Tribute to Rabbinet Leana (Leah)Yahonatan

Rabbinit Leana (Leah ) Yahonatan
7 December 1926 – 17 November 2020

By
Rabbi Sholomo Levy

Rabbinet Leana (Leah) Yahonatan was a woman of valor and a distinguished leader among the Black Jews of the United States. She was born on December 7, 1926, in Laurinburg, North Carolina, and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were people of abiding faith who raised Leah and her six brothers and one sister, Helen Briston, to love God and value education. As a child, she was precocious, studious, and fearless. She graduated from Girls’ Commerical High School and then went on to study at the New York University School of Commerce (now Leonard Stern School of Business).

In the late 1940s, Leah attended a youth conference where she sang in the choir. Her future husband, Rabbi Yhoshua Ben Yahonatan, was smitten by Leah from their first encounter. He had recently received an honorable discharge from the United States Navy and moved to New York City. He appreciated Leah’s regal beauty, soft voice, and keen mind. She admired his stature and dignity. They were married in 1950 and would enjoy a fifty-eight-year partnership. God blessed them with a lovely daughter, Rebecca, who followed in her parents’ footsteps.

Around 1951, Leah had the good fortune of meeting Mother Johnson, a member of Commandment Keepers Congregation in Harlem. She began attending services there and encouraged her husband to join her to hear Chief Rabbi W.A. Matthew teach about the African origins of the Biblical Israelites. They became members of the congregation. Soon they were invited to join the Masonic lodge of the congregation called “The Royal Order of Ethiopian Hebrews, Sons and Daughters of Culture, Inc.” Sometimes they would be at the synagogues several days a week for religious services or Hebrew classes that were taught by Mother Judith.

When Yhosua Yahonatan entered the Ethiopian Hebrew Rabbinical College to begin training to become a rabbi, Leah also enrolled in the women’s program. Together they studied history, Torah, Talmud, and a form of Jewish mysticism called Kabbalah that were taught by Rabbi Matthew and his faculty. Rabbi Yahonatan graduated in 1965.  Leah said, “I never wanted to become a rabbi.” Instead, Rabbi Matthew ordained Leah and other women to be teachers.  He said, “these women will assist in the work of reviving the Children of Israel.”

Rabbi Matthew came to trust and rely on Leah. She became an officer of the congregation and served as its secretary for many years. She was a personal assistant to Rabbi Matthew. She handled much of his correspondence, dealt with the media, and organized many of his speaking tours throughout the United States and Canada. Leah’s organizational skills and insistence on proper order and etiquette were highly respected. These qualities—which she expected in others—were equally evident in every aspect of her dress and demeanor.

After her daughter, Rebecca, was born, Leah learned to balance her duties as wife and mother with her growing responsibilities within the Commandment Keepers Congregation. She accomplished all of this while simultaneously working as an administrator with several federal government agencies for 27 years.

In 1972, Leah helped her husband found Beth Ha-Tefilah Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Saint Albans, New York. They intended for their congregation to be an affiliated chapter of Commandment Keepers and it was opened with Rabbi Matthew’s blessing. As the first lady of this congregation, she earned the title “Rabbinet.” During an interview, she explained that a rabbinet is far more than the wife of a rabbi. She said, “The rabbinet or rabbitzen is often the rabbi’s hands and ears—sometimes she is even his voice in certain matters.” Leah’s activities and influence extended well beyond the Black Jewish community. She was an ambassador who represented Black Jews throughout the world.  Leah was a member of Hadassah, the women’s Zionist Organization of America. She was instrumental in getting Black Jews admitted into the Solomon Schechter Schools and other yeshivahs. She assisted Rabbi Hailu Paris and Rabbinet Martha Poinsett with Hatzaad Harishon and participated in numerous forums that were intended to bring about greater understanding and acceptance of the racial diversity that exists within Judaism. And even after they founded their congregation, Leah was a welcomed presence at Mt. Horeb, Bnai Adath, Beth Shalom, and Beth Elohim.  The Yahonatans were highly respected wherever they traveled–particularly when visiting Chief Rabbi Funnye and Rabbi Richard Nolan in Chicago. Following the death of Rabbi Matthew, the Yahonatans joined Rabbi Levi Levy—who they had known at Commandment Keepers since the 1950s—in establishing the International Israelite Board of Rabbis and the Israelite Rabbinical Academy.

When the Yahonatans moved to Mt. Vernon, New York, in 1978, they continued to operate Beth Ha-Tefilah Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation from their spacious home. They also founded the Ethiopian Hebrew Israelite Council.  Rabbi Kohain Nathanyah Halevi, a native of Mt. Vernon and a protégé of Rabbi Yahonatan, invited Leah to teach Hebrew at the Bereshith Cultural Institute, a private elementary school that served local residents. Education had always been Leah’s guiding star; but, the education of women and education by women was imperative. As she often quoted,  “The hands that rocks the cradle rules the world.”

There was a special place in Leah’s heart for children with handicaps and differently-abled adults. For this reason, she became a foster parent and a member of the New York State Family Care Providers Association. She rose to become president of  Chapter No 28 of the Westchester-Bronx Family Care Providers.  In these roles, she was the recipient of service merit pins, plaques, awards, and proclamations.

Rabbi Sholomo Levy invited Rabbi and Rabbinet Yahonatan to teach Hamadrick and public speaking at the Israelite Rabbinical Academy. They helped to train many of the rabbis who went on to lead synagogues including: Rabbi Yeshurun Levy, Rabbi Eliyahu Yehudah, and Rabbi Eliezer Levy, their nephew Rabbi Shalomi Levy, and many others. Leah was content to work under Rabbi Matthew and with other rabbis; but, she became a popular and engaging speaker in her own rite who was frequently invited to lecture on a variety of topics before diverse audiences around the country.

In her final decades, Leah spent time at her retirement homes in Florida and Pennsylvania.  She formed an immediate bond with Mother Elizabeth Dailey, who in 1951 founded a Black synagogue, Congregation Temple Beth El in Philadelphia. Following that matriarch’s death, this thriving congregation was led by Rabbi Debra Bowen, who welcomed the Yahonatans into their community with open arms.  Leah became a revered mother, elder stateswoman, and wise sage to her people until her death in 2020. The record of Leah’s accomplishments can be found in books, articles and archives at the Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C. and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City where she helped to create the collection on Black Jews. Most importantly, her legacy can be found in the hearts of the people she touched. As Leah was being laid to rest beside her husband in the Israelite section of Beth Israel Cemetary in New Jersey, the passage from the Ethics of the Fathers that she had taught us on so many occasions was said about her and her life: Who is worthy of honor? Those who honor others. Avot 4:1

אֵיזֶהוּ מְכֻבָּד, הַמְּכַבֵּד אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת