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| Black Rose Spiritual Center, Inc : Belief Systems |
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| Basic History Judaism is the oldest of the three major western religions, and is the forerunner of both Christianity and Islam. The history of Judaism is well known, chronicled first in the Bible and later in rabbinic literature, and is a matter of intense interest within contemporary Jewish studies. Judaism reflects a certain unanimity among its various groups in terms of organization, beliefs, and requirements. In many instances, differences are a matter of degree rather than of substantial disagreement. Nevertheless, Judaism has not escaped the general differentiation within religious communities which has become a fact of life in the modern West. The three largest groups within Judaism are the Conservative, Orthodox, and Reform bodies. These three groups have generally been seen as the major Jewish "denominations." Each is well organized around congregational and rabbinical associations, and traditionally Jewish military chaplains have been apportioned between them. One other group, the Reconstructionist Jews, have been the most successful in challenging the dominance of the three older forms of Judaism and have seen themselves as a fourth separate branch of Judaism. Within the three largest groups there also subdivisions. There are liberal and progressive Jews who remain outside of the Reform structures and there are important differences within the Orthodox community between those of European dissent who follow the Ashkenazic rite (from Jeremiah 51:27) and those of Spanish Portuguese dissent who follow the Sephardic rite (from Obadiah 20). On either end of the spectrum are the Humanistic Jews, who have proposed a non theistic form of Judaism and the Hasidic Jews, Orthodox Jews who follow a mystical tradition which had its greatest flowering in Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century. Of the many Hassidic Jews, the Lubavitchers have the largest following. In spite of differences within the community, Judaism has attained a relative stability within American society in terms of basic beliefs and |
| Jewish Groups |
| practices, and most American Jews will be identified with the traditions represented in this section. Quite apart form the developing Jewish community in the United States, in the nineteenth century American blacks began to identify strongly with Judaism out of their experience of oppression from what was perceived as a white Christianity. By the end of the century a few black leaders arose who began to say that they were Jews and that black people were the true Jews depicted in the Bible. Their contention was furthered by the rediscovery in the West of the Falashas, the black Jews of Ethiopia. Thus throughout the twentieth century groups have arisen who melded black aspiration for participation in American society with self identification as Jews. In many of these groups, Jewish and Christian elements came together in a complex mixture as reflected in the name of one of the most successful groups, the Church of God and Saints of Christ. Such groups, mostly small and located in centers with the predominantly black neighborhoods of major urban areas have fought for some recognition from the Jewish community, but except for a few who went through formal conversion processes, have not been accepted. The Black Hebrew Israelite Nation is such a group. It received international publicity when a group of its members moved to Israel and tried to claim settlement privileges under the law of return. As a whole, however, these groups have remained on the edge of both the black and the Jewish community. |
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