Journal of Turkish Weekly
June 14 2009

Resolution Of Nagorno-karabakh Conflict Crucial For Tranquility In
Scaucasus Turkish Fm

Saturday, 13 June 2009

Last week, Alysa Stanton made history when she was ordained a rabbi,
becoming the first African-American woman bestowed that title by a
mainstream Jewish denomination.

A graduate of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, a
Reform seminary, the 45-year-old convert to Judaism was ordained at
the Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati on June 6. In August, she will be
installed as the new spiritual leader of Congregation Bayt Shalom in
Greenville, South Carolina.

"I am humbled and I am in awe," Stanton said of her achievement.

It was a milestone – both for Stanton and for the American-Jewish
community – that was decades in the making. "It’s been a long,
difficult journey," she said. "If someone had told me I’d be a
spiritual leader 15 years ago, I would have laughed."

Indeed, her ordination comes during a particular juncture in American
history, just months after the first African-American president took
office.

"It is of incredible importance to note that her ordination coincides
with the election of Barack Obama," the president of Hebrew Union
College, Rabbi David Ellenson, told The New York Times. "It offers a
ray of hope that the world can become a better place."

In fact, Obama’s campaign itself at times shined a light on black
Jews, namely Michelle Obama’s cousin, Rabbi Capers Funnye. The chief
rabbi of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken, an Ethiopian Hebrew congregation in
Chicago, Funnye struggled for years to be accepted by mainstream
Jewry. He was invited to speak at a white, mainstream synagogue in New
York – the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue – on the Friday night before
Obama’s inauguration. "Been a long time getting here, but I’m ready,"
he said at the time.

But if Funnye’s – and Stanton’s – experience represent progress toward
accepting black Jews, a parallel trend has taken place, as tension has
eased between the black and Jewish communities in recent years.

The two communities, whose strained relations resulted in infamous
eruptions like the Crown Heights riots during the 1990s, have warmed
to each other, according to Dr. Jonathan Sarna, a professor of
American Jewish history at Brandeis University.

"There has been a significant improvement in relations in many ways,
and I have no doubt that the Obama presidency will further improve the
situation," he said. "America has changed very profoundly. That
doesn’t mean there aren’t examples of the old racism, the old
stereotypes, but a very significant change has taken place. I think
that’s why it’s much easier to conceive of a black rabbi serving a
white congregation in the South in 2009 than might have been possible
20 years ago."

Demographers estimate no more than 2 percent of American Jews are
black or biracial. But, noted Sarna, "I do think Rabbi Stanton’s
ordination reminds us that America’s Jewish community is vastly more
diverse than we think."

BORN IN Cleveland to a Pentacostal family, Stanton was a spiritual
child who sought out religion at a young age. As early as age nine, in
fact, she called a priest to ask about Catholicism.

"It is true that I was a seeker early on," Stanton said. "I don’t know
why, but I was."

Over the years, she attended services at a Baptist church, prayed with
charismatic Christians and studied Eastern religions.

Her first introduction to Judaism came from an uncle, whom she
describes as a "world traveler," who gave her a Hebrew grammar book
that she still owns. She converted as a college student at Colorado
State University in Fort Collins, when she drove nearly 150 miles
weekly to study with a rabbi for her conversion. "Judaism is not only
a religion to me, it’s a way of life," she said.

After college, Stanton moved to Denver, where she became a licensed
psychotherapist, specializing in trauma and abuse cases. Though
learning how to chant Torah portions had made her hungry for more, she
had thought she was too old and couldn’t afford rabbinical school. "I
look back over my life and it’s like, I don’t know if you call it
providence, but the puzzles are fitting together," she said.

Stanton, a single mother to an adoptive 14-year-old daughter, said she
experienced some resistance from her friends after she converted to
Judaism; her daughter was teased when they lived in Israel because of
the color of her skin.

"A lot of my African-American friends thought I’d sold out; the Jewish
community wasn’t as accepting then, and some Christian friends thought
I had grown horns," Stanton told the Associated Press. Feeling
ostracized at times, she said, "I had to learn who I was, what my
values were, and move forward."

IN AUGUST, Stanton will be installed as the spiritual leader of Bayt
Shalom, a congregation that is affiliated with both the Conservative
and Reform movements. The temple’s members are mostly white.

"We are a one-synagogue town, so we are trying to be inclusive," the
synagogue’s president, Michael Barondes, has said. He said that while
it was "unusual" to have an African-American rabbi, Stanton’s
leadership felt "natural."

Stanton herself takes a pragmatic, nuanced approach. "I can’t speak
for all African-Americans or all Jews; I can only speak for myself,"
she said. "And I can say that as a rabbi, I want to be the rabbi of
the people. And it is my goal to lower barriers and build bridges, not
because of color, but because of the principles of fusing humanity
together. It’s not a Jewish and black issue to me, because I’m
both. Through the years, people have tried to make those things
mutually exclusive, and they are not."

Saturday, 13 June 2009

JPOST