CONTRACTED OPTION 2: Shabbot Shalom and Aaaaah-mein!

18 July 2009

It was the rabbi’s thunderous voice that brought us into Friday night service at Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation on South Kedzie Avenue. I had heard Rabbi Capers Funnye speak at a benefit for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs the night before. This heavy-set, regal-looking African American man had overwhelmed the room with his powerful, gospel voice, singing out across the tables and filling the room with it’s rich tones. I knew then that I wanted to go to his service. And so, we found ourselves heading into the far South side this cool Friday night to attend a rather remarkable service. Since coming into Chicago, I have become absolutely unfazed by discovering myself in remarkable situations. But as far as diversity goes, this one perhaps took the cake.

The Congregation was historic, I learned from a quick perusal of its website. It was founded as the Ethiopian Hebrew Association in 1915. When Martin Luther King Jr. was in Chicago during the Civil Rights Movement, he found shelter at the temple. It is still operating today, with one of the most diverse congregations around.

The website told me that much but as I walked down South Kedzie, I learned from Curtis a little bit about the neighborhood the congregation now sits in. Curtis works at the Southwest Youth Collaborative; a community center on Kedzie for youth growing up just South of 63^rd Street, one of the three most dangerous streets in the nation. Though today the SWYC building is covered in bright murals and has become a safe haven for kids in the neighborhood; its past tells a different story. There are photos of people throwing rocks at Dr. King Jr. from the roof of the building. The KKK used to have its center in the neighborhood and racial tensions still run high. For Curtis, a pretty preppy white kid, it’s been hard to win trust in the kids he works with. When he first started, another worker told him—“I’m brown and it took six months to get them to like me.”

We didn’t know what to expect when we arrived at the temple but what we did meet was locked doors. We wandered around a little bit hopelessly before ringing the doorbell and being let in by the Rabbi himself. We were ushered upstairs and handed over to a beautiful African-American woman wearing a sky blue skirt set with tiny mosaic mirrors. She  explained that men and women in the congregation sat separately and that head covers are expected for both men and women. Curtis donned a yarmulke and the girls wrapped their hair in lacy scarves. We were offered seats and I spent the next few minutes studying the people around me.

The crowd around me was absolutely impossible to fit into any mold. In front of me sat the beautiful woman who had welcomed us and her neighbor, a tan woman with dark locks escaping from her gypsy-style black and white scarf. There was a red-headed white woman visiting from New York and an awkward looking girl with brown hair who was looking at the University of Chicago. Behind us was a Latino family—an eleven-year-old daughter, mother and grandmother.  The men’s side was predominantly African-American but also included Curtis, the husbands of the middle-aged Latina and the red-haired visitor and the father of the girl at the University of Chicago. My favorite in the entire crowd may have been the Rabbi’s grandson—a tall, lanky, pants-sagging yet tallis-wearing guy.  I’m sure that their belief systems and reasons for coming were even more diverse than their appearances, but the surface-level differences were wide-ranging enough for books.

Rabbi Funnye entered and raised his hands and then his voice. I melted into the noise. I didn’t understand a word of the Hebrew that he spoke but I knew that the inflection was different from any other I have ever heard—the Hebrew rose and fell in African rhythms, Gospel tones.

I could have listened to the Rabbi for an eternity, but unfortunately, the congregation was often invited in. When that happened, I strained to avoid the out of tune chorus that rose around me and focus on his voice. 

The room was brightly colored with purplish walls and misty paintings of the creation. Out of a huge window, the sunset glowed pink and purple.  The Rabbi finally beckoned us forward and I rose when the congregants rose and then shared in ritual grape juice and raisin-spiced challah bread. Throughout the rest of the service, whenever a congregant was hungry, he or she would rise, walk to the front and snag a piece to munch on.

The service took a turn after bread was broken. Moving forward to sit on the edge of the altar, the Rabbi spoke in English, asking the congregants to raise any questions they might have.

Jewish people, he said, have always initiated conversations with God. They always question Him.  Even when they are called by God, they say: ‘Why me?’

 He was an intimidating presence but the woman in blue soon spoke up with a question about a Hebrew word. The conversation continued and soon, we were on the role of women. (Earlier, he had read a prayer of praise for one’s wife. I thought it was a nice gesture, though I felt like some of the things in the prayer were a little dated—while it complemented the woman; it did so for her dedication to hard work, running the house, etc.) I had also thought a little bit about the separation between men and women in the Congregation and surprisingly; I liked it. It made me feel special, mysterious, and feminine— like when women pray, there is a magic utterly different from what men experience. It was a surprising conclusion for me to come to, but true. However, the discussion was a lot more conservative than I expected. Women in the audience were talking about deferring to their husbands and while the Rabbi was emphatic in saying that that didn’t happen anymore, his definition of women’s rights were a little weird. He said, for example, that he never touches his wife’s income. She has worked for twenty years but as a man, he still believes it is his income that should pay for everything in the house. He believes that is his responsibility. Several other questions (put forward by his tall, lanky, pants-sagging yet tallis-wearing grandson) were shot down by the Rabbi.

It was after nine pm when we shook hands with those around us and wished a universal Shabbot Shalom. It was the typical Chicago center adventure: the kind where you suddenly find yourself in another world, but one that welcomes you.