Black Israelites

At the 1995 Source Awards, Outkast’s Andre3000, delivered his now iconic shot across the bow in which he informed the hip-hop world that “The South Got Something to Say.” Moving from the margins of…

So, let’s start with a joke. A Black nationalist female rabbi, a Black male womanist rabbi, and Black Jewish apostate walk into a bar… There’s been nonstop controversy since NBA star Kyrie Irving…

In January 1994, a week after the King holiday, I walked into the lobby of my dorm to listen to representatives from the Israeli School of Universal Practical Knowledge (ISUPK), a Black Israelite…

As Passover approaches this weekend I often reminisce about how, as a young child, the highlight of my Easter weekend wasn’t watching the Greatest Story Ever Told , The Robe , or other classic Easter…

Over the past week, two prominent African-American celebrities have been condemned for promoting anti-Semitism because of their belief that Black people are the “true” Hebrews, and that there exists a…

Kendrick Lamar’s fourth album, Damn, (stylized “DAMN”) has been number one on the Billboard charts for the past three three weeks. The first track, “HUMBLE,” caused an immediate stir, with verses…

With all the memes wishing a good riddance to 2016, and John Oliver’s epic send-off to this annus horribilis, it may seem small comfort that this was a year that might be remembered as one of the most…

I was most struck by one too-clever turn of phrase in the recent Pew Survey of U.S. Jews. The summary read, “ believing in Jesus, however, is enough to place one beyond the pale: 60% of U.S. Jews say a person cannot be Jewish if he or she believes…

“For me, the process of writing this book was a real eye-opener that demonstrated that even small, some might say, “marginal” religious groups are connected in so many ways to so many other groups, crossing lines of space, race, and time. It led me to rethink the utility of the “marginal” and to discover just how rich those religions are as a way of understanding the world.”