In case I’ve ever given you occasion to think otherwise, I’m black. My parents are black, and their parents (may they live to 120 years) are black as well, though they were not always so; they were previously “colored.” My three brothers happen to be black, as is basically mayn gantse mishpokhe, my whole family….
When I was young they called me the mayor of the park. I would make my rounds of the local park every day — first to chat with an 80-year-old tanning on his beach chair, then to check in with our crew of Trinidadian babysitters, and finally to boss around the park kids. I loved…
When I became a Jew by choice, it was for no other reason than the fact that I felt a calling: I had a Jewish soul. I embarked on the long and arduous journey of becoming Jewish through a Conservative conversion, only to discover later that neither my son nor I was considered Jewish according…
The publication of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s stirring and pained “Between the World and Me” might just provide the kind of watershed moment for redefining the Black-Jewish relationship in the United States. Jewish leaders should seize it by encouraging their communities to read the book and talk about its implications for us both as Americans and Jews….
Did race have anything to do with the way the Israeli government dealt with the kidnapping of Ethiopian-Israeli citizen Avraham Mengitsu? That question has been reverberating through Israeli social media, but the answer doesn’t seem to be as clear cut. Two days ago, Israel de-classified information pertaining to the kidnapping of two Israeli citizens. One…
You might have already gotten used to us sharing Jon Stewart’s amazing jokes about news-worthy item du jour, and let’s face it, since he’s leaving the Daily Show soon, we want to share as much as possible. But last night, Jon Stewart’s regular sobering dose of truth came unmasked with humor. “Sorry, no jokes tonight,”…
Does being Jewish mean being part of a race? Or a religion? What ethnicity are Jews? Many American Jews have found these questions difficult to answer every 10 years, when a census taker knocks on the door as part of the decennial national head count. The only choices: “white, black or Asian” for race and,…
If we needed proof that there is no such thing as local news anymore, the case of Rachel Dolezal provided it. The story of a president of an NAACP chapter and African studies professor essentially building a career around a fabricated ethnic identity – telling the world she was of African-American heritage when she is,…
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