Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, more commonly known as Beth Shalom B'Nai Zaken EHC, or simply Beth Shalom, abbreviated as BSBZ EHC, is a Black Hebrew Israelite[1][2][3] congregation and synagogue, located at 6601 South Kedzie Avenue, in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States.
[5] The congregation was started by Rabbi Horace Hasan from Bombay, India, in 1918 as the Ethiopian Hebrew Settlement Workers Association,[6] and was influenced by Wentworth Arthur Matthew's Commandment Keepers.
As is traditional with Judaism, they do not seek converts, and members must study Judaism for a year before undergoing a traditional conversion requiring men to be ritually circumcised and women to undergo ritual immersion in a mikvah.
[6] The congregation has been described as being "somewhere between Conservative and Modern Orthodox" with distinctive African-American influences; while men and women sit separately as in Orthodox synagogues, a choir sings spirituals to the beat of a drum.
[11] The congregation is currently housed in a previously existing synagogue purchased from the Lawn Manor Hebrew Congregation, a Conservative temple of Ashkenazi Lithuanian Jews at West 66th Street and South Kedzie Avenue in the Marquette Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.