Race and Judaism

In class today, we discussed a particularly interesting topic. We were discussing what role race plays and Judaism. Are Jews even a race of people? Are there certain factors about our particular genetic makeup that constitutes what can or cannot be considered Jewish? The politically correct answer is absolutely not, yet there are still members of the Jewish community that choose to identify themselves as a particular race of people. For instance, today in class, several of the Jewish students had never heard of African-American Jews until later on in their lives (like around the time of their bar/bat mitzvah). There was also a case when a woman, when referring to a Jewish cantor with Asian facial features, asked questions about her being a convert or if she was adopted. I think that the reason that this is such a touchy subject is for the fact that Judaism is a multi-dimensional group of people that base identity factors on not just religious elements but also on cultural factors.

There was also something else that got me thinking. We had the opportunity to watch a film called Black Israel. It discussed the topic of Black Jews and what that meant in the grand scheme of the idea of Judaism and what that means. A key spokesperson on the topic of African-American Jews is Rabbi Capers Funnye, In talking about this idea, he made a pretty bold argument. He claimed that the first Jews in existence were Black. In the section of the film, he based this on evidence from the "hebraic practices" of tribes in Africa that have existed for hundreds of years before the slaves were taken from Africa. He also compares the struggles and plights of the African people with those of the Jewish people. But, does that mean that because two groups of people have had somewhat similar pasts that they are derived from the same roots? I personally do not think it does. I think that there can be a lot of grounds for having things in common and having a better understanding of one another, but I do not think that it means that they have to be the same group of people.