African-American Jews

[citation needed] Several historic Jewish congregations in the United States mention early African-American worshippers.

Upon her death, the Marks family successfully petitioned to have her buried in the Spruce Street Cemetery, where today she rests in an unmarked grave next to Haym Salomon.

[5] Billy Simmons (?-1860) attended services at Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina, even though its constitution forbade converts with African ancestry from being members.

African-American Jews belong to each of the major American Jewish denominations—Orthodox, Conservative, Reform—and the smaller movements as well, such as Reconstructionist or Humanistic.

The responsa describes the conversion of African-Americans to Judaism as a "troublesome situation", because a "Negro becoming a Jew subjects himself to double difficulties."

Freehof wrote that he would discourage an African-American man who wanted to marry a Jewish woman "For the sake of their happiness", but would not refuse.

[28][29] The congregation was started by Rabbi Horace Hasan from Bombay (now Mumbai), India, in 1918 as the Ethiopian Hebrew Settlement Workers Association,[30] and it was influenced by Wentworth Arthur Matthew's Commandment Keepers.