They celebrated Chanukah with nails in their pockets, tool belts around their waists and tape measures in their hands. Oh, and there were dreidels, too.
A group of 20 Bay Area Jews spent the week of Chanukah in Greensboro, Ala., celebrating the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem by helping to rebuild the burned-out Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church.
The 8,900-square-foot church is one of 50 African American churches in the South burned by arsonists during the past year.
“We didn’t have construction experience. There were all these lawyers and accountants. It was pretty comical,” says Abbie Wolf, associate director of the central Pacific region office of the Anti-Defamation League. Wolf staffed the trip along with Felice Sheramy, associate director of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council.
The constructionally challenged delegation did manage to wrap the church’s 30-foot plywood walls in tarpaper to protect the new structure from moisture. What’s more, they hosted a Chanukah party, educated a small Southern community about Jews and learned not only about Baptists, but also about Quakers. The national rebuilding effort is being overseen by the Washington Quaker Workcamps and Habitat for Humanity.
“It was one of the most touching weeks of my life,” says Wolf, recalling a basement church service at which Rising Star members and the Jewish contingency sang `We Shall Overcome’ together.
“I was worried it would be corny but it wasn’t. We all just cried. What a relief to know this could happen,” she says.
“I’ve been working for the ADL for four years. I guess sometimes you start feeling a little cynical when it comes to black-Jewish relations. Moments like that did more than years of dialogue groups and committees.”
Wolf and others hoped not only to help with the physical rebuilding, but also with the strain that has characterized black-Jewish ties.
After waking up at 6:30 a.m., eating at 7 a.m., praying at a morning minyan and then painting, shingling and nailing all day, the Jewish group attended Bible study with local parishioners, ate huge Southern-style meals cooked by local women and even attended a performance by local gospel choirs.
“We went to build a church and we ended up building relationships,” says Lauraine Jaeger, a Berkeley counselor.
Jaeger and her husband visited a local public school and answered questions about Judaism.
Most of the people the group met “had never seen a Jew. We were some kind of exotic foreign creature. Having them just see us as a people was very significant. They were so curious and interested,” Jaeger says.
She felt the same about the Alabamans she met, and was most fascinated by the spirituality of Rising Star members.
“Religion is a very, very important part of their lives. There was a passion, fervor, an emotional involvement in religion that was impressive,” Jaeger says.
The warm reception in Greensboro quelled the fears of participants like Gadi Meir, a senior financial consultant for Wells Fargo Bank. Meir, who used his vacation time to take the trip, was concerned that neither whites nor blacks in town would be comfortable with Jewish visitors.
“My father called and said, `Keep your head low and don’t make waves.’ But there was no animosity toward Jews at all. It was unbelievable how welcoming these people were,” Meir says.
Still, he says his impression is that “there’s a lot of work to be done” in the area of race relations. “There’s still an unexpected amount of economic inequity and injustice.” However, “if people bond together,” he adds, “one person really can make an impact.”
Participants represented several Jewish agencies, including the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Congregations Kol Shofar in Tiburon and Beth Sholom and Emanu-El in San Francisco. The S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation’s Jewish Community Endowment Fund, Feldman Foundation and Joseph and Sophie Meyer Fund underwrote the bulk of the trip’s costs.