Ellen O’Brien | Staff Writer
In 2019, more than 400 people attended the concert “A Celebration of Spirit: Strengthening Our Common Bonds Through Music and Faith” with Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church. Photos by Joel Zolondek
As the nation reckons with a legacy of racism and weeks of protests following the death of George Floyd, local synagogues are building on the Jewish community’s relationship with Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church and its pastor, Terry E. Mackey, to let the black community know that they stand united with them.
“I know that the African American community is reaching out to say, ‘Brothers and sisters in the Jewish community … we want you with us,’” said Rabbi John Linder of Temple Solel. “And we’re going to respond to that.”
Linder attended virtual services at Pilgrim Rest on Sunday, May 31, and invited his congregation to attend with him the next week. Over 100 members of Temple Solel joined the church for services on Sunday, June 7.
Clergy from Congregation Beth Israel, including Rabbi Stephen Kahn, Rabbi Sara Mason-Barkin and Cantor Seth Ettinger, also attended services on May 31.
“It’s just incredible to feel the energy of hope and spirituality and commitment and care that that community has,” Ettinger said. “Pastor Mackey is so vibrant and I could not imagine the amount of energy and selflessness it takes to take care of the size of the flock that he does.”
With national protests against police brutality and racism continuing this week, the Jewish community is taking this moment both to offer support and to listen.
“I’m honored to have the relationship that I do with them and I know that they’re very appreciative of not only us, but I know other synagogues have reached out to them as well,” Ettinger said. “And the best that we can do is let them know that we’re there, show up on those feeds and say we are thinking of you, sending you love, and really have them educate us on how we can best advocate.”
This is not the first time that synagogues have stood in solidarity with Pilgrim Rest after the death of an unarmed black man.
“I’ve had a relationship with the Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church from his predecessor Bishop Alexis Thomas, and our congregation has been at the church on a couple of occasions, not surprisingly, in response to shootings of black men in our country,” Linder said.
Still, this moment is a new opportunity to listen, to learn and to deepen that relationship.
“This is not going to be just a flash in time reaction of showing up in solidarity, it’s got to be deeper than that,” Linder said. “I’ve got some thoughts for what that looks like, but I also am going to listen.”
Both Solel and CBI have built relationships with Pilgrim Rest through the interfaith efforts of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society.
“Members of the administrative team and executive board of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society have been working with them and developing a cross cultural and interfaith relationship with them for the past, I believe, five years,” Ettinger said.
For Linder, last year marked a turning point for the collaboration between Pilgrim Rest and the Jewish community.
“Last summer, through the leadership of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society, specifically Larry Bell, and Congregation Beth Israel, Rabbi Kahn and Cantor Ettinger, there was a beautiful gathering of the Jewish community invited to worship with the members of Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church,” Linder said. “So it’s great that the Jewish community is creating those relationships, and we need to go more deeply.”
Pilgrim Rest, CBI and AZJHS also held an interfaith concert called Sharing the Light in December 2019, featuring music for both Chanukah and Christmas.
“That collaboration was so monumental for our community as well as theirs,” Ettinger said. “We had 1,200 people there at that concert. And it lit the fire within our community that we need to go ahead and further this relationship.”
Since then, CBI and Pilgrim Rest have joined together for another concert, Songs for Social Justice, as well as the Phoenix Martin Luther King, Jr. Day March, an interfaith Shabbat service, interfaith Torah studies and an interfaith Passover Seder.
“This terrible, terrible tragedy has just highlighted the fact that this relationship came together for a reason — it was beshert, and we’re going to be together through thick and thin,” Ettinger said.
According to Linder, the current support that synagogues are offering to Pilgrim Rest right now is a reflection of the strength more broadly between the black community and the Jewish community.
“It is a strong relationship that is growing stronger over time, and not exclusively the Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church with the Jewish community,” Linder said. “There is a history of relationship and collaboration between the African American community and people of color and the Jewish community, because we share, although different experiences, we know what it’s like to be the other, and that is a common bond that we have.”
For Ettinger, the pain that the black community is experiencing right now feels personal.
“We have conversed, and we have studied together, and we are planning to go to Israel together, and we celebrated Passover and we celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah together,” Ettinger said. “Once you get to that level, it’s like our family is being hurt. And still, at the same time, if you are a white person, you will never know what it’s like to be a black person.”
And many congregations are taking the time right now to do their own introspection, Linder said.
“Within our respective congregations, I know all of my colleagues, Rabbi Dean Shapiro and Rabbi Mari Chernow and Rabbi Steve Kahn and Rabbi Jeremy Schneider and Rabbis Wasserman and Kanter, all of their congregations are engaging their members to go through a process of introspection,” Linder said. “How do we look at ourselves as a community, and how can we be involved to make sure that we are part of a solution — to understand that we’ve got to get outside of our comfort zone at times to be in relationship with people?” JN
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