Arnold Josiah Ford is recognized by some as the first Black rabbi in the United States. While that fact has been debated, Rabbi Ford is recognized as a pioneering figure in America’s Black Judaism movement.
Ford was born in Barbados on April 23, 1877. His father was Nigerian, and his mother hailed from Sierra Leone. Ford’s parents exposed him early on to the arts, most specifically music, with hopes of him following that as a career. Ford joined the British Royal Navy and was enlisted in its music corps, touring to different ports and performing around the world.
After leaving the Navy, Ford found himself in America in 1910 right as the music scene in Harlem was beginning to blossom. Ford joined a jazz band and became a known fixture in the Harlem musical community. However, it was a series of meetings with Jamaica-born Black nationalist Marcus Garvey that would inspire Ford to embrace Judaism openly.
Ford worked for Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association as its music director, and created several songs, including the co-authoring the “Universal Ethiopian Anthem.” Via the UNIA, Ford was introduced to Ethiopian Jews and which moved him to recall his childhood teachings that Black people were directly related to the Jewish people.
As the UNIA began to dissolve after Garvey’s arrest and conviction, Ford focused on opening a synagogue in Harlem and spreading the Judaic tradition. Ford declared himself a rabbi and opened Beth B’Nai Israel at a storefront.
As Ford grew in the faith and expandedhis membership, the synagogue was renamed Beth B’Nai Abraham. The white Jews who frequented the area observed Ford’s practices and even praised his authenticity but fell short of recognizing Ford as a rabbi.
Ford created a business venture via the synagogue that focused on real estate and other ventures, but the realities of The Great Depression in 1930 would prove to be its undoing. With his business bankrupt, Ford accepted an invitation from the Ethiopian government to emigrate to the African nation.
Ethiopian leader Haile Selassie granted several Blacks hundreds of acres of land, which Ford and several other Black Jews lived out the rest of their days on, devoted to their faith.
Ford passed in 1935.
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