First Lady Michelle Obama’s cousin, Rabbi Capers Funnye [Fu-nay], visited the Jewish Agency Absorption Center for new immigrants from Ethiopia in Mevasseret Zion, near Jerusalem, Wednesday morning. He is the spiritual head of the mostly African-American 200-member Beth Shalom B’nei Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago.

He was ordained as a rabbi by the Israelite Rabbinical Academy, which is not recognized by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Like most of his congregation, Funnye was not born a Jew. He was raised as a Methodist and later adopted Judaism