Black Rabbi Chants Kaddish To Mourn Chicagoans Killed By Police
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Sam Kestenbaum April 4, 2017
During a community meeting on police accountability in Chicago, a prominent African-American rabbi read the names of individuals killed by the police and chanted the traditional mourners kaddish in Hebrew.
Rabbi Funnye, @JCUA_News Pres, reads names of Chgoans killed by police, chants mourner’s kaddish. #ReformCPD pic.twitter.com/FR4HtRJ16i
— Aryeh Bernstein (@aryehlou) April 2, 2017
Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, was speaking at a community event hosted by the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, where he is also president. More than 200 gathered on Sunday at KAM Isaiah Israel, Chicago’s oldest synagouge, to address police reform and violence in Chicago, according to social media reports.
A member of Funnye’s largely black congregation named Cydney Wallace also took the stage and said she lived in “constant tension” because of police.
Funnye was ordained at the Israelite Academy, a rabbinical school for Hebrew Israelites and is now chief rabbi of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis. Funnye is also cousin to former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected]
"Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief"
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
