Interracial and Orthodox

Chaya is the daughter of my dear friends, Tamar (Of Blessed Memory) and Avraham Hollander of Passaic. The Hollanders and I go back a long way and the friendship started when Tamar and I met at Neve Yerushalayim Seminary in Jerusalem in 1977. Sadly, Tamar lost her battle with COVID-19 shortly before the vaccines were available. Throughout the years, our family knew that we were always welcome in the Hollander home. The Hollanders didn’t care what level of Jewish observance you had, what you did for a living, or how you dressed. Everyone was and is always welcome in their home. Because they were so careful in the mitzvah of welcoming the stranger and the convert, people of all walks of Jewish life were privileged to spend Shabbat in their home. This is how they met Avi Murrell many years before he became their son-in-law.

Avi (Luis) Murrell grew up in Brooklyn, in Crown Heights. As an African American, he did not live in the Jewish neighborhood. Yet, he did meet a few Jewish people there – mostly elderly Holocaust survivors. His Jewish journey started when he was a young child and was hired to be a “Shabbos goy” (helping with simple work a Jew can’t do on Shabbat such as turning on and off lights, ovens, and other electronic devices) for a few families. He remembers seeing the Lubavitch movement not too far away – their shlichim (messengers) and their mitzvah vans. Building this early connection with Holocaust survivors, learning about the Holocaust and seeing the enthusiastic Lubavitch community led him to a fascinating curiosity about the Jewish people. 

When Avi attended college at Stony Brook in New York, he enrolled in some religion classes as well as classes about Torah. He started dating a young woman who wanted to convert to Judaism. He became more intrigued with Judaism and began to develop a goal to become part of the Jewish community. He participated in Hillel as well as in other Jewish programs on campus. While his girlfriend decided not to convert to Judaism after all and the relationship ended, Avi’s quest was just beginning. As he saw many of his peers getting married, he realized how serious he was about Judaism and that he wanted to become Jewish, marry a Jewish woman and start a Jewish family. After graduation from college, Avi lived in Buffalo and in Rochester, where he worked with a few rabbis and eventually completed his conversion with Rabbi Shaya Kilimnick, Of Blessed Memory. 

An outgoing person with a strong self image, Avi never felt like he had to conform to a group. He kept his last name (rather than changing it to a more “Jewish sounding” name) believing he 

needed to be himself and avoid peer pressure to take on another identity. As he wore his kippah and tzitzit, Avi was still the sincere and friendly person that he was before his conversion.In addition to immersing himself in books about Judaism, he followed Rabbi Kilimnick’s advice of spending Shabbat in Orthodox Jewish people’s homes to experience how to keep Shabbat in a real and practical way. It was through this practice that he also experienced the great warmth and hospitality that is typical of most Orthodox homes.

In order to meet single Jewish women of marriageable age, Avi eventually relocated to Passaic. His first encounter with the Hollander family was for a Purim Seudah, at the home of Hendel and Dovid Shotkin, Avraham Hollander’s sister and brother-in-law. At the time, Chaya was only 18 and Avi was several years older. Marriage was not something she was even thinking about then. After this Purim meal, Avi became a regular guest at the Hollander home and he got to know Chaya and the family, as well as the many friends who visited them on Shabbat. 

Avi eventually married a Jewish woman, someone from the Lubavitch community, but the marriage did not work out. He came to explore the Sephardic community and decided that this was where he belonged. What remained constant was his presence at the Hollanders for Shabbat and his being very much part of their family. Chaya also got married, but her marriage was quite difficult and short-lived. The man she married was not who she thought he was. Avi was with her and her family as they experienced the challenge of freeing her from her difficult situation. 

The years passed and Avi continued to be a regular guest at the Hollanders for Shabbat. One long summer Shabbat afternoon, Tamar noticed Avi and Chaya laughing together on the couch and she had an amazing idea. Later, she approached Chaya and asked her if she would want to date Avi. She thought it was a great idea as they had known each other for so many years and were already good friends. Tamar soon approached Avi and told him that Chaya had agreed to it and it was all up to him. A few weeks later they were engaged. They were married in 2012 and a few years later they had their son Amitai Yosef.

What is it like being part of an interracial marriage? Chaya Murrell does not find it confusing at all. What is more confusing to her are the customs of the Sephardic community. While they do sometimes encounter stares and derogatory comments, as some children and adults have a hard time believing that a person