The Black Jews of Harlem

by Howard M. Brotz

After a brief, tantalizing glimpse of the practices of Rabbi Wentworth Matthew's Commandment Keepers Congregation, a small group in Harlem & Brooklyn who all themselves Ethiopian Hebrews & who strive to emulate the traditional Orthodox Jew, Brotz immediately proceeds to an interesting, if sketchy, analysis of what he considers the central dilemma for Negroes today. The horns of this dilemma he terms "accommodation" & "protest"; the former seeks to resign the Negro to segregation by finding him cultural values he can call his own, the latter seeks to break down all barriers to complete identity with the white world. Black Jews, as well as Black Muslims & Black Coptics, thus belong, roughly speaking, to the accommodating type of movement, in that they try to manufacture or appropriate an identity for themselves which can give them a measure of-self-respect. It's a thesis capable of providing some valuable insights into one of America's largest current problems, but the reader might very well wish Brotz had gone more deeply into the fascinating details of his main example.

Genres: Religion

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this sometime during college, but cannot recall exactly when. The most plausible hypothesis is that it was assigned for the Senior Seminar for Religious Studies majors at Grinnell, the most plausible assigner being Harold Kasimow, the resident expert on Judaism.