Also Chosen: Jews in the Imagination and Life of a Black Sanctified Church

Abstract

"The Church," an unaffiliated sanctified community, was founded in Philadelphia between World Wars I and II by participants in the Great Migration of Blacks from the rural South. Generally lacking in specialized labor skills, they arrived in Philadelphia at a time when industry was shifting to the suburbs. Founding members who referred to each other as "saints" settled in the inner city, and most worked for, or were clients of, Jews. Yet, in spite of the middleman role of Jews in their community, the saints shared positive sentiments toward Jews, invoking them as role models of success.This article investigates the subversion of potential anti‐Semitism by assessing the interplay of sociohistorical conditions of urban migration with the belief in chosenness held by the saints. For the founding saints, salvation came through Jesus Christ; but it also came by the law, which they interpreted to include selected Levitical laws. Thus, they believed that they were effectively "grafted" into a contractual relationship with God, similar to the covenant God had with ancient Israel. Like the Jews, the saints saw themselves as chosen, and through compliance with divine law they would be blessed in every aspect of life.Being chosen was also associated with holiness effected by separation from "The World." This socially distanced the saints—already physically distanced from their southern communities—from the larger Black community that could have provided Black role models. Jews, who were visibly successful, filled this gap. Feeling just as chosen as Jews, the saints harbored less anti‐Semitic resentment. As both groups shared the same love and bounty of the law, the boundaries between the saints and "Jews as other" were blurred.