By Barbara Vinick
The author, Barbara Vinick, of Salem, Massachusetts, serves as the secretary of Kulanu. She is currently a research associate at Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University, a center focused on Jews and gender worldwide. She is working on a volume of stories about Jewish brides around the world, a follow-up to her book Today I am a Woman: Stories of Bat Mitzvah Around the World published by Indiana University Press.
Last year the Kulanu Board of Directors was thrilled to welcome a new board member, Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, Jr. Since 2015, Rabbi Capers has been chief rabbi of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, an organization that includes mainly Black congregations in the United States, the Caribbean, and notably Africa, where he first traveled in 2001, visiting congregations in many parts of Nigeria. Since then, he has journeyed to Nigeria periodically. Five years ago, when Rabbi Capers brought a Torah to one of those communities, he shared that “a powerful experience [was] embedded in my heart and mind,” as congregants danced with it joyfully. Rabbi Capers’ Nigerian contacts have learned about Judaism mainly through the internet, as well as his teaching when he visits and the books he brings with him. (When he first began his trips, he was surprised to see people wearing traditional black hats in the heat of Africa.) Most of the communities he works with in Nigeria, which he describes as very committed to Judaism, have not partnered with Kulanu, but presumably more of them will in the future. While disappointed that he had to cancel a trip to Nigeria this year, he asserted that “whenever the travel ban is lifted, I’ll go.”
Rabbi Capers is the spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, a 200-member merger of several former congregations located in the Marquette Park area of Chicago. Besides African-Americans, the diverse congregation — Jews for generations and new converts — includes Jews originally from Mexico and other Latin American countries, Africa, the Philippines, bi-racial couples, and Ashkenazi Jews who have adopted African- American children. He describes the congregation as a “composite of what someday the entire Jewish world will look like.” Designated as Traditional in the directory of Chicago congregations, the community uses an Orthodox siddur and women sit separately from the men, but services are egalitarian, with women able to read from the Torah and girls celebrating becoming a bat mitzvah. In fact, at his insistence, his daughter was the first girl to become a bat mitzvah in the congregation before he became its rabbi, and, he shared proudly, his oldest grand¬daughter became the most recent bat mitzvah last summer.
Born in South Carolina, Rabbi Capers became interested in religion as a student at Howard University, where he began his journey toward Judaism. He traces his interest in rabbinical leadership to a meeting in New York in 1979 with Rabbi Levi Ben Levy, the previous chief rabbi of the Israelite Board of Rabbis. “He put the idea in my head. He told me that we need young men to carry on,” explained Rabbi Capers. Enrolled in the Israelite Rabbinical Academy, Rabbi Capers studied online for the most part. At the same time, he was a student at Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago (where he also had a position as a business manager). This dual association exemplifies Rabbi Capers’ commitment to building bridges between historic white Jewish institutions and formerly marginalized Jewish communities of color.
Ordained by the Israelite Academy in 1985 and formally converted by a Conservative bet din (rabbinical court) the same year, he has been largely successful. Among a multitude of leadership positions, he is the first African- American member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and former head of the public policy committee of the Jewish Council of Urban Affairs (JCUA), a major voice for social justice in Chicago, where there has been much to accomplish. When the JCUA and other organizations brought Martin Luther King to Chicago in 1966 (coincidentally to Marquette Park near where his synagogue now stands), Dr. King was pelted with rocks and Rabbi Capers recalls that he had never felt so much hatred.
About 20 years ago, Rabbi Capers met Kulanu’s founding president Jack Zeller and current president Harriet Bograd at a meeting of the organization Be’chol Lashon, where he was its mid-west regional director. Rabbi Capers’ tenure there ended after the death of Be’chol Lashon’s founder, with whom he was close. He characterizes the invitation to join Kulanu’s board as beshert (inevitable or preordained, in Yiddish). Rabbi Capers shared, “I am extremely proud of the work that Kulanu does around the world. Harriet is totally devoted to it. My heart is warmed when I speak with her, Rabbi Barbara, Boni, Sandy Leeder, and others. They are opening the gates.”
Rabbi Capers and his wife Mary have been married for 44 years. They have four children and twelve grandchildren, including three grand¬daughters and nine grandsons. And yes, he is a close cousin of Michelle Obama (her grandfather was Rabbi Capers’ uncle). The families visited frequently as Capers was growing up, and he and his family joined the Obamas many times to celebrate Hanukkah at the White House. Kulanu is equally proud to have Rabbi Capers Funnye as a leader and representative of our organization.
Kulanu has had a rich relationship with the network of congregations affiliated with the International Israelite Board of Rabbis (www.blackjews.org), the organization for which Rabbi Capers serves as chief rabbi. Kulanu’s president first got to know members of this network of congregations at a Kulanu meeting in New York on September 10, 2001, and at a “Think Tank” hosted by Be’chol Lashon in San Francisco soon after. Since then, Israelite congregations in the New York area have hosted several Kulanu speakers and have regularly welcomed President Harriet Bograd and other Kulanu volunteers with guests from African Jewish communities at their services and other events. Their rabbis and members have also regularly attended Kulanu receptions at Harriet’s home and at film festivals, and members of their community have served as Kulanu volunteers. Robert Azriel Devine, a rabbinical student at the Israelite Rabbinical Academy of the Israelite Board of Rabbis, was chosen to serve as a Kulanu Global Teaching Fellow in the Philippines this summer, but this has been postponed because of COVID-19.