On My Own Terms: A Black Woman’s Experiences Navigating Judaism

Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Samiah Fulcher comes from a long line of Black people who practice Judaism. TONL spoke with her to learn about her experiences with Judaism as a Black woman. We learned about her Jewish upbringing and how she developed a personal connection with Judaism despite the challenges she faced when navigating the intersection of race and religion in traditionally Orthodox Jewish spaces.

TONL: Tell me a little bit about your ties to Judaism and what it was like practicing Judaism growing up.

Samiah: I was born into Judaism, so I'm Jewish, my mom’s Jewish, all her siblings are Jewish, and my [grandparents are] Jewish as well. I'm the third generation of folks who grew up in the Black Jewish intersections of Brooklyn, New York, specifically Crown Heights. My grandmother’s family was Christian but practiced going to church on Saturday’s similar to the 7th Day Adventists. My grandfather (grandmother’s husband) didn’t grow up in any particular faith or [religious] practice as a result not growing up in any traditional family structure. But, as a teenager, he learned from the Hebrew Israelites and studied Islam and the Old Testament in his quest for understanding. Judaism is what resonated with him and when he and my grandmother found each other, they converted and raised this really beautiful Black Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn where there weren't a lot of people that looked like them practicing Judaism.

My grandfather (grandmother’s husband) didn’t grow up in any particular faith or practice as a result not growing up in any traditional family structure. But, as a teenager, he learned from the Hebrew Israelites and studied Islam and the Old Testament in his quest for understanding. Judaism is what resonated and when he and my grandmother found each other they converted and raised an Orthodox Jewish family.

As a child, I grew up very rooted in my Judaism. I think [moving to] the South removed me from my Jewish family. But my mom tried her best to connect me with the spiritual elements and ritualistic aspects of Judaism that are good for the soul; practices like Shabbat, and the things that make being Jewish so unique to a lot of other experiences. My mom ingrained me with a different kind of love and care that my grandmother reinforced, [which was] outside of what a lot of traditionally Orthodox Jewish spaces look like.

TONL: Can you give me some specific examples of the moments in which you connected with Judaism’s spiritual practices and rituals and what that was like for you?

Samiah: [Growing up], it didn't feel like I was being exposed to something different or uncommon. As a kid, it's just your life. So, when I think about rituals like Passover, and the very intentional process of going through and retelling the story of Passover and its significance related to Jews in the modern day, I was just like, “this is what you do.” But [these experiences had] this warmth to it; this Black cultural lens affixed to it that I didn't realize wasn't inherent and how Judaism operates in like the wider world.

As direct result of the Holocaust, [a large population of people in the] Jewish Diaspora immigrated to the U.S. from Eastern Europe. And so, when I stepped outside of what felt very warm and safe and nurturing for me as far as what I saw Judaism to be in the context of my beautiful Black Jewish family was when I walked into the synagogue for the High Holy Days of Judaism. It didn't feel like home, and it was really jarring for me. You're supposed to go to a synagogue to be with other Jews and remember the stories of our religion. As a kid, to be presented with the realities of White supremacy within the underpinnings of a religious context… that didn't make sense to me.

I expected this this religion to be a beautiful introduction to God and a sense of a higher power and being for the people around you. [Those principles were] introduced to me with the same warmth and love that is inherent in the Black community, built with all the things that [Black American and Jewish people have] been through in our shared history. So, to have that pulled back walking into a space and [as a child] not realizing that I don't know the pervasive history of racism in this country and how it takes its roots the Jewish synagogue… It's hard to explain what it was like to feel that other than to just be kind of thrown outside of your comfort zone.

TONL: It is oftentimes the case that entering into majority-White institutions can be a jarring experience for people of color. I’m sure those feelings were amplified for you in this religious context, given how religion’s values of universal human rights can contrast with racism’s systemic devaluing of people who are not considered White. It also sounds like your mom and grandmother sparked your desire to engage in the spiritual aspects of practicing Judaism, despite your negative experiences with the institution of Judaism. Can you talk more about what it was like to grapple with this conflict and how that influenced your identity as a Black Jewish woman?

Samiah: Absolutely. I think that the biggest piece of that for me is my grandmother, who really fought for her kids to have access to what most Orthodox Jewish people have by default in terms of being a part of a community and having deeper ties to their religion. And it was brutal to put her kids through that. My aunts and uncles can attest to the very challenging experience of being in organized Jewish religious space.

But what she brought out of that to me and her grandkids was this deep love for connecting to something greater than you. I think that that is an inherent element of Black spirituality that I've seen in every religion. [Religion] goes beyond who specifically you name when you're praying, but just genuinely believing that [people] have to be in relationship to the universe in order to connect to other people and [themselves]. My grandmother spoke that into me for as long as she was here.

[She] reminded [me] that no one can take away the validity of my relationship with God. [This] is something that I feel like came up a lot as a young Jewish woman; being told that I'm not Jewish enough because I don't speak Hebrew fluently, or that I can't read at the same rate that everybody else does, and feeling very othered than inadequate, My grandmother [always said], “no; if you are here and there's love in your heart, and you have something that you're trying to say, and something that you want to meditate on with God, take whatever language makes sense to you and speak to him, speak to the universe, and feel that connection.” I think that is a uniquely Black thing in the context of most organized religions because our whole history [as Black people] has been working to find a connection to something beyond us at all costs, even when every means of doing that was taken away.

I'm really grateful for that; to be reminded that it is enough for me to just want to feel love and to connect with the essence of love that's out in the world, and to let that guide me more than anything else. And I feel like that being very resentful of what was otherwise a very hard space to be in and it definitely pushed me away from [Judaism] to some extent. In a lot of other cases, people would walk away from something that made them feel like they were less than. However, my grandmother is why I'm proud to say that I'm a Black Jewish woman.

TONL: How have you carried some of your grandmother’s teachings and your experiences with Judaism into how you currently navigate your life?

Samiah: One of the biggest under currents in Judaism is gratitude. There are so many holidays like Passover or Yom Kippur, and so many prayers surrounding how we gather and connect in the context of Judaism that are rooted in a gratitude and being grateful for having each other. [During these moments], you're there thinking of all of the things that you're grateful to have been able to accomplish while also thinking about all the lessons you've learned in order to live a better and more be worthy life.

The idea of [having] to find something to be grateful for is why I'm still here honestly. The last two years have been impossibly hard, and I think my connection to God and spirituality wavered a lot losing my grandmother because of how instrumental she was in helping me see how beautiful it was to feel connected to something. But to realize that, even when I think about my relationship to her, I am so grateful to have known her and to have been loved by her and to be able to have had someone encourage me to explore what it meant to feel connected to God on my own terms. She allowed my relationship to God to be very individual, because at the end of the day, that's it should be like in every religion. There's the ritual, and there's the practice. But the piece that keeps you is how you relate on an individual level to whatever it is that that God that higher being is saying to you.

And we're always about gratitude.

Written by Darren Agboh