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Great profile of Obama’s Rabbi-in-law, Capers Funnye


I haven’t read the full article from tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine yet (printing it out as I type), but I love it already.  Although Zev Chafets can be trusted to get things mostly correct, I’m not sure it’s accurate to say things like this:

For the first time in a rabbinical career stretching back to 1985, [Rabbi Capers] Funnye had been invited to speak at a white, mainstream synagogue in New York. Plenty of black Christian ministers, in a spirit of ecumenism and racial harmony, have addressed Jewish congregations in the city. But a black rabbi? Many American Jews regard the very concept as an oxymoron, or even, given the heterodoxies of much Black Jewish theology, some sort of heresy. Funnye has been trying for years to demonstrate that he and his fellow Black Jews belong in the Jewish mainstream. Mostly he has been ignored.

I do not doubt that Rabbi Funnye has been ignored by the Jewish mainstream, and maybe “many American Jews regard the very concept [of a black rabbi] as an oxymoron, or even…some sort of heresy.”

But frankly, if that is true at all – and it angers me to believe it, but it could be right – then it is Jewish education and cultural extensions that have a lot of work to do because all Jews, American and otherwise, should know, understand, be familiar with and accepting of the place of black Jews in our history. I’m thankful that my conservative synagogue and rabbi acknowledge, accept and integrate that history regularly – it was a big part of the congregational trip my family made to Israel last August.

But in addition, the start of the project to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel in the mid-1980s came while I was living in Israel and the moshav on which I lived for three months became and is still an absorption center for new immigrants.

Anyway – go read the NYT article about Rabbi Funnye.  I hope I have a chance to meet and hear him sometime soon.

Hattip to Holly for the advance notice.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:32 am April 4th, 2009 in Barack Obama, Civil Rights, Culture, Jewish, Judaism, leadership, Politics, Religion, Social Issues, Writing 

Comments

2 Responses to “Great profile of Obama’s Rabbi-in-law, Capers Funnye”

  1. 1 Jeff Hess on April 4th, 2009 6:21 pm

    Shalom Jill,

    It looks to me that Capers Funnye is a Jew in the way that Elijah Muhammad was a Muslim as this bit from the Times Magazine indicates:

    In the aftermath of the Civil War, Crowdy’s faith offered freed slaves and their offspring something that mainstream Christianity did not: a grand historical identity and a distinctively black mode of religious expression. This proved to be a potent mix. Since the formation of the Church of God and Saints of Christ, there have been more than 200 congregations in the United States, Africa and the Caribbean. Today the group still has more than 50 affiliated congregations. In addition, a great many other “messianic” Jewish houses of worship have flourished, including Rabbi Robert Devine’s congregation, where Funnye first came to regard himself as a Black Jew.

    And then there’s this:

    As his interest in Judaism deepened, Funnye was increasingly drawn to the more conventional teachings of a black, Brooklyn-based rabbi named Levi Ben Levy, the spiritual leader of the Hebrew Israelite movement. “He taught me that real Judaism isn’t mixed in with Christianity,” Funnye says. He studied with Levy for five years, long distance from Chicago; the curriculum included Biblical Hebrew, liturgy, standard rabbinic texts and Jewish history from the perspective of African originalism. In 1985, Levy ordained Funnye as a rabbi, although no mainstream denomination accepted the title or Levy’s right to confer it.

    And this:

    Matthew didn’t express animosity toward white Jews. On the contrary, he saw and appreciated them as temporary placeholders, people who kept the faith of Israel going while the Black Jews were lost in bondage.

    This has nothing to do with Ethiopian Jewry, African Americans who have converted to Judaism or non-white children adopted by Jewish parents. For Funnye to declare himself a rabbi is indeed chutzpah and akin to someone declaring themselves to be a Roman Catholic Priest without the benefit of having attended a Catholic seminary.

    B’shalom,

    Jeff

  2. 2 Jeff Hess on April 4th, 2009 6:32 pm

    Shalom Jill,

    Damn that post button!

    I of course missed this bit:

    And in 1985 he underwent a second conversion, this one certified by a Conservative rabbinical court. Before he took this step, he consulted with his earlier mentor, Rabbi Levy; Funnye feared insulting other Black Jews. “I didn’t want anyone to interpret my conversion as meaning I thought they weren’t Jewish enough,” he told me. But he received Levy’s blessing. “I explained that if I was going to do the kind of outreach I wanted, European Jews had to feel that I was their brother,” Funnye said. “But I’m still a Black Israelite. A halakhic conversion” — one in accordance with traditional Jewish law — “wasn’t going to take away any of my blackness.”

    After his second conversion, Funnye taught Hebrew and Jewish subjects at Chicago-area congregations and worked for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, a group dedicated to fighting poverty, racism and anti-Semitism in the city. He sent his four children to Jewish day schools, quietly built his congregation and got to know the leaders of the white Jewish community. In 1997, he did what his mentors had all failed to do (and no Hebrew Israelite rabbi has since done): he became a member of the local Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Michael Balinsky, the executive vice president of the Chicago Board, says Funnye makes a conscientious effort “to play an active role in the mainstream Jewish community without losing his Black Hebrew tradition. He’s taken a leadership role for the Jewish community on civil rights issues and outreach to Hispanics and Muslims.”

    My bad.

    B’shalom,

    Jeff

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