Yochanan Reid a former musician who was attracted to Judaism during a difficult period in his life and converted about six years ago, said he was “a Jew first.”
“There are those who consider themselves black and Jewish and those who consider themselves Jewish,” said Mr. Reid, 29. “But, where do I live? I live where the Jews live. I speak the language that the Jews speak. You eat kosher food because you are a Jew. You dress a certain way. I am also black, but how does that define me? I am a Jew first.”
Akeda Fulcher, a family court advocate who lives in Crown Heights, said that she was a fourth-generation observant black Jew, and that new efforts at multicultural curriculums in Jewish schools helped ease racial tension among the Orthodox.
“There is nothing in the Torah that says you can’t be black and Jewish at the same time,” she said. “I think it gives my Judaism flavor. I think that my foods, my music, my dance, my struggles — everything that makes me a black woman also make me a beautiful black Jewish woman. There is no difference between the two for me. I am what God made me, and everything about me is beautiful because of that.”
MAZELTOV!
(GEE/ASIDE: I hope they were all converted - or born into - into a real part of Judaism and not some quacky pseudo-Jew pseudo-Israelite thing -- ya know: those black who claim the ancient Jews were black and who have their own cult. The NYT article doesn't really go into it, but they all seem like REAL JEWS. MAZELTOV!)
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