Yavilah Mc Coy - Family's Adoption of Judaism

Family's Adoption of Judaism

McCoy's great-grandmother on her mother’s side, was inspired by the Bible to seek a relationship with God that did not require her to go through a white Jesus to find salvation. “So she took off the shackle of Christianity, so to speak, and took on the religion of Israel,” McCoy said. “All she had to guide her was the Bible, so my great-grandmother developed an appreciation for the ethics and morality found in the stories of the people of Israel, and her songs were the songs of David.”

The family moved to Brownsville in Brooklyn, where Jews and blacks lived side by side. She says: "As a labor union organizer, my grandfather developed friendships with Jews and began to take on Jewish practices. While raising my mother's family, he learned about kosher and observing the Jewish holidays. He would wear a yarmulke during labor actions and identified as a Jew among his colleagues. In the 1940s and ’50s, there were a number of people of color who identified with Judaism in Brownsville, many for similar reasons as those that drew my grandmother to the faith of the people of Israel in the ’20s and ’30s. When my grandfather met my grandmother, she took on his way of life and they raised my mother and her six siblings in the Brownsville community."

McCoy’s father attended an Orthodox Yeshivah and converted to Orthodox Judaism in his early 20s. He later married her mother, who converted to Orthodox observance as well. McCoy and five siblings were raised in an Orthodox Jewish home in the East Flatbush and Crown Heights areas of Brooklyn.