When people ask "can Jews be Black," they are often met with a confused silence or a list of famous celebrities like Drake or Tiffany Haddish. But the reality is way deeper than just a few famous faces in Hollywood. For a lot of folks, the image of a Jewish person is stuck in a loop of Seinfeld reruns and Lower East Side delis. That’s a very specific, Ashkenazi European version of Judaism. It’s real, but it’s not the whole story. Not even close.
Jewishness isn't just a race. It’s an "ethnoreligion." That’s a fancy way of saying it's a mix of a peoplehood, a culture, and a faith. Because the Jewish Diaspora has been scattered across the globe for thousands of years, Jewish people have been living, marrying, and building communities in Africa just as long as they have in Europe.
So, yes. Absolutely. You can be Black and Jewish. You can be born into it, you can convert into it, or you can discover it through ancestral roots that go back centuries. It’s not a contradiction. It’s just history.
The Deep Roots of Black Jews in Africa
We have to talk about the Beta Israel of Ethiopia. This isn't some new movement. We're talking about a community that lived in the northern and central highlands of Ethiopia for over fifteen centuries. For a long time, they were essentially cut off from the rest of the Jewish world. They practiced a form of "Pre-Talmudic" Judaism, focusing heavily on the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) but without the later rabbinic commentaries that developed in Europe and the Middle East.
They call themselves Beta Israel (House of Israel).
In the late 1970s and 80s, the world finally started paying attention. Under the Law of Return, the Israeli government coordinated massive, secret airlifts—Operation Moses and Operation Solomon—to bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. It was a logistical miracle, but the transition wasn't perfect. Even today, Ethiopian Israelis face real struggles with systemic racism and integration, proving that even within a shared faith, skin color still impacts how people are treated.
Then you've got the Lemba people in Zimbabwe and South Africa. For generations, they claimed they were descended from Jewish ancestors who migrated from the Middle East. People scoffed. Then, geneticists actually checked. A study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics found that many Lemba men carry the "Cohen Modal Haplotype"—a genetic marker associated with the Jewish priestly class. It was a wild moment of science catching up to oral tradition.
The American Context: Why People Are Confused
In the United States, we tend to put everything in boxes. You're either this or you're that.
The confusion around whether Jews can be Black often stems from the fact that about 90% of American Jews are of Central or Eastern European (Ashkenazi) descent. Because of this, "Jewish" became synonymous with "white" in the American census and social imagination. But that’s a relatively recent development. If you go back to the early 20th century, Jewish immigrants weren't even considered "white" by the WASP establishment.
Diverse Paths to Identity
- Multiracial Families: This is the most common way the population is growing. People fall in love. A Black person and a white Jewish person have kids. Those kids are 100% Black and 100% Jewish. Period.
- The Hebrew Israelites: This is a complex one. There are many different groups under this umbrella. Some are strictly religious and don't identify with "mainstream" Judaism, while others, like the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, have deep ties to the broader Jewish community.
- Conversion: Judaism doesn't proselytize (they don't go door-to-door looking for converts), but people find their way to the faith for all sorts of personal, spiritual reasons. A Black person who converts via a Bet Din (rabbinical court) is just as Jewish as someone whose ancestors stood at Sinai.
The "Gatekeeping" Problem
Honestly, being Black and Jewish often means dealing with a lot of annoying questions.
Imagine walking into a synagogue for Saturday morning services and having the security guard ask if you’re in the right building. Or having someone ask, "How are you Jewish?" the second they meet you. It’s exhausting. This is what activists like Nadine Batchelor-Hunt and MaNishtana (the pen name of Rabbi Shais Rishon) talk about constantly. They are pushing the Jewish community to realize that "Jewish" doesn't have a specific look.
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl is a great example of this shifting landscape. She’s the senior rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York and is the first Asian-American person to be ordained as a rabbi and cantor. While she's not Black, her leadership in one of the most prominent pulpits in America has opened up the conversation about what a "Jewish face" looks like.
Science and Genetics vs. Heritage
We shouldn't get too bogged down in DNA tests. Judaism has never been purely about genetics. If you look at the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible, Ruth is a Moabite woman who joins the Israelites. She’s the great-grandmother of King David.
Judaism has always been a "big tent" peoplehood.
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The idea that you have to look like a Polish villager to be Jewish is a historical glitch. If you go to a market in Tel Aviv today, you’ll see Jews who are Black, brown, olive-skinned, and blonde. You’ll hear Hebrew, Amharic, Arabic, Russian, and English. The diversity is the point.
Real Examples of the Black Jewish Experience
Let’s look at some real-world figures who inhabit this space.
Daveed Diggs, the guy who originated the role of Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton, has a Black father and a white Jewish mother. He’s been vocal about how his identity isn't a "half and half" thing; it's a whole thing. Then there’s Rain Pryor, daughter of the legendary comedian Richard Pryor. Her mother was Jewish. She even wrote a show called Fried Chicken and Latkes about growing up at the intersection of these two cultures.
But it’s not just about celebrities.
It's about the kid in Brooklyn wearing a yarmulke and dreadlocks. It's about the grandmother in Ethiopia who kept the Sabbath for decades without ever seeing a printed Siddur (prayer book). It's about the convert in Atlanta who found a home in the rhythms of the Jewish calendar.
Actionable Insights for Understanding and Inclusion
If you’re trying to navigate this topic, whether you’re a member of the Jewish community or just an interested observer, here are some ways to approach it with a bit more nuance.
- Stop asking "How are you Jewish?" It’s a microaggression. It implies that being Black and Jewish is a riddle to be solved rather than a lived reality. If you’re curious about someone's story, wait for them to share it naturally.
- Broaden your media intake. Follow organizations like Be’chol Lashon (In Every Tongue). They do amazing work highlighting the racial ethnic diversity of the Jewish people globally.
- Acknowledge the "Jewish and..." experience. Recognize that Black Jews face a double whammy of antisemitism and racism. They don't get to "turn off" their Blackness when they enter a synagogue, and they don't "turn off" their Jewishness when they walk down the street.
- Read the literature. Check out books like The Color of Love by Marra B. Gad or the works of Carolivia Herron. These first-person accounts offer a much better perspective than any dry textbook.
- Respect the terminology. Understand the difference between Black people who are part of the global Jewish community (like Ethiopian Jews) and groups like some Black Hebrew Israelites who may have a very different relationship with mainstream Jewish identity. They aren't all the same group.
The world is becoming more interconnected, and our old categories are breaking down. The answer to "can Jews be Black" isn't just a "yes"—it's an invitation to look at history and identity through a much wider lens. Judaism has never been a monolith. It’s a tapestry. And that tapestry has always had Black threads woven into it, from the Queen of Sheba to the streets of modern-day Chicago.
To truly understand this, look at the census data from the Jewfolk Media reports or the Pew Research Center. The number of Jews of color in the U.S. is estimated to be anywhere from 6% to 15%, depending on how you phrase the question. That’s hundreds of thousands of people whose lives prove that identity is far more vibrant than the checkboxes on a form.
Step away from the stereotypes. Look at the people. That’s where the real story lives.
Key Takeaways for the Curious
- Historical Longevity: Black Jewish communities in Africa, like the Beta Israel, predate many European Jewish communities.
- Genetic Evidence: Groups like the Lemba have DNA markers that verify ancient Middle Eastern ancestry.
- Modern Growth: The Black Jewish population in the West is growing through multiracial families and conversion.
- Cultural Complexity: Being Black and Jewish is an intersectional identity that requires navigating both racism and antisemitism simultaneously.
- Institutional Change: Synagogues and Jewish organizations are increasingly working to dismantle the "white-as-default" assumption within their communities.