Abstract
While numbers vary depending on how survey instruments define Jewish and black and how individuals self-identify, estimates for individuals of African descent claiming a type of Jewish identity in the United States range from a conservative 90,100, according to demographer Bruce A. Phillips, to 1.2 million estimated by black Jews themselves; yet many people are surprised to discover such individuals and groups exist. Bruce Haynes’s nuanced new book, The Soul of Judaism: Jews of African Descent in America raises awareness of these often overlooked people by tracing “the history of Jews of African descent in America and the counternarratives they have put forward as they stake their claims to Jewishness” (p. 2). It provides an eminently readable contribution to the growing field of Black Jewish Studies, adding a valuable perspective grounded in contemporary sociological and retrospective ethnographic methods, while also exploring the intersections of what many often misunderstand as the competing identity narratives of blackness and Jewishness.
Not only is the The Soul of Judaism beautifully written in engaging, accessible prose, shedding scholarly light on the individuals and groups at the nexus of these narratives, it also provides a wonderful introduction to the complexity of Jewish, self-identifying black Jewish, Black Jewish, Hebrew, and Israelite identities and experiences for those heretofore unfamiliar with them. Haynes does a wonderful job delineating the differences and similarities among the various groups while also accounting for their historical origins and spheres of influence. In doing so, his work shines scholarly light on the individuals and groups at the nexus of these narratives. For those already aware of these different groups, the book offers an insightful, in-depth discussion of the interactions among them and of the way these interactions fit within larger historical, social, and political trends in the United States. Not since James Landing’s 2002 field-building tome Black Judaism has such a comprehensive account of the varieties of self-identified black Jewish, Black Jewish, Hebrew, and Israelite identities and experiences been published.
Grounding his study in Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s concept of racial projects, or “the dynamic between the meanings one attaches to race and the distribution of social resources in accordance with those meanings” (p. 9), Haynes argues that the “challenges of Black Jews to rabbinic hegemony—through biblical exegesis and the reinterpretation of key terms, verses, and passages—can be seen as a competing racial project to redefine the role of blacks in world history and to claim the favored status of the chosen people” (p. 9). In other words, his book “uses the case of black Americans who embrace Jewish identity to argue for a more fluid relationship between race and ethnicity than has generally been appreciated and to demonstrate how racial projects emerged within the context of religion” (p. 10). Perhaps most importantly for the individuals who make these claims, “the counternarratives employed by Jews of African descent call attention to their agency and their ability to reassert their humanity and worth as people of the book” (p. 10).
Drawing on 25 interviews conducted between 1998 and 2003 with 13 men and 12 women, the book engages in retrospective ethnography by combining “macrolevel historical analysis with microlevel oral histories” to “shed light on larger dynamics between race and faith and how historically situated subjects use race as a meaningful descriptor of both religious experience and meaning” (p. 21). Haynes extends the racial project concept to helpfully account for the ways it can help to claim intangible resources such as “social recognition, religious legitimacy, or a new narrative framework” (p. 22) by enabling those who participate in them to cultivate “acceptance, legitimacy, and self-affirmation” (p. 27). While novel, the argument about religion as a type of racial project is a bit overshadowed by the excellent social and political history Haynes provides to contextualize the fascinating excerpts drawn from the interviews themselves. The richness of the interviews and the meticulous detail of the context, however, make this book well worth reading. In fact, it’s an ideal text to assign in both undergraduate and graduate courses because of its jargon-free style and the multilayered histories he provides for Jews, blacks, Black Jews, Hebrews, Israelites, self-identifying black Jews, and black-Jewish relations.
The introduction traces relations between blacks and Jews in the United States from the nineteenth century to the contemporary moment, establishes the racial project framework, and explains the book’s methods as well as the challenge of accurately counting Jews of African descent. Chapter One, “Jews, Blacks, and the Color Line,” provides a detailed history of race, its evolving social scientific discourse, and relations between Jews and African Americans in the United States that would provide essential reading for a variety of courses in American, Jewish, and African American Studies.
Chapter Two, “Black to Israel,” focuses on the Beta Israel, a group of Ethiopians from Gondar who claim to be descendants of the ancient Israelites. He explores the way their existence complicates the racial boundaries western scholars attempt to draw between Europeans and Africans and among Africans. Haynes also demonstrates how racial logics attempt to accomplish contradictory ends, first arguing that the Beta Israel’s blackness made their Jewishness impossible, then that their Jewishness made their blackness impossible.
Chapter Three, “Black-Jewish Encounters in the New World,” focuses on the interactions of African and Jewish diasporas in the Caribbean and the establishment of the first Black Hebrew and Israelite communities in the United States. Chapter Four, “Back to Black,” focuses on terminology and the way the key identity terms “Jew,” “Hebrew,” and “Israelite” become powerful rhetorical tools to write, redefine, and reinscribe identity boundaries. He interprets the challenges Black Hebrews present to rabbinic hegemony by reinterpreting key biblical narratives, terms, and passages as a competing racial project to “redefine the role of African peoples in world history and lay claim to a chosen status” (p. 26).
Chapter Five, “Your People Shall Be My People,” highlights the experiences of black converts to normative Judaism (both those who identify with mainstream Judaism and those Black Hebrews who wish to connect with broader Jewish peoplehood) and shows how their experiences counter the Pauline conversion narrative (which suggests conversion is inspired by a single life-changing experience) by calling attention to the important role other elements—such as their spiritual connection to Judaism or their beliefs that they have Jewish ancestors—play.
Chapter Six, “Two Drops,” and Chapter Seven, “When Worlds Collide,” focus on the experiences of biracial Jews, specifically their unique identity claims and insider/outsider status within two minority groups in the United States. The latter focuses on the deterioration of U.S. black-Jewish relations, drawing on interviews conducted during their nadir. The conclusion focuses on the growing population and importance of self-identified black Jews globally and the expanded notion of racial projects that accounts for both material and immaterial needs.
Overall, I highly recommend the book for its deft weaving of multiple narratives and counternarratives, its elucidation of the varying groups of African descent in the United States claiming some type of Jewishness, and its unique consideration of religious experience as a type of racial project that can offer immaterial benefits for its participants. Given the recent rise in anti-Semitism across the globe and the spike in anti-Jewish violence in New York, this work seems especially timely and necessary. It helps to illuminate shared narratives; but perhaps more importantly, it shows how narratives and identities evolve and change over time in response to circumstances, thus providing new opportunities for remaking them.