c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Joshua Nelson doesn’t want to hear the Sammy Davis Jr. jokes. He’s heard them all.

“I actually used to get offended by them. People would say, `Oh, you’re a black Jew, just like Sammy Davis, right?”’ Nelson said. “That fact is that I didn’t convert to Judaism. I was born Jewish.”

Nelson is not without a sense of humor about his faith, however.

“We eat kosher collard greens; we use turkey,” instead of ham, which is forbidden in a kosher kitchen, he said with a smile.

Nelson, whose mother’s side of the family is descended from a Jewish sect in Senegal in West Africa, said people sometimes have a hard time accepting his heritage.

As a Hebrew school teacher, he wants to educate. As a singer, he wants to entertain.

Nelson did both at a recent performance at Temple Beth-El Mekor Chayim in Cranford, N.J. With his band, the Kosher Gospel Singers, he belted out his distinctive combination of traditional Jewish and gospel music for a crowd of roughly 300.

The 30-year-old singer said he takes traditional Jewish lyrics, then adds soulful gospel backup singers and gospel-style bass, drums and piano. Sing the song as you would at any black Baptist church in America, and the formula is complete, Nelson said.

“There are about 100,000 black Jews in America,” Nelson told the crowd after his song “Observant Jew,” an original on his latest album. “We try to keep the Jewish community educated that there are different Jewish cultures all over the world.”

Nelson, who grew up in Newark, N.J., and now lives in East Orange, N.J., said it was natural for him to combine his love of Judaism and gospel music into what he calls “kosher gospel.”

“Aretha Franklin took soul elements and combined it with R&B,” he said. “Jewish music is about the lyrics, not the music itself. All I’m doing is marrying black music to Jewish music.”

On his album “Hallelujah, It’s Shabbos” (Sabbath) _ which is described as “honkytonk style” on the cover _ Nelson takes traditional prayers like the “Shema Yisrael,” the declaration of faith in the unity of God, and sets them to gospel music.

During the performance, he began singing the traditional song “Hineh Ma Tov” (“Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity”). He began singing it in the traditional style, mimicking a European Jewish voice, eliciting laughter from the audience.

“Now, if you went down to some of the synagogues in Harlem, you might hear it sound more like this,” Nelson told the crowd, as band member Thaddeus Hammond played a soulful line on his upright bass.

Music critics and fans alike have said Nelson’s voice bears a remarkable resemblance to that of the late Mahalia Jackson, the great gospel singer. Jackson was a musical influence on Nelson, both when he was a child and when he performed with her longtime piano player, Eddie Robinson, in the late 1990s.

Beth El members found Nelson’s performance much livelier than their usual services. Old and young alike could be seen dancing in the aisles and clapping their hands to the beat.

“I thought it was great,” said Aviva Cohen, 22. “He really brought some energy to this synagogue that wasn’t there before.”

In addition to being entertained, Cohen learned something about her religion.

“It’s not every day that Jewish people from this community encounter Jews of different culture,” she said. “It’s good for us to interact with all Jews.”

After the show, Nelson was selling copies of his two CDs: “Mi Chamocha?” (“Who is Like You?” a hymn addressed to God after the crossing of the Red Sea) and “Hebrew Soul.”

“It feels liberating, because I know that the people are getting into the service,” Nelson said. “It does feel good to see these older generation Jews leaving with a smile on their face.”

Through his music, Nelson not only livens up what could be seen as a dull ceremony _ he said some of the traditional songs “needed help” _ he also tries to bring Jewish people of all cultures together, as they do in other countries.

“In America, I have to explain my existence,” he told the crowd. “But when I went to Israel, there are Jews of all colors.”

(Mike Karsnak writes for The Star Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

Editors: To obtain photos of Joshua Nelson, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slugÃÂ?MDSDÃÂ?

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