The following op-ed first appeared in The Conversation. There is a difference between enforcing the law and being the law. The world is now witnessing another in a long history of struggles for racial justice in which this distinction may be ignored. Derek Chauvin, a 45-year-old white former Minneapolis police officer, is on trial for…
Last month, the House of Representatives passed the The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a law designed to transform the way law enforcement interacts with Black communities nationwide. Especially as the trial of George Floyd’s killer, Derek Chauvin, gets underway this week, it’s an important step to ending police abuses of Black people, and…
Rav Tiferet Berenbaum is a busy woman these days, but she will absolutely and happily find time to slot you in for a phone call while she runs out to get coffee for herself and her fellow rabbis. The pandemic has not slowed her duties: in addition to her usual work as a clergy member…
In December 2019, Rabbi Rick Jacobs called on the Reform movement to “dig deeper into social justice activism through the Religious Action Center to address racism in our broader society,” and to “commit to our sacred equity, diversity and inclusion work.” “I cannot imagine our movement without all the voices, hearts and minds of our…
In December, the Forward published an article about my most recent book, “Black Power, Jewish Politics,” with a headline that mentioned Jews in connection with white supremacy. With those two words — “white supremacy” — the internet lit up. The article received over 100 critical comments. The Forward published an op-ed pushing back on the…
After 131 years, Quaker Oats announced this week that it will replace Aunt Jemima’s familiar name and face on all of its products with the logo for “Pearl Milling Company,” a homage to the St. Louis company which first invented the product. Aunt Jemima became one of the world’s most prominent racist stereotypes thanks, in…
When I was growing up, I thought that I was related to Sammy Davis Jr. Whenever people would find out I was Jewish they would instantly ask, “Like Sammy Davis Jr.?” It was as if he was the only Black Jew in the world — besides me, of course. Yet we had nothing in common…
Walk by Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem and you’ll notice something interesting. A Star of David can be seen atop each of the four fluted Ionic columns at the main entrance, leaving a subtle trace that it was once used a synagogue. It’s a familiar story often told in cities both large and small…
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