African-American Jews

African-American Jews are people who are both African American and Jewish, whether by mixed ancestry or conversion. African-American Jews may be either Jewish from birth or converts to Judaism. Many African-American Jews are of mixed heritage, having both non-Jewish African-American and non-Black Jewish ancestors. Many African-American Jews identify as Jews of color, but some do not. Black American Jews from Africa, such as the Beta Israel from Ethiopia, may or may not identify as African-American Jews.

Caribbean Jews both became members of Ashkenazi Jewish synagogues in the United States and helped form early African-American synagogues in Harlem in the first part of the 20th century.^{[citation needed]}

Several historic Jewish congregations in the United States mention early African-American worshippers. Lucy Marks (1778-1838), who lived with and worked for the Marks family of Philadelphia, was known as a "devout observer of the precepts of Judaism" and sat in the women's section of Mikveh Israel during services. Upon her death, the Marks family successfully petitioned to have her buried in the Spruce Street Cemetery, where today she rests in an unmarked grave next to Haym Salomon. Billy Simmons (1780-1860) attended services at Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina, even though its constitution forbade converts with African ancestry from being members.

By the first part of the 20th century, at least eight different African-American run religious organizations self-identified as Jewish. Most traced or claimed connections either to the Caribbean or Ethiopia. Today African-American Jews worship both in predominantly African-American congregations and predominantly mixed congregations.

In New York City, African-American Jews have been present since colonial times, with many having Caribbean Sephardi roots. The portraits of Sarah Brandon Moses and Isaac Lopez Brandon, both born enslaved in Barbados and later living in New York City, are the oldest known paintings of Jews with African ancestry.

A Black Sephardi community existed in Harlem during the 1970s; it descended from Black Southerner slaves who had been owned by white Sephardi slave owners. In accordance with Deutoronomy Chapter 15, which implies that "bondsmen" in Jewish households should also be Jewish, Sephardi slave owners converted their slaves to Judaism. Many of the freed Sephardi slaves passed their religion on to their children and grandchildren. Birmingham wrote that "Black Sephardim are as fiercely proud of their ancient religion as white Sephardim, and consider themselves among the elite of Jewry."

Black Jews have often been erased from historical accounts of the Crown Heights riot. In 1991, Crown Heights was home to over a dozen Black Jewish families affiliated with Chabad, as well as Black Sephardi Jews. Akedah Fulcher-Eze, a fourth-generation Black Jew who grew up in Crown Heights, has stated that the riot was not a "pogrom" and that while some of the attackers were motivated by antisemitic stereotypes, antisemitism was not the only factor in the riot. According to Fulcher-Eze, they were viewed as privileged community members with deep pockets, strong political ties, and lots of protectsia from the police. "Are these classic antisemitic tropes? Yes. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a kernel of truth to them or that people didn't believe them."

The American Jewish community includes Jews with African-American backgrounds. Like their other Jewish counterparts, there are African-American Jewish secularists and African-American Jews who may rarely or never take part in religious practices.