Sons of Abraham

Sabbath With Providence's Israelite Church

By Andrew Fox

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For the first seven years of his life, William Z. Scott, now sixty-two, lived in a coldwater flat on Bergen Street in Brooklyn, New York. A coal stove provided warmth and the sole means of heating bath water. "You ever see that show The Jeffersons?" he asks me, his words measured and low, "Well, we moved on up to the housing projects." Hot water, a refrigerator - these amenities were novel to the Scott family in 1950, who had just enough money scraped together to avoid destitute poverty.

For William Scott and his family, a spiritual community took life in the First Tabernacle of Brooklyn, a local congregation of the Church of God and Saints of Christ. It was those long services, starting at around 9 in the morning and sometimes, in the summer months, not stopping until 10 at night that kept him out of trouble and into a "righteous community." The choir would bellow psalms, clapping and swaying the gospel praises, the stately women elders would teach lessons on morality, and in between songs the Elder would command the attention of the congregation with broad gesticulations, the tassels of his prayer shawl moving rhythmically while he preached from Torah.

You Won't Find Jesus In This Church

The Church of God and Saints of Christ is the oldest and most prominent African American religious organization that recognizes the tenets of Judaism. Since its inception over one hundred years ago, the Church of God, which has its base of operations at Temple Beth El in Virginia, has grown to become an international presence, with fifty tabernacles in the United States and almost as many in Africa. Providence's local congregation, over which William Scott presides as Elder, is turning 100 this year.

Arriving at the Tabernacle, which is an innocuous, white rectangular building a couple of blocks from where Cranston Street begins, it seemed to me as though anything remotely civic—a basketball court, a public pool, a game of bingo populated by intensely competitive octogenarians—could have transpired within those walls. There were no obvious signs of Judaica beyond a singular Star of David affixed to the edifice; from inside the chain link fence surrounding the building I could see cracked sidewalks and decaying brick buildings that made clear that the Tabernacle was an island.

Those who follow the faith call themselves Israelites. "Aren't those the militant guys who protest in Times Square?" many would ask me as I began to talk about venturing to a service. Having spoken to Rabbi Scott over the phone, however, it was evident to me that this assumption was blatantly wrong - at least in Providence. "Militancy and religion to me don't make sense," says Elder Scott, "this congregation has always been warm."

Personally, I'd grown up going to synagogue in a typically perfunctory way. I found the experience entirely unmoving despite a couple of years of studying Hebrew and the retinue of prayers every kid was set to learn. Old men in grey suits and their wives, clothed in designer fineries, mumbled gravely, and made even the most joyous hymn into a dour rumble. It was evident from the first moment of entering the tabernacle that mumbling through songs was entirely impossible. In front of the two pulpits, or bema, as they're called in Hebrew, sat the choir, robed in white suits and dresses. Every moment of the service was punctuated by their resplendent harmonies, sung with bellowing, tremulous voices: "I just can't stop praising his name; I just can't stop praising his name!"

The congregation, perhaps thirty in all, swayed and stamped their feet in unison with the powerful gospel sonorities resounding in the ample hall. Elder Scott, abandoning the glib and grandfatherly tone with which he spoke with me over coffee, saluted the congregation emphatically. "All hail! Is it well with thee?" he asked, the congregation responds "All's well!" During song, the elder men, sitting at the side of the stage, let out booming contrapuntal bass notes, often responding to the call of the choir: "Oh Israel, Oh Israel!"

It All Started With A Dream

On September 13, 1892, a Guthrie, Oklahoma farmer by the name of William Saunders Crowdy had a dream in which, Israelites believe, the divine revealed itself. The corpulent and mustachioed Crowdy, a former slave, began to preach in the streets of Guthrie, proselytizing a faith based essentially on four simple principles: that a singular, transcendent God exists; that God continues to raise up prophets; that the Ten Commandments are the essence of ethical belief; and that one should follow the teachings of Leviticus 19:18—"thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

A magnanimous and compelling orator, Crowdy was nonetheless arrested time and time again for his street preaching before formerly establishing the Church of God in Kansas in 1896. The congregation in Kansas at this time was predominately white, but as the faith spread, African American populations, eager for a ballast of faith in the tumultuous post-Reconstruction era, were the primary subjects of conversion. Nine years later, Israelite missionaries made their way up to Providence, establishing a small population of worshippers whose descendants, familial and spiritual, comprised the congregation with whom I sat. Along with the physical growth of the faith throughout the last century, its spiritual practices grew as well, adopting more and more of the terminology and holidays of Judaism mid century.

Crowdy's name was all over the service - the choir, in fervent tones, sang: "When I hear the name of the Prophet Crowdy, I am rejoiced!" His great grandson, Elder Jehu August Crowdy, Jr, has a reserved parking space at the entrance to the Tabernacle. It was clear, however, that he was seen as a prophet and not as divinity - no one bent down on their knees in his praises, or spoke of him as if he were a 'replacement Jesus'. The service was indeed very Jewish in its theological foundations, combining the doctrinal ethics of Judaism with the more performative and engaging aspects of a Southern Baptist church.

The practice is almost entirely song based and therefore clapping, stomping, and wailing dominate the three-hour Saturday morning service. Each song is a translated psalm or hymn from both the Old and New Testament—both of which the Israelites recognize as sources for Judaic thought—in translation and arranged in the gospel style. Writing cannot connote the feeling of a gospel choir, of a spectrum of belting voices singing together in praise; it was clear that no one in the room had to try and feel spiritual. The spirit and warmth was in the music.

Who Then, If Not Jews?

The Israelites consider themselves part of a dynamic tradition of Judaism, adhering to a core of biblical Judaic faith while adapting the religion for their cultural needs. "The gospel according to Jesus is Judaism," said Elder Scott, "I am not afraid of the gospel." And yet while adhering to a core of Jewish beliefs, chief among them covenant theology and maintaining the Sabbath, the Israelites do not consider themselves Jews per se, and conduct their services entirely in English. "Are you a Jew," I asked ElderScott directly. He paused, bending his head towards me as he said: "I am an Israelite - connected to the faith of Abraham. The Jews are from the kingdom of Judah - we trace our roots from before that. "

The African Diaspora has, historically, borrowed from the imagery of the Jewish Diaspora to describe the plight and difficulties in Afro-American experience. Pop culture is saturated with these references. The song "By the Rivers of Babylon" as sung by reggae icon Jimmy Cliff, for instance, is an adaptation of Psalm 137: "by the Rivers of Babylon, where we sat down, there we wept, when we remembered Zion." Similarly, Israelites explain their connection to Judaic past through a Diasporic metaphor: they are the lost thirteenth tribe of Israel.

Mainstream Jewry does not recognize the Church of God as a Jewish organization: Israelites don't sing in Hebrew, read from the Torah directly, or have the same cultural history of liturgical study and debate. They do, however, celebrate the major holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Passover, Yom Kippur and Sukkoth, which are all mentioned in the Old Testament. As a cultural and not overly religious Jew, I felt that I was sitting in the midst of a strange contradiction: a service that was both incredibly familiar in its terminology and symbolism and incredibly alien in its practice (much like the way that the North African Jews are culturally entirely distinct from Eastern Europeans). Despite all that, I connected to the ripe spirituality of the service. It struck me that the Tabernacle stood alone in Providence's Judeo-Christian community, incommensurate with both synagogues and churches, and struggling to reach out to a community that desperately needs services like drug counseling, daycare, and innumerable others.

Remember The Sabbath Day

AT THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET, MIMING THE CALL OF THE SHOFAR, THE SERVICE ENDS, AND THE CONGREGATION GREETS EACH OTHER WITH CALLS OF "HAPPY SHABBAT, I LOVE YOU." AFTERNOON LIGHT CUTS THE AIR OF THE SERVICE HALL AS I HURRY TO CATCH UP WITH RABBI SCOTT.

After the congregation clears, Rabbi Scott stands behind the pulpit and shows me a passage from Isaiah 58:13-14, from which he had sermonized: "if you honor [the Sabbath]. I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob." He stressed that the spiritual connection found in Jewish teachings is one that can be reduced to a personal connection with God. Maintaining the Sabbath, to the Israelites, is the essence of that connection, both to God and to Judaism. "We've had many members fired from jobs because they refuse to work on Saturdays," he explained, "because they know that above all, maintaining the Sabbath is central to the faith."

I leave the Tabernacle with dozens of questions on my mind, and I wonder if, having been to themed bar mitzvah after themed bar mitzvah in my youth, I had missed the point of Judaism. After all, what makes a Jew? Is it the cultural connection to isolated populations of Europe and North Africa? Or is it just a simple adherence to the teachings of Torah? Regardless of the answer, I will sing with the Israelites any day of the year.

Andrew Fox B'06 wants to sing your praises.

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