Blacks and Jews, Part Two
Black Christians: Praying to a Jewish Rabbi named Joshua for nearly 400 years. Let me be perfectly clear: For all our bellyaching, Black anti-Semitism hasn’t cost Jews their lives or livelihoods. White racism, on the other hand, has cost people of color theirs, over and over. Jews — as whites in America — are participants […]
Interlude: Jerusalem
At a juncture between the Jewish Quarter and Muslim Quarter of the Old City, two soldiers, Israelis, stand behind a barricade. Their eyes follow a schoolboy, an Arab. The child has found a mannequin’s head that’s been severed from the rest of its body. He contemplates the hunk of Styrofoam, holding it in his hands. […]
Blacks and Jews, Part One
Jews on bikes, Ashkelon, Israel. While in Israel, I got a call from a friend at the Village Voice about the brewing battle between Russell Simmons and the ADL. When I returned, I ended up in the paper. Ironic for me that, in all my time as a journalist, I’ve never addressed the Black-Jewish rift. […]
The Universal Sports Rhythm
We hit Tel Aviv on the evening that the Maccabi basketball team won the Euroleague championship in Moscow. The city was filled with honking cars and revellers in Rabin Square. As you’ll see from the movie, beats are the universal language… [Click here for the QuickTime clip]
One Thing About Israel
The first music I heard in the holy city of Jerusalem was not a chorus of angels from on high, but the very familiar tones of our favorite earth angel, Amerie. “1 Thing” was pumping out of the radio in my room at the Mount Zion Hotel. (And Hashim, I thought of you). This bit […]