Bronx, NY – A powerful African drumbeat pounded through the small room, as a singer with a Bob Marley-like voice clicked two small wooden sticks to the rhythm of his words. “When I walk, I walk with love,” he crooned in a mesmerizing Jamaican accent. Every one of the 25 African-American men, women and children in the room sang and danced along with him.
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If you closed your eyes, it might seem like an intimate reggae concert. Resisting the urge to dance would be a losing battle. But open your eyes, and an entirely different scene emerges.
The congregation’s members sing of a return to Zion, to their Promised Land of Israel, and praise Yahweh, the ancient name they use for God. All around them are adornments typical of a Jewish synagogue: the Ark of the Torah, a giant map of Israel, Stars of David, a menorah and depictions of the Ten Commandments. But there are also paintings of a black baby Moses and of an African Abraham, and a poster of a young, still black Michael Jackson, which reads: “R.I.P. Michael: We will always love you.”
Everyone in the room has dreadlocks, but every boy and man has a head covering, bigger and more colorful than the usual. The women wrap their long dreadlocks, some adorned with colorful beads, in scarves reminiscent of those worn by the Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. The teenage boy playing the drums is named Moshe, and the name of the Jamaican man leading the spiritual song is Naphtali. Almost everyone in the room has a biblical or Hebrew name.
But this is neither a reggae club nor a synagogue. It is the sanctuary of an Israelite temple named Kol Sh’aireit B’nai Yisrael, which for the past 40 years has stood on the corner of Boston Road and Longfellow Avenue in a dingy, camel-colored brick building in the Bronx. Yet few people in the neighborhood know it is there.
What about the music of some rap/reggae singer named Matissyahu who is a real chassid (I forget which chassidus) and has a big following among many chasshuve rabbonim and askanim and is very popular in the heimeshe kehillas.
If they view themselves as descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes, why don’t they accept Jews as descendants of Binyamin and Yehudah, instead of viewing us as outsiders who are merely following their practices?
This is fascinating. I would love to know more about their journey through history. How did they come to believe what they believe? Was it something handed down from generation to generation or is this another modern farce like “reform” or “conservative” which have no basis in Jewish history (or halacha for that matter).
There are other groups in Africa which have similar rituals and customs that seem to be based on Judaism. They have artifacts that are hundreds of years old. It does lead to interesting anthropological questions.
Although their mesorah is very short lived, they do no harm and if they at least observe the sheva mitzvos, it’s a positive thing. Rare is the non Jewish woman in this time and area that dresses modestly and for that alone they deserve credit. In the Bronx, a modestly dresssed woman is hard to find.
The observance of some Jewish based rituals does not make a Yid.
These people are to be commended for their quest to follow a spiritual way of life.
But let us not be confused into believing this path is the Derech of Am Yisroel and our Torah.