Sabbath Eve services were held at Bayis Ha Tafelo (House of Prayer) on Friday evening at 30 West 129th Street by The Commandment Keepers, otherwise known as “Black Israel.”
Led by Rabbi A. W. Matthew, Algerian shepherd of Harlem’s flock of dusky Jews, the service embraced the psalm-singing of the Baptist Church, the litanies of the Roman Catholic Church, the chant of the African Jungle, the jazz of America, and orthodox and reformed practices of the Hebrew faith.
Approximately forty members of the congregation, two-thirds of them men, assumed their places with their yarmelkes adjusted at 7:30 p.m. The purple cloth with the Star of David turned to the congregation was thrown over the pulpit and Christian insignia were removed from the room (the hall is rented on Wednesday nights and all day Sunday by the African Methodist Episcopal Church and on Friday nights and all day Saturday by Rabbi Matthews and his followers). Charters of a number of Negromystic orders remained on the walls of the hall during the service.
Brother Campbell, who recently moved to Brooklyn, was late for the service, so the congregation waited. During the interval the congregation read bibles and Hebrew prayer books, exchanged petty gossip, and hummed sacred hymns and modern melodies.
CORNET ACCOMPANIMENT
At length Brother Campbell arrived, and Rabbi Matthew assumed the pulpit. “I guess we better sing a few selections,” he said; and one woman in the congregation immediately responded, “Brothers, let’s have 322.”
The woman who sat at the piano, which remained unplayed, took up her cornet, tested its quality with a few piercing blasts, and began 322, with the congregation following close behind. The voices were excellent. Before the end of the hymn, however, the cornet player slumped exhausted in her seat, but the rest of the worshippers carried on.
The hymn had scarcely been concluded before another member of the congregation called out, “Brother, let’s have 178.” As the people turned the leaves of their hymnals, Rabbi Matthew called out, “Lord, the next selection is commencing,” and suiting action to the word, the congregation burst out into full-throated, full-hearted praise of the Lord God of Sabbath. Toes best time on the floor, hands slpped out the tempo on prayer books and hymnals, and befor the second hymn was finished the clapping and stamping grew into a roar like the tomtoms of the jungle. Perspiring and happy, the worshippers brought their song to a close with “Alleluljah, Oh, Lord,” “Amen”, and “that was good, that was good, that was refreshing to the soul.”
Then there was a litany in Hebrew which Rabbi Matthew read perfectly with a slight Arabic accnt. His congregation responded for the most par in pure Hebrew, which Rabbi Matthew later explanined to the reporter he had taught many of them. Prayer shawls, some of them neatly mended where they had been torn, and all of them spotlessly clean, were cast over their shoulders at the beginning of the lttany.
Hitler became the topic for the leature delivered by Rabbi Matthew, and under the spirited discourse the German chancellor received one of the finest verbal thrashings ever dealt out from any pulpit. The rabbi, beginning in a cultured voicce which reflected his years of training at divinity schools and colleges, soon lagsed into the vernacular of Harlem, into the language of southern revivalists.
WORK A FEW CHARMS
“I don’t know,” He said, “I don’t understand how that man Hitler can remain in power with all the Jews and all the synagogues there are in German rabbis turn loose some of his amuletic powers on him, why don’t he?, I say. If we had a Hitler in this country, we wouldn’t waste much time in working a few spells on him, would we, brothers? (“That’s right, brother, wouldn’t waste no time,” the audience responded).
“Give this Hitler man plenty of power, Oh Lord,” exclaimed the rabbi, hands high over his head, “Give him power. Power is what he wants. Give him enough power to hang hisself, Oh Lord. (Here both the congregation and the rabbi broke off in a frenzied laught.)
“We have seen other men who wanted to tread on the Jews. Yes, sir. But their day is come and gone. And they are forgotten. Brother Washington, where is Vespasian? (In Hell, brother Matthews.) Sister Jones, where is Bismarck? (He’s there, too.) Where are all transgressors of God’s law, brother Allen? (They’s all in Hell, all in Hell.) And where is this man Hitler going? Where is he going? I say.”
The congregation responded ensemble, “He’s agoint’ to Hell, too.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
