NEWS FEATURE: African-American Jew works to aid Ethiopian Jews

c. 1998 Religion News Service ANDOVER, Mass. _ With a flowing white beard framing his crinkled face and a skull cap crowning his head, Reuben R. Parker could be typecast as a sort of biblical prophet. And he is, in a way. The 77-year old African-American Jew, who is almost totally blind, broadcasts his jeremiad […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

ANDOVER, Mass. _ With a flowing white beard framing his crinkled face and a skull cap crowning his head, Reuben R. Parker could be typecast as a sort of biblical prophet.

And he is, in a way. The 77-year old African-American Jew, who is almost totally blind, broadcasts his jeremiad to whomever will listen: Israel’s 45,000 mostly poor and illiterate Ethiopian Jews who were rescued from famine and civil war in dramatic airlifts in the 1980s and 1990s are desperately in need of help.


American Jews, he believes, have not done enough to aid the Ethiopian Jews, so the retired businessman has undertaken a one-man crusade to correct that.

“Reuben is a gadfly and there is a need for people like him,” said Barbara Ribacove Gordon, executive director of the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry in New York.

Like Parker, Gordon’s organization is among those raising concerns that the Ethiopians in Israel are fast becoming a permanent underclass in need of much help. They are generally poorly educated and live in poverty and are afflicted with a much higher incidence of AIDS than any other group in Israel.

But unlike Parker, who blames racism and discrimination for many of the Ethiopians’ problems, Gordon sees a more complex cause.

“The problems have very little to do with racism,” she said. “They have to do with the tremendous cultural and educational gap that has to be overcome. Most adults arrived illiterate in all languages and they came without technical skills.

Moreover, she said, Ethiopians cannot help their children learn the skills needed to compete in Israel’s modern economy. “They (had) never held a pencil in their hands in their lives” prior to coming to Israel, Gordon said of older Ethiopian Jews.

Parker came to be a champion of Ethiopian Jewry through his conversion to Judaism in 1947. Born in 1920 to Baptist parents in Virginia, his dissatisfaction with Christianity as a young man in the segregated South prompted him to embark on a spiritual journey.


He first became a Buddhist. Then he discovered the Jews of Ethiopia, who dated back thousands of years to biblical times when the country was known as Cush. That led him to explore and then convert to Judaism.

He said he felt great empathy for what Jews had suffered during the Holocaust. “They had nowhere to go,” Parker said, but were trapped just as his African ancestors were trapped when they were pressed into slavery.

Working from his small apartment in senior citizens’ housing in Andover,Parker has set up a non-profit organization called the House of Reuben to raise money and publicize the Ethiopians’ needs.

He sends out letters to churches, synagogues, mosques and the media _ including African-American newspapers and broadcasting outlets _ pleading on behalf of the Ethiopians. A member of Reform Temple Emanuel in Andover, which Parker also attends, donated a toll-free line (800-994-0330) for people to contact the House of Reuben.

People who know Parker describe him as indefatigable in whatever he undertakes.

“Reuben is just passionately concerned about these people and he has spent a lot of his own money for postage and things,” said Carol Gendel of Andover, who called herself “Reuben’s advocate.”

Gendel helps Parker with his bank account and letter-writing and helped him incorporate the House of Reuben.


The pair met in Encino, Calif., where they were members of the same synagogue, Temple Ner Maarav, and she was impressed by his dedication to the cause of Ethiopian Jews. When Gendel moved to Massachusetts last year, Parker retired from the cleaning products company he had founded to follow at her invitation.

Parker’s mission is to the many impoverished Ethiopian Jews in Israel, but Gendel said her mission is to help only one person, Parker.

Rabbi Aaron Kriegel of Temple Ner Maarav expressed admiration for Parker’s tenacity and spirit.

“I’ve known him for 15 years and he doesn’t stop,” the rabbi said. “Reuben is a tremendous pusher. … He had a heart operation and diabetes but he keeps on going.”

DEA END RENNER

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