by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

December 25, 2008

On a quiet street corner in Newark, a mezuza on the Websters’ doorway was in sharp contrast to colorful Christmas decorations adorning nearby homes.

As a neighbor’s large red lightbulbs flashed the word “Noel” through their front window, the family of four sat in their comfortable living room, speaking with grace and humor about the challenges of being both African-American and Jewish.

“We keep kosher and I would say we lean toward Orthodox, but we are not Orthodox,” the father, Moriyah Webster, explained. “We turn on lights on Shabbat and we drive to shul. It’s a long walk to Oheb Shalom.”

The Websters move between two communities — their African-American neighborhood and the overwhelmingly white world at their Conservative congregation in South Orange.

“We don’t have any problems here,” he said. “I can wear my kipa and nobody cares.”

“Blacks are open-minded,” said Moriyah’s wife, Shaloma. “They are all religions.”

But the reception outside their Newark community can sometimes be less welcoming.

“If you go to a Jewish event, you stand out,” said their 16-year-old son, Yehudah.

“They ask, ‘What are you doing here?” added Keturah, his 18-year-old sister.

“There are always people who ask, ‘Why are you Jewish?” said her brother. “And sometimes, they ask that question with an attitude of, like, ‘You don’t belong’.”

The Websters converted as a family to Judaism in 2000 after Moriyah left his post as “a Shabbat-keeping Christian pastor” in the Worldwide Church of God, an evangelical denomination.

“The church went through a major change,” switching from Saturday to Sunday as its key day of worship, he said. “When that happened, a number of us left the church. I could no longer be Christian and no longer preach Christianity.”

The Websters lived in South Orange when they began attending services at Oheb Shalom. “It was a little weird at first,” said Shaloma. “People were suspicious. They wanted to know ‘Why are you here? Are you here to get a job, get a handout, anything like that? Are you serious about being Jewish?’ When they realized we were really serious about Judaism, they accepted us. It took a while.”

“We were not your typical people walking into a synagogue,” said Moriyah.

Oheb Shalom’s Cantor Rikki Lippitz agreed. “What made them rather exotic was that Moriyah arrived in full African dress,” she said. His colorful robes “made him the best-dressed guy in the whole room. They were immediately embraced because of who they are — delightful, warm people. Every member of their family is an outstanding human being, and they took on leadership roles almost immediately. ”

Moriyah is now a member of the Oheb Shalom board. “We already read Hebrew fluently, so when we came there all we had to do was learn the tunes, and we became part of the service immediately. Right away I was invited to begin reading the Torah in shul. I am a regular reader, and because of that, people are very used to seeing us.”

“We go every Shabbat,” said Shaloma. “If we weren’t there, somebody would call us to find out why not.”

Reconciling identities

To Keturah, a freshman at Brown University, “being black and being Jewish gives me a different perspective on life than your average person, but I really enjoy the differences. In college I am part of two communities, and it is hard to balance them. But when you figure out how to reconcile your two identities, it is very beneficial.”

Like his sister, Yehudah has attended the Rebecca and Israel Ivry Prozdor, a supplementary school attached to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

Yehudah has ideas of becoming a rabbi. “Somehow I feel like it is going to happen, but I am still undecided,” he said. “It is not a bad career. We will see.”

After spending the past semester in Suriname, he has already had a greater taste of synagogue life than most teens.

There, Yehudah brought youthful energy and his considerable skills as a Torah reader to the South American country’s Neve Shalom Synagogue in the oldest surviving Jewish community in the Americas, dating back to the mid-17th century. The synagogue, in Paramaribo, has some 150 Jewish families, but few attend services there. It has a self-taught cantor and no rabbi.

“They were happy to see me,” said Yehudah. “When I read, they realized it had been years since someone actually read directly from the Torah at that synagogue.

“I guess it was really emotional for them.”

The Websters are anxious that the historic synagogue survive.

“The older generation doesn’t want to change.” Yehudah said. “But it is an issue of who is fooling whom? They know they have to change with the times. They have to be flexible.”

As the subject turned to politics, all four family members said they were very pleased with the election of President-elect Barack Obama — an African-American with a white mother who, like them, navigated between two worlds.

But Moriyah had reservations. “I’m happy,” he said, “but I am worried that he will move too far to the middle.”

“He is not just the president of America; he is the president of the world,” said Yehudah. “People assume he is going to work miracles, and they may be disappointed. Things are so far gone there may be nothing he can do.”

“People tell me that because Obama won, it will throw racism aside” along with a focus on the issue, said Keturah. “I hope that is not what is going to happen; we still have a racial problem.”

“I would definitely say there have been improvements in my lifetime,” her father said. “But this country definitely has a long way to go. We have a lot of white friends from our synagogue and sometimes it is hard for a white person to understand what a black person experiences. It happens so often in so many different ways. It is so common. It is hard to explain, but right away you know it is racism.”

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