Remembering Abshalom Ben Shlomo, Hebrew Israelite jazz man

One afternoon in 1960, Abshalom Ben Shlomo and a friend were walking home from Englewood High School in Chicago when they heard strange music coming from inside a bar on 63rd Street. The teens ventured inside and found a man wearing sparkly clothes playing an electronic keyboard.

Mesmerized, they listened to the man and his bandmates rehearse. After some time had passed, the teens made their way to leave. “Please stay,” the man called out. “Who are you?” one of them asked. “My name is Sun Ra,” he replied. “I’m from outer space, and I came to save Black people.”

The encounter left a lasting impression on the young Abshalom, who would go on to become a professional musician and perform with the very same Sun Ra and his “Arkestra.” A resident of Israel for more than 50 years, Abshalom was a pioneer of free jazz in the country and a member of one of the first iterations of the African Hebrew Israelite community’s celebrated Soul Messengers band. He was also part of the community’s leadership body for many years.

Ahk (“Brother”) Abshalom Ben Shlomo passed away at home in Dimona on July 16, according to his daughter, Yekiellah Cooper. He was 80.

Last spring, I had the privilege of spending an afternoon with Abshalom in Dimona. It was my first time meeting him, though I had heard a lot about him during the time I’ve spent researching and writing about the Hebrew community. He was frail and sometimes spoke in a whisper, but he was still sharp as a tack.

Abshalom Ben Shlomo at the African Hebrew Israelites’ Village of Peace in Dimona, March 20, 2024. (Andrew Esensten)

Sitting in his cluttered living room, surrounded by piles of CDs and books, he shared that anecdote about meeting Sun Ra and other memories. The following account of his remarkable life is based on the interview I conducted with him then and conversations with his collaborators, along with earlier interviews he gave to others.

From Chicago to Philly and Back

Abshalom Ben Shlomo was born Virgil Pumphrey on November 11, 1943 on the South Side of Chicago. He was an only child. His mother died when he was 7, and he was mostly raised by his father, a salesman who loved music and played guitar, and stepmother.

At age 11, Abshalom started clarinet lessons at the Sherwood Community Music School with the revered music teacher Joe Daley. He later picked up the saxophone because he had a friend who played the instrument, and he studied at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. In 1965, he joined the nascent Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), a Chicago institution that has nurtured many great jazz musicians. He played in the AACM Big Band with John Stubblefield, Henry Threadgill, and Roscoe Mitchell, among other future stars.

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In 1968, Abshalom moved to Philadelphia with his wife and joined up with Sun Ra’s ensemble. The members lived together in a three-story house in the Germantown neighborhood. Sun Ra embraced the outré and avant-garde, and he pushed Abshalom to let loose. He once interrupted Abshalom during a rehearsal mid-solo and asked him: “Why don’t you try to imagine that you’re from the planet Venus?” (Sun Ra himself claimed to be from Saturn.)

“The message was clear,” Abshalom told Haaretz in 2008. “He was calling on me to test the limits of what was considered good and beautiful and correct. To create, try new things, not be afraid of what others will think.”

Abshalom played alto sax with the Arkestra for two and a half years and went on tour with the group in Europe. It was his first taste of what life could be like outside of the United States.

“You must understand, and you can’t understand, the experience of the Black man,” he told Haaretz. “We didn’t think we should be treated better than we were in the United States … and suddenly we were treated like royalty [in Europe]. It was a complete shock.”

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While he was living in Philly, Abshalom began to seriously explore Hebrew Israelism, the spiritual movement rooted in the idea that the ancient Israelites were Black. (It’s not clear when he renamed himself Abshalom, meaning “father of peace,” though it may have been during this time.) Riding the trolley one day, he met Rudolph Windsor, the author of “From Babylon to Timbuktu,” which today is considered a key Hebrew Israelite text. Windsor invited him to visit the local Hebrew congregations and meet different spiritual leaders, including Rabbi Abel Espes, who led a community in New Jersey.

By 1970, Abshalom had returned to Chicago, which he viewed as the center of Black spirituality in the U.S. “The Honorable Elijah Muhammad came out of there, Ben Ammi [the African Hebrew Israelites’ spiritual leader] came out of there, Noble Drew Ali came out of there,” he told an interviewer in 2009. “Spiritual people came out of Chicago.”

He stopped by the Abeta Hebrew Culture Center, the community that Ben Ammi belonged to, but was not impressed. Instead, he was drawn to L.A. Bryant, a charismatic Hebrew Israelite preacher whose family moved to Chicago from the South during the Great Migration. Abshalom attended classes held at Bryant’s print shop and sold copies of his manifesto, “Know Thyself,” at the Maxwell Street Market, known as “Jewtown.” (The market was established in the early 20th century by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.)

The message of “Know Thyself”—that “those who are commonly called Negroes are the true nation of Israel,” as Bryant wrote, and that God would soon visit plagues upon America—resonated with Abshalom, who had become disillusioned with life in the U.S.

“I didn’t feel like I wanted to live in the United States anymore,” he told Walla in 2015. “There was too much murder, drugs, and every bad thing.”

Struggles in Israel

In July 1971, Bryant—later known as Nasik (“Prince”) Shaleak Ben Yehuda—sent Abshalom, his wife and son to join dozens of Abeta members who had already settled in Israel without going through a formal immigration process. The family lived first in Mitzpe Ramon, then Dimona.

“It was a mess,” he told me about the early years in the “Shikun,” the apartment complex in Dimona where most of the Hebrews lived. “We didn’t speak no Hebrew, didn’t have no jobs. It was 15, 20 of us living in an apartment.”

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For work, he did all kinds of manual labor, and he was sometimes stiffed by employers who knew he didn’t have legal status. In April 1986, he was among the 46 undocumented Hebrews arrested at a citrus packing facility in Rehovot where they worked and slept.

“About 3 o’clock in the morning, the police came and knocked on our door,” he said. “They drove the brothers to Be’er Sheva to the penitentiary. I did seven and a half months.”

While in prison, he studied the Bible and learned Arabic from one of his Arab cellmates. The Rehovot 46 were charged with working without permits and overstaying their tourist visas. Many were deported back to the U.S., but Abshalom was not because he had earlier renounced his American citizenship at the embassy in Tel Aviv and was technically stateless.

He and other Hebrews sued the Ministry of Interior for the right to work legally so they could support themselves. Their case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in August 1989 that although their plight aroused sympathy, the Hebrews had immigrated to Israel illegally and thus were not entitled to work permits. Abshalom finally received Israeli citizenship in 2015, thanks to an agreement with the government that family members of youth who served in the Israel Defense Forces could apply for it. He posted a photo on his Facebook page of himself in a smart blue suit and fedora, receiving his new identity card.

Receiving his Israeli citizenship documents, 2015. (Courtesy Abshalom Ben Shlomo)

“Abshalom was very stylish in his dress,” recalled his friend Anvayel Ben Ephraim of Arad. He regularly carried around a wooden scepter with inlaid stones, a “symbol of royalty and authority,” according to Anvayel. The scepter was crafted in Ghana, where Abshalom lived from 2000 to 2006 while serving as an envoy from the Hebrew community.

Several years ago, Abshalom and Anvayel launched a nonprofit organization, A New Day, in order to preserve African Hebrew Israelite history and culture and raise awareness about the community in Israel through concerts and a museum. “We side with the people [of Israel], and we want to do something positive,” Abshalom told Walla. “It’s part of us, doing something positive.”

Musician and Minister of the People

As a musician and “tone scientist,” as he called himself, Abshalom performed in Israel and abroad with the Soul Messengers and an all-male African Hebrew Israelite group, Sons of the Kingdom. In 1990, he launched his own collective, the Abshalom Ben Shlomo Sextet, later known as the Abshalom Ben Shlomo Ethnic Experience. In addition to alto sax and clarinet, he played flute and percussion.

With members of the Sons of the Kingdom while on tour in Ghana, 1979. (Courtesy Abshalom Ben Shlomo)

“What he contributed to the jazz scene in Israel was the idea of free playing, not being locked in to swinging and playing the same old formulas,” Shmael Ben Israel, one of Abshalom’s collaborators, told me. “He experimented with the basic elements of tonality, rhythm, and tempo.”

At times, though, he felt stymied creatively. “Most musicians here in the community, we’re accompanists to the vocalists,” Shmael said. “He found his comfort zone outside of the community. That’s where he was able to do his experimentation and grow.”

He worked with numerous Israeli musicians and bands, among them clarinetist Harold Rubin and Michael Greenblatt, pianist and leader of From the Other Side. He also shared a friendship with American Israeli saxophonist and educator Arnie Lawrence. In 2008, he appeared at the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat and dedicated his show to three of his biggest inspirations: Sun Ra, Ben Ammi, and Lawrence.

He reunited with the Sun Ra Arkestra several times, playing with them in Tel Aviv in 2011—sans Sun Ra, who died in 1993—and at the Uncool Festival in Switzerland the following year. In April 2015, he was one of 50 musicians invited to play in the AACM’s 50th anniversary concert in Chicago.

Abshalom recorded at least three albums of Songs of Deliverance, the Hebrews’ uplifting, God-centered musical genre: “10,000 Recollections,” featuring the late singer Ahdaiyah Baht Israel; “The Rise of the New Messianic Civilization,” a joint album with Shmael on keyboard (currently unavailable online); and “Sounds of Deliverance/Songs of Redemption.” Assorted singles and recordings of live performances can be found on his YouTube, SoundCloud, and Bandcamp channels.

Sun Ra’s otherworldly influence is obvious on tracks such as “Babylon Is Fallen,” which begins with Abshalom reciting verses from the book of Revelation, his voice enhanced by a reverb effect. “We Must All Turn Back Unto the Right Way” is an epic 22-minute song that includes a Sun Ra-esque chant of the titular words.

One of my favorite songs is “We Need Peace,” featuring vocalists Shavakeyah Baht Israel and Nakoniel Ben Israel. “We need peace for the brothers, we need peace in the land,” Shavakeyah sings, referring to Israel. Nakoniel responds: “We need peace for the mothers, we need peace in the land.” And then together: “No more killing, no more dying / No more mothers, always crying.” Abshalom plays flute and sax; his flute communicates hopefulness, while his wailing sax solo adds pathos. It’s a hauntingly beautiful track—one that, sadly, is just as relevant today as it was when it was recorded many years ago.

In addition to composing and performing, Abshalom taught music at different institutions, tutored students, and mentored other musicians. Elisheva Baht Israel of the Hebrew community credits him with launching her career in Israel in the 1980s. Today, she is one of the preeminent soul singers in the country.

“I didn’t come here to do music,” Elisheva, who lived in Detroit and sang backup for Stevie Wonder before moving to Israel, told me. “In the early years I was having problems, and I didn’t know if I was going to stay in Israel or go. He was the one who said, ‘You need to start singing and playing again. I’m going to take you to Tel Aviv.’” They performed a mix of gospel and jazz at small clubs in Tel Aviv, experiences she said she looks back on fondly.

Elisheva referred to Abshalom as “the prime minister” because he could talk to anyone and made friends easily. He spoke fluent French and Hebrew, in addition to some Arabic. He was especially well-connected in the music world, and his Facebook page contains photos of him with B.B. King, Memphis Slim, the Neville Brothers, Marshall Allen, Max Roach, Archie Shepp, and other highly regarded musicians.

With Marshall Allen, leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra, in Switzerland, 2012. (Courtesy Abshalom Ben Shlomo)

Above all, Eliesheva said, he was devoted to his community. As Minister of Distribution and then Minister of the People, he was in charge of distributing goods to Hebrew families and ensuring their welfare in a country that was often hostile toward them. (“Minister” does not have a religious connotation in the community.)

Elisheva recalled how one day, Abshalom came to her house and gave her a basket of strawberries. “He said, “I just brought you something to let you know the community loves you,’” she recalled. “He didn’t say, ‘I got you this.’ He always put the community out front and represented us at the highest level.” (He was later stripped of his leadership position, though he declined to tell me why.)

Abshalom was married three times and is survived by eight children and several grandchildren.

“Space Is the Place” was the title of Sun Ra’s 1974 Afrofuturist film, as well as his call to action for Black people to look beyond Earth for salvation. Abshalom’s motto might have been “Israel Is the Place.”

“Israel has a very specific role to play artistically and spiritually for man to be reconciled with the Creator,” he told the Jerusalem Post in 1997. “And our music is part of that.”

May his memory, and his music, be a blessing.