Freshly-ordained Ugandan rabbi gets ball rolling on returning home
By Roberto Loiederman, JewishJournal, July 16, 2008
Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, the first black sub-Saharan rabbi ordained at an American rabbinical school, has had a very busy time since returning to Uganda in June, after not having lived there for five years.
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Choosing to Be Chosen
By Don Lattin, July/August 2008, California Magazine
Rabbi Capers Funnye, the spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, doesn't look Jewish- at least to some Jewish eyes.
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Positive Realist: Dr. Gary Tobin
By Debbie Cohen, Spring 2008, Lifestyles Magazine
Dr. Gary A. Tobin knows how to make a point- even if it's not always easy to hear what the well-known demographer and President of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francsico has to say. Tobin challenges traditional ways of thinking about Jewish communal life.
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In Living Color
By Rachel Sarah, July 2008, Jewish Living
Raising a biracial Jewish daughter, a mother finds herself answering many questions: from her child, from total strangers, and from her own heart.
"Mommy, you became Jewish when you had me."
That's how Mae, my eight-year-old daughter, explains it, and she's right.
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Jews' faith journey leads from Uganda to L.A. and back
By Sandy Banks, June 10, 2008, Los Angeles Times
The music was distinctly African, driven by pulsing drums and lively melodies.
But the lyrics were in Hebrew, sung by a diminutive rabbi with coal-black skin and a yarmulke as colorful as its history. ....more
Three countries share limelight at Israel Expo
By Julie Anne Ines, June 1, 2008, Orange County Register
The Jewish community of Orange County threw a bash in honor of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, but Israel Expo 2008 also celebrated the 60th birthdays of the democracies of India and South Korea. ....more
Far-flung communities seek place in the Jewish world
By Sue Fishkoff/ JTA, May 26, 2008, The Jerusalem Post
Miguel Segura Aguilo’s ancestors were executed as Jews five centuries ago in Spain, but he is not welcome in his local synagogue today.
Gershom Sizomu, who will be ordained this month in Los Angeles as a Conservative rabbi, dreams of setting up the first yeshiva for African Jews in his Abayudayan village in East Uganda. ....more
Ugandan Gershom Sizomu ordained as first black sub-Saharan rabbi
By Brad Greenberg,
May 21, 2008,
The Jewish Journal
Gershom Sizomu has had a wonderful five years—four spent enjoying the for-granted luxuries of Los Angeles and one indulging in the spiritual gravity of Jerusalem—and now he is set to return home to lead a small Jewish community in rural Uganda. ....more
Think Tank Aims To Infuse Jewish Mainstream With Dashes of Color
By Rebecca Spence, May 8, 2008, Forward.com
San Francisco - Go to almost any Jewish conference and you’ll likely find the ethnic makeup to be largely, and unsurprisingly, white.
But at a recent plenum in San Francisco, a group championing ethnic diversity in Jewish life turned that situation on its head ....more
Meeting unites far-flung communities seeking place in the Jewish world
By Sue FishkoffMay 7, 2008, JTA
Miguel Segura Aguilo’s ancestors were executed as Jews five centuries ago in Spain, but he is not welcome in his local synagogue today.
Gershom Sizomu, who will be ordained this month in Los Angeles as a Conservative rabbi, dreams of setting up the first yeshiva for African Jews in his Abayudayan village in East Uganda. ....more
Reform student on track to become the first black female rabbi
By Sue Fishkoff, May 7, 2008, JTA
She’s proud to be black, proud to be a woman and proud to be a 45-year-old single mother who raised her adopted child on her own.
And when she says that next May, following her ordination as a Reform rabbi, she will become the first black female rabbi, the huge grin on her face lets folks know she feels pretty good about that, too. ....more
Black Rabbi Reaches Out to Mainstream of His Faith
By Niko Koppel, March 16, 2008, The New York Times
Chicago- Having grown up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Capers C. Funnye Jr. was encouraged by his pastor to follow in his footsteps. Instead, he became a rabbi. ....more
America's Filled With Potential, If Only the Community Could See It
By Gary Tobin, March 6, 2008, JTA
A study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that Americans are switching religions more than ever. As many as one of every two adults does not practice the religion in which they were born or raised. ....more
A Nation of Many Colors
by Shoshana Kordova, January 1, 2008, World Jewish Digest
Monique Apatow, a black Jewish woman, was walking down a street in her Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Shaul with an Ethiopian friend and their children last year when a group of ultra-Orthodox boys threw stones at the two families and shouted "kushi!" - a word that in Israel bears the connotation of "a racist white American calling an African-American a nigger," as Apatow puts it. ....more
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Black Rabbi Seeks to Bridge Divide
by Ben Harris, December 31, 2007, JTA
Rabbi Capers Funnye, spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, wants you to know that he likes gefilte fish - a lot.
"I love it," he told JTA in a recent interview. "I love lox. I love borscht. Some of my congregants don't even know what borscht is." ....more
Bush Burns Hanukkah Candle at Both Ends
by Nathan Guttman, December 12, 2007
The Jewish festivities began at a discussion that Bush held with 15 Jewish communal leaders who escaped religious persecution in their countries of origin. After that, he moved on to a Hanukkah candle lighting, where a menorah that belonged to the great-grandfather of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was lit. ....more
Bush uses menorah lighting to meet Jews who knew persecution
by Beth young, December 11, 2007, JTA
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- President Bush used his annual Chanukah meeting with Jewish leaders to invite figures who had experienced persecution throughout the world. ....more
One People Many Faces
Opening our eyes and our attitudes to the expanding racial and ethnic variety of Jewish life.
By Rahel Musleah, December 2007, Jewish Woman Magazine
Helen Wanderstock had difficulty picturing an Asian child on the bimah becoming a bat mitzvah—until she and her husband adopted a baby of their own from Vietnam. "It’s made me think differently," says Wanderstock, "about what being Jewish is." ....more
Museum Exhibit Shoots Down Jewish Stereotypes
by Dan Pine, October 13, 2007, j-weekly
Blue skies and safe streets, Sears lawn mowers and Schwinn bikes. A father and son fishing down by the old creek. A mother pushing a baby carriage. They are bucolic images of suburban America. Except the women wear long skirts and the men wear kippahs and tallits.
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Black Jews In America
by Steve Kramer, August 22, 2007, GBMNews
On our recent American visit, we had the pleasure of attending the wedding of the daughter of our dear friends, the Braunsteins. Lauren, an educator who received her Master's degree a few years ago, had met her husband Walter on JDate [online dating service catering to Jews]. Walter Isaac, is a Jewish man completing his doctorate at the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies of Temple University. What's a bit unusual is that Walter is a black Jew himself. ....more
Local Jewish Community Aids Ugandan Rabbi-to-be
by Jonathan Shugarts, August 6, 2007, Republican American
Gershom Sizomu traveled to the United States from a land of dirt roads, mud huts, and a history of brutal dictatorship that clouded the rolling hills of his native Uganda in fear.
But Sizomu, 38, will be a rarity when he returns to his homeland. He will be the only ordained rabbi in Uganda and will lead a small community of African Jews known as the Abayudaya who live in a small village called Mbale. ....more
Israel in the Gardens
by Dan Pine, May 25, 2007, j-weekly
At this year's Israel in the Gardens, a Jewish percussionist from Uganda will lead a parade of Israel supporters around the Gardens. All theway around. "Walk a Mile for Israel" which circumnavigates Yerba Buena Gardens, is but one part of the entertainment on tap at the Bay Area's annual love-in for the Jewish state.
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Black Jew illuminates diversity of Judaism
by Dianna Marder, The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 5, 2007
Much of the study of African Americans and Jews relates to relationships between the two groups.
But Lewis Ricardo Gordon, a Jamaica-born, Yale-educated author and Temple University professor, is studying African-Americans who are Jews. ....more
Taste of Uganda: Rabbi Reaches out to Children Through Music
by Sara Cunningham, Courier-journal.com, March 24, 2007
Gershom Sizomu shared his musical message in English, Hebrew and Lugandan yesterday with schoolchildren and members of a local synagogue. "Behold it's a good thing and pleasant for brothers and sisters to sit together," he sang.
For Sizomu, language can cross all boundaries when it's set to music. ....more
Montclair Identify Expert to Explore Growing Awareness of Multiracial Jews
By Johanna Ginsberg, New Jersey Jewish News, March 1, 2007
"I have to figure out my Jewish identity in a way my husband doesn’t have to"ť said Lisa Williamson Rosenberg, who identifies herself as black and Jewish. He says, "I’m Jewish,"- no one debates him or gets into an argument with him. It was the same for my mother. No one says, "Oh, how did you get to be Jewish? - Everyone asks me those questions." ....more
Book Review: In Every Tongue: The Racial & Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People.
By Diane Tobin, Gary A. Tobin, and Scott Rubin. San Francisco: Institute for Jewish & Community Research, 2005. 251 pp.
American Jewish History Journal, Volume 93
By Ephraim Tabory, Bar Ilan University
March 1, 2007
The authors' main focus is on what they call "diverse Jews," and their primary study relates to the United States. They estimate that "at least 20 percent of the Jewish population in the United States is racially and ethnically diverse, ....more
Intermarriage Studies May Be Right; Community's Fearful Response Isn't
JTA, by Gary Tobin, February 15, 2007
We keep producing studies that prove that children of intermarried families are less likely to be Jewish than children from two born Jews.
There's nothing wrong with the research; my studies show the same thing. However, our responses to the findings, which come from fear and suspicion, are troubling. ....more
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Deconstructing the Asian Jewish Experience
j., The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, by Joshua Brandt, December 8, 2006
Much of the study of African Americans and Jews relates to relationships between the two groups.
A recent forum on Asian Jewish identities emphasized commonalties while shattering stereotypes. But before debunking the prevailing paradigm of the Ashkenazi Jew, the panel had to come to grips with an equally important question: What constitutes "Asian?". ....more
Have a feliz Chanukah at multicultural holiday fiesta
j., The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, by Dan Pine, December 8, 2006
Much of the study of African Americans and Jews relates to relationships between the two groups.
A recent forum on Asian Jewish identities emphasized commonalties while shattering stereotypes. But before debunking the prevailing paradigm of the Ashkenazi Jew, the panel had to come to grips with an equally important question: What constitutes "Asian?". ....more
Fasting Has a Way of Humbling the Self
NPR, by Rabbi Capers Funnye, September 20, 2006
In my faith of Judaism, we are commanded to fast specifically on Yom Hakippurim, which is coming this year on Sunday evening, the first of October. And we are directed in the Torah to fast from sundown of the ninth day of the seventh month until sundown of the tenth day of that same month.
The fasting, for me, on a very personal level, has always been a way for me to open myself up to see things clearer, to be drawn closer in my relationship to the God of Israel. ....more
Ethiopian Jews' Panel Touches Questions of Race, Religion
j-weekly, by Rachel Sarah, August 4, 2006
"If you're presented with choices, such as being both black and Jewish, then who are you?"
This question, posed by Scott Rubin, was at the heart of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival's panel discussion on Saturday, July 29 at Berkeley's Roda Theatre. Rubin, a senior research associate at the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, was moderating a panel discussion on race, adoption and Jewish identity. ....more
"Awareness Growing, Local Rabbi Says"
South Bend Tribune, by Christine Cox, June 22, 2006
Every Friday at sunset, 6-year-old Livya Zeitler of Elkhart helps her mother, Melanie, light candles to welcome Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath.
Together they pray over wine and the traditional chalah bread, covering their eyes to show God respect. Livya has been able to recite these prayers since she was 3 1/2. ....more
"South of Main" Takes Top Award
Spartanburg (SC) Herald-Journal / GoUpstate.com, Linda Conley, Staff Writer, May 14, 2006
A book that details life in one of Spartanburg's early black neighborhoods and its demise, has received an award as one of the best books produced last year.
"South of Main," published by the Hub City Writers Project, recently received the top award for Multicultural Nonfiction titles for adults in the Independent Publisher Book Awards competition. ... [Among the] finalists receiving recognition in the category is "In Every Tongue: The Racial & Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People" published by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research. ....more
New Study Ponders Key Question: How to Promote Active Converts?
JTA, Rachel Silverman, April 12, 2006
NEW YORK - Low conversion rates among intermarried Jewish families continue to plague those working to reverse the demographic downtrends in American Jewry. ....more
Jewish Moms, Chinese Daughters
By Merri Rosenberg, Lilith Magazine, March, 2006
It's just a little hard for me to think of this little China doll taking my mother's name. Your grandmother--this would be hard to explain to her. ....more
Thinking About Jewish Tolerance
Leslie Bunder
Jerusalem Post, February 21, 2006
A Jewish diversity conference held earlier this month in San Francisco brought together people from various backgrounds and regions - Europe, Israel, Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Australia - for a gathering that pretty much resembled a United Nations of Jews. ....more
Funny, You Don't Look Jewish: Local Synagogue Explores the Changing Face of Judaism.
Montclair Times, Taressa Stovall, January 25, 2006
When Lisa Williamson Rosenberg explains to people that she is biracial – black and white – and Jewish, the reactions vary. Some people are accepting, some are surprised, others are incredulous. And some have told her point-blank that, no, it's not possible to be black and Jewish at the same time. ....more
Out of Egypt
Jerusalem Report, Ira Rifkin, January 23, 2006
As American demographics are shifting, so too are those of American Jews away from the white Ashkenazi stereotype. Then again, Jews haven't been ethnically 'pure' since the time of the Pharaohs. Lewis Gordon grew up in the Bronx, a center of Jewish life until the closing years of the last century. In that, Gordon's background is typical for an American Jew. Untypical is that his father was an Afro-Asian Jamaican and his mother was a mixed black-white Jamaican Jew who traced her maternal bloodline to Jews from Scotland and her paternal line to Jews from Jerusalem. Both sides emigrated to the Caribbean in the late-19th century and intermarried with local blacks, and while some of the offspring assimilated into the larger Christian community, others, like his mother, Patricia Solomon, remained Jews. ....more
Get Down, Moses
Village Voice, by Elena Oumano, December 13, 2005
The Maccabee warriors' trouncing of synagogue-defiling Greeks (a victory, incidentally, that blew Jewish chances to trade patriarchy for paganism) pales next to the Savior's birth. But Hanukkah offers its own charms and boost to the economy - eight days of presents and that catchy"Dreidel" tune. This year's Hanukkah could beat out the Christmas competition in New York, thanks to a burgeoning wave of musicians recording and performing individual takes on Jewish identity. ....more
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American Jews Grow in Diversity
charlotte.com, Gary Tobin, November 28, 2005
American Jews are often stereotyped as a monolithic people of European origin. Jews are in fact as diverse as any demographic group in America -- and perhaps the most diverse demographic group. ....more
"In Every Tongue"Shows Changing Community
St. Louis Jewish Light, Robert A. Cohn, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, November 16, 2005
A newly published book, In Every Tongue, by Diane Tobin, Gary Tobin and Scott Rubin, proves conclusively, based on solid research, that today's Jewish community is absolutely NOT that of your Zayda and Bubbe from the Old Country - or even that of your Mom and Dad from l950s suburbia. The book, published by the prestigious Institute for Jewish and Community Research based in San Francisco, proves the surprising fact that at least 20 percent of Jewish America is ethnically and racially diverse. ....more
American Jews Embrace Demographic Diversity
DuluthNewsTribune.com, Gary Tobin, September 30, 2005
On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Jews across America will pause to consider how to improve themselves and their communities in the year to come. No doubt, many will contemplate how the country reacted to the terrible destruction wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. A disproportionate number of the victims were poor and black, rekindling a national dialogue on race and class. Yet Americans poured millions of dollars into the affected areas, moving beyond racial stereotypes and boundaries. ....more
Book: U.S. Jewish Community Is Far More Diverse Than Most Realize
JTA, Joe Eskenazi, September 18, 2005
Look at the Jew on your left. Look at the Jew on your right. OK, now look at two more Jews. Odds are, one of you is "ethnically diverse."
That's the claim Gary Tobin makes in a new book exploring racial and ethnic diversity within America's Jewish population, "In Every Tongue." The San Francisco demographer maintains that perhaps 20 percent of the nation's Jews are Sephardi, Mizrachi, racial minorities or of mixed race.
"It's a big deal when you start translating it into the number of human beings," said Tobin, who co-wrote the book with his wife, Diane Tobin, and Scott Rubin. ....more
New Research Finds 20% of Jewish America Is Ethnically and Racially Diverse
HispanicBusiness.com, PRNewswire, September 14, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- New research debunks the commonly held view that America's Jews are a monolithic people of exclusively white European ancestry. In their new book, In Every Tongue (Institute for Jewish & Community Research, $25, 251 pages) noted scholar Gary A. Tobin and co-authors and show that American Jews are a multiracial people -- perhaps the most diverse people in history. ....more
Outreach Advocates Cheered by Findings of Unexpected Ties
Forward, Jennifer Siegel, July 8, 2005
Advocates of outreach to interfaith couples are touting a new survey that they say upends previous arguments against efforts to reach out to the children of mixed marriages. ....more
Rabbi extends a rare invitation
Orange County Register, By Ann Pepper, May 22, 2005
Rabbi Nancy Myers is putting together bags stuffed with books on Judaism, little goodies from Israel and some music from the cantor at her synagogue, Temple Beth David in Westminster - because she's getting ready to step out of line a little bit. ....more
Kosher Gospel Rocks the House at Seder Celebrating Jewish Diversity
JTA, By Chanan Tigay, April 14, 2005
Fifty years ago, Joshua Nelson's grandmother would not have walked up to a synagogue in her New Jersey neighborhood, entered and prayed. "That's because she was black," Nelson says, "and black Jews didn't generally pray at shuls dominated by white, Eastern European Jews." ....more
The Face of Jewish Uganda
JN, Detroit Jewish News ONLINE, By Shelli Liebman Dorfman, March 3, 2005
J .J. Keki looks very much like his Ugandan neighbors. He grows coffee, bananas and maize on his farm; travels on dirt roads by bicycle-taxi and pumps water from the ground several times a day to carry home to his family. But no matter what he is doing or where he goes J.J. always has a kippah on his head, eats only kosher foods and on Friday nights and Saturdays, he walks to synagogue for Shabbat. &That is because I am Jewish," J.J. explained. ....more
West Coast conference brings together Jews of color from across the globe to celebrate diversity.
The Jewish Week, Serving the Jewish Community of Greater New York Debra Nussbaum Cohen, February 25, 2005
San Francisco - Before a packed house of some 400 people at the Fairmont Hotel here, 45 voices from Temple Beth El's choir soared in songs melding Hebrew lyrics with the passionate energy and rhythmic lilt of gospel music, all backed by a rocking band. ....more
Embrace Jewish diversity
J, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California, Editorial, Staff Writer, February 4, 2005
As this week's cover story on Asian Jews makes plain, the face of Judaism is changing before our eyes.
With conversion, transracial adoption and intermarriage becoming facts of American Jewish life, we have no choice but to expand our definition of who is a Jew. It is wrong to stare at those who don't "look Jewish" ....more
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S.F. conference brings together far-flung Jewish communities
j., The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, Dan Pine, Staff Writer, October 8, 2004
In the lobby of San Francisco's opulent Fairmont Hotel, Ephraim Isaac wasn't hard to spot. He was the one wearing the white djellaba (robe), natalah (fringed scarf) and gobah (wedding cake-shaped head covering). ....more
Bay Area Jewish Parents Accept Joys, Struggles of Interracial Adoption
j., The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, By Vicki Larson, October 8, 2004
It isn't too hard to pick out Ruthie Heller in her 12th-birthday photo, even if she weren't wearing colorful balloons fashioned into a hat atop her head.Among the four Orthodox Jewish girls, arms around each other and flashing wide grins, Ruthie's creamy bronze skin, dark brown eyes and facial features are a dead give-away. ....more
Diversity Rules at One-of-a-Kind Shavuot Festival
j., The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, Dan Pine, May 28, 2004
There wasn’t a bagel in sight. Instead, the hundreds of moms, dads and kids attending the multicultural Shavuot festival at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center had other fish to fry. It made sense to forgo the customary Askenazic fare. Though just about everyone at the Sunday, May 23, event was Jewish, most of the people were of African, Asian and Latino descent. Most of the music rocked with a Ugandan beat. And the cherished ideal of am Yisrael, the people of Israel, on this day came in rainbow colors. ....more
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Brothers' Judaism Swings to an East African Beat
Forward, Max Gross, January 17, 2003
Having a tough time finding a good Jewish day school for your kids? Have you considered Semei Kakungulu School outside Mbale, Uganda? ....more
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Shades Of Gray: Multiracial families are growing rapidly and changing
The Jewish Week, by Debra Nussbaum Cohen, June 28, 2000
As dusk fell on a Saturday night not long ago, 45 Jewish children and their parents gathered together on the deck outside a retreat center dining room in the northern reaches of Connecticut to bid farewell to the Sabbath. ....more
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Black and Jewish in America
Jerusalem Post, by Sue Fishkoff, April 2, 1999
Rabbi Capers Funnye, Jr., spiritual leader of the B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, represents a minority within a minority.
Born and raised as a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Funnye once won a scholarship to the church's theological seminary. He is now the only black Jew sitting on the Chicago Board of Rabbis, creating his own national statistic. ....more
Jews embrace rich history of diversity: Roots of Judaism blossom into array of multi-ethnicity
San Francisco Examiner, by Michael Dougan, March 31, 1999
Rabbi Capers Funnye, Jr., spiritual leader of the B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, represents a minority within a minority.
Victor Osborne does not, as they say, look Jewish. Neither does Patricia Lin. But Osborne, an African American, and Lin, of Taiwanese descent, will be among thousands of Bay Area Jews breaking unleavened bread at sundown Wednesday to celebrate the beginning of Passover.
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Organization for black Jews claims 200,000 in U.S.
j. the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, by Michael Gelbwasser, April 10, 1998
Descriptions of Robin Washington's ethnicity are often incomplete. Some people look at his skin and assume that he is black. Others look and think that he is white.
Few people, however, think he is Jewish. ....more
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