since the 1950s, there are black members of white Jewish congregations.

A real spur to African Americans to elect Judaism as an alternative to Christianity was the discovery in the nineteenth century by French explorer Joseph Halévy (1827–1917) of the Falashas, the Black Jews of Ethiopia. For centuries, a legend had circulated in Europe that Black Jews, descendants of the Queen of Sheba, had lived in Ethiopia, but most believed that if they ever existed they had long ago disappeared. Knowledge in the West of their present existence increased in the 1920s, when Jacques Faitlovitch (1881–1955) of the University of Geneva followed up previous pro-Falasha committee activities with a passionate revival of efforts to aid them. While African-American Jews like to identify with them, the Falashas have no direct connection with Judaism in the African-American community. As a matter of fact, much recent scholarship has concluded that the Falashas are probably not Negroid, though in addition to the Falashas, isolated pockets of African Black Jews, products of interracial marriages, have been identified.

While the African Jews supplied much inspiration for the American Black Jewish movement, the biblical faith of rural America supplied the content. Black Bible students were quick to identify with the Ethiopians and, in their search for identity and status in the white culture, began to see a special place for themselves as Jews. Proponents cite all the biblical references to the Ethiopians (such as I Kings 10; Isaiah 18:1–2; Amos 9:7; and Acts 8:26–40); attempts are also made to prove that the true Jews were black. Psalm 119:83, in which the author sees himself as becoming like a bottle (King James Version) in the smoke, is a passage popularly quoted as proof of the existence of Black Jews in biblical times.

The Christian biblical origin of the movement is made by the early leaders, who articulated its postulates. Warren Roberson, one of the first prophets of Black Jewishness, spoke of himself as a second Jesus Christ. Another called his group the Church of God and Saints of Christ. It would be hard to find a more Christian designation.

Along with Rabbi Mordica Herman’s Moorist Zionist Temple, the contemporary Black Jewish movement is generally traced to three men who appeared in northern urban black centers at the turn of the twentieth century. Two of these, F. S. Cherry and William S. Crowdy, founded movements that still exist and are discussed in entries below. The third, the first of several New York City–based leaders, was Elder Warren Roberson. Roberson was a notorious charismatic leader who alternated between being messianic and being a sex-cult priest. He spent several terms in jail, which only added to his aura as a persecuted black savior.

Roberson’s group and its several spin-offs, such as Rabbi Ishi Kaufman’s Gospel of the Kingdom Temple, were swept up into the Garveyite movement. Coming from the West Indies, Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) instilled within his followers and admirers a dream of a black nation where black men would rule. Since white Christianity had enslaved and tamed black people, an alternative had to be found. Judaism provided one such alternative. With the encouragement of Arnold Josiah Ford (1877–1935), Garvey’s choirmaster and a self-proclaimed Ethiopian Jew, a new phase of history began.

Ford tried to get Garvey to accept Judaism, but he refused, whereupon Ford organized the Moorish Zionist Church, in which he taught that all Africans were Hebrews. He also followed Garvey’s nationalistic program. Ford united his efforts with another self-professed Jew, Mordecai Herman, but they soon parted ways. Ford then organized, in 1924, the Beth B’nai Abraham congregation. Both groups were able to obtain funds from white Jews, which allowed them to survive through the next decade. Additionally, elements of Islamic lore (possibly also from the Garvey movement) crept into Ford’s theology.

The Beth B’nai Abraham came to an abrupt end in 1931 when Ford decided to sail for Europe. He gave his blessing to a new leader, Wentworth Arthur Matthew (1892–1973), whose career initiated the present phase of Black Judaism. Ford disappeared to Africa (he later died in Ethiopia), but had laid the groundwork for a widespread Black Judaism. Today, a number of independent synagogues are located in black urban areas around the country.

SOURCES

General Sources

For its size, the Jewish community is one of the most scholarly in North America. Study of Judaism is taught in American institutions of higher learning through the academic field of Jewish studies. The Association for Jewish Studies, a learned society with approximately 1,500 members, is located at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011. The study of the history and culture of American Jews is advanced through the American Jewish Historical Society, also headquartered at the Center for Jewish History in New York. The Society publishes American Jewish History (quarterly) and has established a network of local Jewish historical groups across North America.

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Fishman, Sylvia Barack. The Way into the Varieties of Jewishness. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2007. 262. pp.

Melton, J. Gordon, ed. The Encyclopedia of American Religions: Religious Creeds: A Compilation of More than 450 Creeds, Confessions, Statements of Faith, and Summaries of Doctrine of Religious and Spiritual Groups in the United States and Canada. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1988.

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Judaism in America

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Nadell, Pamela S., and Jonathan D. Sarna. Women and American Judaism: Historical Perspectives. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2001. 322 pp.

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Neusner, Jacob. Understanding American Judaism. 2 vols. New York: KTAV, 1975.

Papo, Joseph M. Sephardim in Twentieth-Century America: In Search of Unity. San Jose, CA: Pele Yoetz, 1987.

Raphael, Marc Lee. Judaism in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 234 pp.

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Sachar, Howard. A History of the Jews in America. New York: Knopf, 1992. 1051 pp.

Sarna, Jonathan D., ed. The American Jewish Experience. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986. 303 pp.

———. American Judaism: A History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. 490 pp.

Shapiro, Edward S. A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. 313 pp.

Sklare, Marshall. Observing America’s Jews. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1993. 302 pp.

Wertheimer, Jack. A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America. New York: Basic Books, 1993. 267 pp.

Judaism in Canada

Abella, Irving. A Coat of Many Colours: Two Centuries of Jewish Life in Canada. Toronto, ON: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1990.

Golick, Peter Samuel. A Tribute to Freedom, 1832–1982: In Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration Granting Equal Rights and Privileges to Persons of the Jewish Religion. Montreal, QC: Canadian Jewish Congress, 1982.

Gottesman, Eli, ed. Canadian Jewish Reference Book and Directory, 1963. Montreal, QC: Jewish Institute of Higher Research, 1963.

Rome, David. 70 Years of Canadian Jewish Life: 1919–1989. Montreal, QC: Canadian Jewish Congress, 1989.

Rosenberg, Stuart E. The Jewish Community in Canada: A History, Vol. 1. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart, 1970.

———. The Jewish Community in Canada in the Midst of Freedom, Vol. 2. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart, 1971.

Tulchinsky, Gerald. Canada’s Jews: A People’s Journey. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2008. 530 pp.

Jewish Thought

Barish, Louis, and Rebecca Barish. Basic Jewish Beliefs. New York: David, 1961. 222 pp.

Eisenstein, Ira. Varieties of Jewish Belief. New York: Reconstructionist Press, 1966. 270 pp.

Fackenheim, Emil L. God’s Presence in History: Jewish Affirmations and Philosophical Reflections. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. 104 pp.

Gordis, Robert. Judaism for the Modern Age. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1955. 368 pp.

Heschel, Abraham Joshua. God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. New York: New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1955. 437 pp.

Neuser, Jacob. Understanding Jewish Theology: Classical Issues and Modern Perspectives. New York: KTAV, 1973. 280 pp.

Jewish Life and Customs

Greenberg, Irving. The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. 463 pp.

Maslin, Simeon J., ed. Gates of Mitzvah. New York: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1979. 165 pp.

Posner, Raphael, Uri Kaploun, and Shalom Cohon, eds. Jewish Liturgy: Prayer and Synagogue Service through the Ages. New York: Ameil, 1975. 278 pp.

Trepp, Leo. The Complete Book of Jewish Observance. New York: Behrman House, 1980. 370 pp.

Hasidism

Abelson, J. Jewish Mysticism: An Introduction to the Kabbalah. New York: Hermon Press, 1969. 182 pp.

Aron, Milton. Ideas and Ideals of the Hassidim. New York: Citadel Press, 1969. 350 pp.

Bokser, Ben Zion. The Jewish Mystical Tradition. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1981. 277 pp.

Buber, Martin. The Origin and Meaning of Hassidism. New York: Horizon Press, 1960. 254 pp.

Dresner, Samuel H. The Zaddik: The Doctrine of the Zaddik According to the Writing of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoy. New York: Schocken, 1960. 312 pp.

Idel, Moshe. Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. 438 pp.

Mintz, Jerome R. Hasidic People: A Place in the New World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. 433 pp.

Rabinowitz, H. A Guide to Hassidism. New York: Yoseloff, 1960. 163 pp.

Rubenstein, Aryeh. Hassidism. Jerusalem: Ketter, 1975. 120 pp.

Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust

Bauer, Yehuda. Rethinking the Holocaust. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. 335 pp.

Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Boston: Little Brown, 1993.

Dawidowicz, Lucy. The War against the Jews: 1933–1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1975. 460 pp.

Engel, David. Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews. New York: Longman, 2000. 148 pp.

Friedländer, Saul. The Years of Extermination: 1939–1945. New York: Harper Collins, 2007. 870 pp.

Levin, Nora. The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry, 1933–1945. New York: Crowell, 1968. 768 pp.

Littell, Franklin H. The Crucifixion of the Jews. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. 153 pp.

Mitchell, Joseph R., and Helen Buss Mitchell. The Holocaust: Readings and Interpretations. New York: McGraw Hill, 2001.

Poliakov, Léon. The History of Anti-Semitism. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Vanguard, 1965. 340 pp.

Singerman, Robert. Antisemitic Propaganda: An Annotated Bibliography and Research Guide. New York: Garland, 1982. 448 pp.

Spector, Shmuel, and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life: Before and During the Holocaust. 3 vols. New York: New York University Press, 2001.

Black Judaism

ben-Jochannan, Yosef. We the Black Jews. New York: Alkebu-lan, 1983. 408 pp.

Goitein, S. D. From the Land of Sheba: Tales of the Jews of Yemen. Rev. ed. Trans. Christopher Fremantle. New York: Schocken, 1973. 142 pp.

Kaplan, Steven. The Beta Israel (Falashas) in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century. New York: New York University Press, 1992. 231 pp.

Landing, James M. Black Judaism: Story of an American Movement. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2002. 544 pp.

Rapoport, Louis. The Lost Jews: Last of the Ethiopian Falashas. New York: Stein and Day, 1980. 252 pp.

Winsor, Rudolph R. From Babylon to Timbuktu: History of the Ancient Black Races Including the Black Hebrews. New York: Exposition Press, 1969. 151 pp.