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Professor Battles Preconceived Notions About Jews and Race
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More in Education‘Most people, if they meet a white Jewish person, don’t ask that person, ‘How are you a Jew?’” said Lewis Gordon, a professor of philosophy at Temple University. “Most African American Jews face that all the time.”
Gordon says he knows firsthand what it’s like “to have your legitimacy constantly challenged.” After all, he’s black and Jewish himself.
As founder of the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies, Gordon strives to increase the understanding of diverse Jewish communities by providing reliable information, and to raise the standard of scholarship in Afro-Jewish studies by bringing together those who do groundbreaking work in the field.
Founded in the fall of 2004, the center is located in Temple’s department of religion and Judaic studies on the university’s Philadelphia campus. The center does not focus exclusively on Afro-Jewish populations; Chinese, Latin American and other Jewish populations are included, in addition to Ashkenazim and Sephardim. The goal, Gordon says, is to focus on a wide variety of Jewish-identified communities and enable communities to learn from one another.
Rebecca Alpert, chair of the religion department, says her program is “in a growth period at this point.”
“The center is really a part of that, when you get to hire a senior scholar of Lewis’s stature,” she said.
With the creation of a more intellectual climate on the subject, students and faculty are now able to delve into deeper discussion on campus. Future projects at Temple include a new course on Rastafarian Judaism, a course to introduce students to the diversity of Jewish communities and an introductory general education course on Jews and race. Next year, the center will organize a one-day symposium on race and Judaism, featuring authors Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz and Henry Goldschmidt. There also will be a small demographic study to gather accurate information on the black Jewish population in the Philadelphia area.
“What we have decided to do is proceed slowly, and part of that is because in many ways, we are responding to mistakes people made in the past when they were too zealous or quick with their research,” Gordon said. While he has been at Temple only since 2004, he is deeply involved in exposing information that the academic community knows little about. He is currently working on journal articles and on a short theoretical work introducing the problems of Afro-Jewish studies.
Gordon, whose mother is a Jamaican Jew and whose maternal grandfather’s family left Jerusalem in the 19th century, did not grow up religious. With his commitment to study Jewish and Semitic communities, however, he became more involved in religious life and is raising his children Jewish.
Throughout his career, Gordon noticed that when he presented himself as a “black Jew,” he was often met with shock and disbelief. According to Gordon, people’s ideas about Jews are skewed and there are things about Jewish communities that even fellow Jews don’t understand.
“You imagine Jews are people who came from Europe, and that is absurd,” he said. “It’s just not correct.”
Gordon said that the term “black Jew” is something “externally imposed upon Jewish communities.” Using the term, he said, causes racial separation within a group whose members refer to themselves at Hebrews, Israelites, Semites — or mostly Jews.
“When you simply say ‘Jew,’ it means ‘white Jew,’ and that is not accurate, because Jews were not white in the past, even among those from Europe,” Gordon said. “They had to become white, and it took a process for that to happen in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe.”
According to Gordon, the ideal would be when one says the term Jew, “what one means is a mixed multiracial ethnic community of people — period.”
The constant questioning of history and origin, Gordon said, is one of the more complicated issues that Afro-Jews must face. According to Gordon, “Many people who look at Africa don’t look at Africa in a way that makes sense.” While most people look at Africa as a vast land of jungles and deserts, he said, the continent should also be looked at as a large network of ancient trade routes were Hebrew traders once settled.
Laura Levitt, director of Jewish studies at Temple, said the center’s work has caused excitement and has created many possibilities for the future of Jewish studies, as well as race and ethnicity studies, on a campus that prides itself on diversity.
“We have had an important commitment to Jewish studies for a number of years, and the department is really interested in the study of race and ethnicity,” Levitt said. “The [Afro-Jewish] Center combines those two inputs in a significant way, allowing us to move into a really cutting-edge area of research.”
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DOES THE GOD OF ISRAEL DEEM THE ACT OF CONVERSION (FROM A GENTILE TO A “JEW”) AN ACCEPTABLE PRACTICE?
When the CREATOR GOD established the Heavens and the Earth and all things therein, HE specifically designated the territories HE wanted the sons of Noah to inherit and inhabit. And when HE made an “Everlasting Covenant” with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel, HE gave them the land of Canaan for their inheritance. However, the Twelve Tribes of Jacob, called the Children of Israel, were scattered from their designated territory and cursed into Slavery and into the hands of the heathen (Leviticus 26th and Deuteronomy 28th Chapters and Psalm 106:38-42) to serve their enemies in foreign lands for disobedience to the LAWS of the CREATOR GOD of Israel, for forsaking HIM, and worse, for turning to false gods.
Unto this day, the masses of the Twelve Tribes of Jacob are yet scattered from the Land of Israel. “I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men” (Deu. 32:26). Of a truth, when GOD scattered HIS Covenant People for all their transgressions against HIM, HE no longer sent visions to HIS Prophets (Lam.2:9), and HE allowed Gentiles to take control of HIS Land: the Greeks, the Romans, the Turks, the British, and other European nations, including the Ashkenazim, Khazars, and a multitude of proselytes from the Greek and Roman Eras unto this day.
After GOD had scattered the Children of Israel, those who called themselves “Jews” took control of the Land of Israel and from that time, they determined who would be called and accepted as “Jews.” These rulers of GOD’s Land set the stage for Gentile Conversion and the “Law of Return” under what’s now known as “Judaism.” And under these circumstances anyone, regardless of his/her nationality or ethnic background, can be converted to a “Jew” and is required to practice what’s called “Judaism,” a religion designed by Rabbis – not by the LAWS of the GOD of Israel that HE gave to HIS Prophet Moses for the Israelites.
To their chagrin, the Jewish elements of “Judaism” can in no way be compared to the Laws and Commandments the CREATOR GOD of Abraham wrote for Moses to teach to the Children of Israel. “Judaism” is a dogma of man and was formed and based on the results of debates by those who took on the identity of the Children of Israel after GOD cursed the Israelites from the Land.
Thus, after the scattering of the SEED of Jacob into “the four corners of the Earth,” came the birth of “Rabbinic/Talmudic Judaism” or rather “Oral Law,” which eagerly opposed and replaced GOD’s written Laws, Statutes, and Judgments. Ironically, one outstanding Law of GOD that these Rabbis of the Roman Era completely dismissed was the Commandment stating that Israelites can neither add to nor diminish from what GOD Commands of them (Deu. 12:32).
This Law had no bearing on these Rabbis, and indeed without fear, they have changed and replaced a plethora of GOD’s LAWS for their self-serving interests and agendas. And thus, their schema, led from one Jewish ideal to another, including their practice of Conversion that has no place in GOD’s Ways of Righteousness.
No matter the submersion or training in conversion, no one can be converted into an Israelite. The GOD of Israel knows the People HE Chose and with whom HE made an Everlasting Covenant. One can serve the GOD of Israel to follow HIS Walk of Life, but no Gentile or “Stranger,” as non-Israelites are called, can become a Hebrew-Israelite, just as no European can become an African or just as no Japhethite can become a Shemite. It was the Most High GOD, HIMSELF, that Commanded the Israelites not to practice mixed marriage among the Tribes. And if that isn’t enough evidence to reject the concept of “Conversion to Judaism,” then perhaps the fact that the GOD of Israel will cause the SEED of Jacob - NOT “Converts” - to return back to their inheritance will bring one to light (Exodus 6:7,8; Psalm 135:12;Jeremiah 30:10).
Consider the fact that even while in the Wilderness, the Israelites assembled and “declared their pedigrees after their families, by the house of their fathers.” Note also that when the Judahites returned from the 70-year-Babylonian captivity, a group professing to be of the SEED of Israel were deemed as polluted and put from the priesthood. And perhaps the greatest evidence that rejects the practice of “Jewish Conversion” is what’s written in GOD’s LAW and WORD to HIS Prophets: Prophets, Leaders, heads, captains, governors, kings, and Nazarites must all be of the SEED of the Children of Israel (Deuteronomy 1:13,17:15,18:18; Jeremiah 30:21,22; Amos 2:11).
Nevertheless, the GOD of Israel accepts all who seek to follow HIM, but according to HIS Ways of Righteousness – not man’s. The Land of Israel belongs to the GOD of Israel, and HE has already given it to the SEED of Jacob, albeit, the Stranger may live among the Israelites if they, too, will abide by GOD’s LAW (Exodus 12:49; Leviticus 24:22; Isaiah 56:6-8).
Converting any one thing to another is obvious confusion and deception to say the least. Any attempts to convert a “Gentile” to an Israelite are trespassing and the act to do so is unfounded in the Ways and WORD of the Most High GOD of Israel.
At the end of the day, the Most High GOD of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be exalted and magnified by the SEED of Jacob, and the world will seek to follow HIS same Ways of Righteousness that HE set forth in the Beginning of time even for Adam, Noah, and the Children of Israel.
“Why would GOD hand HIS Earth over to the heathens?” The ANSWERS to all these questions and many, many more can be found in “The Old Testament.” For more respect for the Ancient of Books read THUS SAITH THE LORD A Book on the “Old Testament” by Tziona Yisrael http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1419629123/sr=8-6/qid=1152215959/ref=sr_1_6/002-5765394-4504857?ie=UTF8 (Amazon.com)
Greetings,
The discourse of Jewish religion historically speaking has never been the intent of the MOST HIGH for HIS people know as the Israelites, as the Torah shows us. As HIS law shows us there is nor was there even any law that speaks to the conversion status of a person being a Jew.
It has always been Israel's problem concerning following the ways of other nations and their practices. Israel or Israelites have a national law which is the Torah. Jews have their religion known as Judaism with it's many writings from their own Rabbis making law and codifying it under the Mishna, Shulchan Aruch, Talmud Bavli to name a few. We are not "Black Jews". This is a misnomer. We are Israelites, descendants of one man name Jacob that lived in North Eastern Africa prior to the coming of any Jew or European in the land.
I respectfully disagree with the presumption that Jewws are White. They are not as a group to be confused with white people as we normally think of them. Example, I am walking down the aisle of a plane, two Israelis see me coming toward them, they asked in their best English, "Are you Jeeewish?" I said what did you think I was, Danish? Yeah, we look semitic for the most part. A tribal people that have various appearances depending where in the world they are from. My Morrocian brothers are a little darker, so what? Judaism was founded at the cross-raods of Africa. But, we are not a western religion, we are an eastern religion. But yeah, it seems weird that Jews dye their hair blonde and get their noses fixed (they weren't broken, just ethnic, and that is good!).
To Tziona
We NEVER call it the old testament. There's nothing old about it, it applies today as it always did. And the converts among us are to be regarded in higher status as the Ba'al Teshuvah
Interesting and thanks!