There is a history of Jews and rhinoplasty that Ross may or may not have been aware of. On his Instagram story, Ross also referred to Drake’s crew, OVO, as the “pastrami posse,” another possibly coded reference to Drake’s Jewishness.

Ross, who is not Jewish, appears to have a fascination with Judaism. In 2012, he released a mixtape titled “The Black Bar Mitzvah” that invokes Jewish stereotypes about wealth. One of the featured artists on the mixtape was none other than Drake, who contributed a verse to the song “Us.”

Drake has long incorporated his Jewish identity into his music and public life. The video for his 2012 song “HYFR” was shot in a Miami synagogue, and he performed in a bar mitzvah sketch when he hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2014.

He has not made extensive public remarks about the Israel-Hamas war. In late October, he was one of more than 200 Jewish and non-Jewish artists who signed an open letter to President Joe Biden in support of a cease-fire.

Still, he has been targeted over his Jewish identity in recent months. In December, rapper Slim Thug mentioned Drake during a social media rant about Jewish involvement in the music industry.

“Jewish people should own Drake — Drake is Jewish,” he said on Instagram. “Jewish people should own Jewish music. I don’t like that Jewish people own Black music. I don’t want Jewish people who are not a part of the culture to own the culture. I want only Black people to own Black music.” (In 2022 during his antisemitic meltdown, rapper Ye asserted without evidence that “Jewish people have owned the Black voice.”)

Y-Love slammed both Thug and Ross for suggesting, in different ways, that Black Jews have to pick a side. “When Rick Ross calls him ‘white,’ it’s the idea of you’re not really Black because you’re Jewish, you’re not really down because you had a bar mitzvah,” he said. “Now you’re talking about noses. It’s not ok.”

He added that he does not believe that Ross is antisemitic or that antisemitism is endemic in hip-hop.

“Hip-hop holds a mirror up to the society at large,” he said. “If antisemitic incidents are rising around the world, if antisemitic sentiment is rising around the world, it wouldn’t be logical that you wouldn’t hear kids rhyming about it in a studio, and that’s what’s up.”

Is he worried that the beef will lead to real-world violence, as it did with Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G., both of whom were murdered in drive-by shootings in the late 1990s?

“Biggie and Tupac were very young at that point. Everybody involved in this is over 35,” he said with a laugh. “Nobody’s really out in the streets fighting.”