Capers Funnye Jr. was born in 1952 in Georgetown, South Carolina in the Low Country, with paternal ancestry among the Geechee people (or Gullah) of the Sea Islands.
There he got to see more of his mother's extended family in Chicago, including future First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama, his first cousin once removed.
[5] Dissatisfied with Christianity during his college years at Howard University and influenced by movements for civil rights and black nationalism, he investigated other religions, including Islam.
[6] This group has its roots in the Commandment Keepers Congregation of the Living God, founded in 1919 by Wentworth Arthur Matthew in Harlem.
[7] After Matthew's death in 1973, there had been little dialog with white Jewish congregations, who disagreed with Black Hebrew Israelite claims of historic descent from ancient Israel.
[1] In 1985, Funnye was selected as assistant rabbi at Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago; with 200 members, it is now one of the largest black synagogues in the United States.
These include the Beta Israel in Ethiopia, which are formally recognized by Israeli authorities as Jewish, and the Igbo Jews in Nigeria, which are not.
[10] Funnye's current congregation was founded by Rabbi Horace Hasan from Bombay (now Mumbai), India, in 1918 as the Ethiopian Hebrew Settlement Workers Association.
Along with African Americans, members include Hispanics and whites who were born Jews; the majority of the congregation has converted to Judaism.
[13] In 1995, Funnye was a co-founder, with Michelle Stein-Evers of California and Robin Washington of Boston, of the National Conference of Black Jews.