Speech Practice: Zitlalli Esquivel, 15, rehearses for the Ssaturday mornng youth service. The daughter of Mexican immigrants who coverted to Judaism, she’s thinking of having her bat mitvah next year.

It took Donnica Dunlap eight years to find a synagogue where she felt she belonged. As a black Jew, Dunlap, 37, says many Jewish communities didn’t consider her “all the way” Jewish.

“Some people are saying, ‘Why do you think you’re Jewish?’ or ‘Is it from your mother’s side or your father’s side?’” she says. “I don’t think that’s something that anyone should be asking.”

Dunlap finally found the acceptance she was seeking at Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, a predominantly black community of worship buried in a Hispanic neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago.

The smell of incense fills the halls of Beth Shalom and its rooms hold a mix of traditional Jewish symbols and African paintings. The décor includes a big, earthy sculpture of a menorah and glassed-in photographs of prominent black rabbis. Add to that gospel-inspired music, bongo drums and a map of Africa affixed to the rabbi’s lectern, and you can be sure you are not in an ordinary synagogue. But, yes, this is a synagogue and, as members of the congregation point out, it’s not as strange as it may seem.
The Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation bills itself as “the oldest temple in the Chicago area that serves the Israelite community.” Established as the Ethiopian Hebrew Association in 1915, today the synagogue consists of mostly blacks who were not born Jewish.

Rabbi C. Funnye, Jr., who has been Beth Shalom’s spiritual leader since 1991, is himself a convert and makes acceptance a priority in his congregation. Funnye works hard to ensure his synagogue functions as a welcoming place for the more than 200 members of his congregation, which includes whites, Nigerians, Ghanans and Mexicans.

“When people walk into our house of prayer, I want them to feel welcome and know they are our honored guests,” Funnye says. “We will do all we can to make you feel welcome.”

The Shabbat services at Beth Shalom include a question-and-answer session for congregants to ask about their faith and acceptance within the community. One woman told the rabbi that when she was at a baby shower a few weeks earlier, one of her friends asked, “How are you going to be saved if you don’t believe in Jesus?”

Another young woman asked what to do when her son came home from Jewish day care saying he “doesn’t exist” because the other children told him he is not a member of the Cohen or Levite tribes.
As a response to the isolation they felt from the mainstream Jewish community, the Beth Shalom congregation chose to be as welcoming as possible. The community of black Jews demonstrated its fierce independence by deriving its name from Ethiopia, the only country on the African continent that has successfully resisted European colonization. But it hasn’t been easy. The Beth Shalom congregants face the world as a minority group within a minority religion.

Funnye, who serves as the first black member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis, says he wants the Jewish community to be more inclusive of all who hold ancient ties to the religion or wish to become Jewish. He says members of his congregation affirm the words of the prophet Isaiah, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.”

Beth Shalom Associate Rabbi Joshua Salter also insists on the importance of building an accepting synagogue in a community where not all temples will be as welcoming.

“I’m saying, ‘I am Jewish.’ Not ‘Am I Jewish?’ I’m making a statement, not questioning or asking for acceptance,” he says. “When you come with that presentation, then people understand it.”

Salter believes the preconception of what a Jew looks like is changing on a daily basis. He points out that the context of the Torah is actually in Egypt, and as black Jews gain more exposure within the Jewish community, Salter says they will dispel the myth of what the stereotypical Jew looks like.

“The face of a Jew is not what is depicted on TV,” he says. “Instead, the face is as diverse as the looks of the people on the planet.”

Diane Kaufmann Tobin, the director of Be’chol Lashon, an organization that strengthens Judaism through ethnic, cultural and racial acceptance, also sees the future Jewish community as increasingly diverse.

The Diaspora forced Jews to adapt and become a part of every culture of the world, says Tobin. She sees those interested in becoming Jewish, whoever they may be, as continuing to move the Jewish community in a positive and expanding direction.

“[Jews] already are the most diverse people in the history of the world,” Tobin says. “It’s recognition of who we are as a global people.”

For Jews, the bind to one another has always been identification with a religion. German, Spanish and Russian Jews didn’t look alike, speak the same language or even share many of the same cultural customs. And yet they all formed a larger Jewish community. And so it is with the congregants of Beth Shalom, says Donnica Dunlap.

“It’s not about race. Anyone can come and know that if you consider yourself Jewish, that is who you are, no matter race, color or creed,” Dunlap says. “We just have to follow correct protocol, and that comes from Torah.”

–Kristin Ellertson