Kamala and Doug, Moses and his Cushite Wife

Jews enjoy pride of place in the battle against racism in the US. They have been in the forefront of breaking down racial barriers and challenging bigotry. There is reason for this, and I will argue it goes way back and down deep.

Abraham the Ivri

Jews come from the other side. That is the derivation of the word Hebrew – Ivri describing Father Abraham as who came from the other side of the river, up north in Mesopotamia to arrive in the promised land. As the perennial outsider, we immediately sense when a barrier we encounter is a meaningful threshold, representing honest entry criteria to a profession, a country, a faculty, a country club or an arbitrary line drawn around those on the inside so that they are not challenged by capable, intelligent, competitive Jews. And because such barriers are often conflated, whereby legitimate entrance criteria become just that much harder when it comes to Jews, we have had to earn our way differently than those born on the inside. My story is different, being born the year the US Supreme Court made a landmark decision striking down bans on interracial marriage existent in sixteen states, unsurprisingly, most below the Mason-Dixon line. The complaint, defending the right of Richard Loving to marry his black sweetheart, Mildred was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, argued and won by the Jewish lawyer, Bernard Cohen. Born in 1967, when being a progressive and being a Jew was almost synonymous, my hard-working parents raised me pretty much on the inside. What I knew of antisemitism came from Anu’s harrowing stories and certain, understated frustrations, alluded to in the legacy of Jewish institutions like Mount Sinai hospital. Until, October 7^th, that is.

Beauty Bias

Blacks experience a different, pervasive, systemic discrimination. When attractiveness is compared, such that the difference in question is more or less black, less black often wins. We are speaking about generalities here, trends, such that exceptions, of which there are plenty, for Jews and blacks and everybody else, do not undermine the argument. Although an accepting attitude towards interracial marriages has steadily increased over the years, online dating, and depersonalized screening mechanisms have exacerbated the difficulties experienced by blacks.[1] It is easy to find spaces where the polite cover of political correctness holds no sway and naked bigotries are clearly exposed. Tinder swipes and porn sites illustrate this sexual discrimination unambiguously. Black men are guilty like everyone else of exhibiting a marginal preference for white women. However, Samuel Perry, in a 2016 study did note that a Jewish background mitigated against such biases.[2]

When Abraham and Sara (they were known as Avram and Sarai back then) made their first excursion down south into Africa, they caused quite a stir. Fair Sara attracted such attention that rumors flew all the way to Pharoah and this exotic Northern beauty soon found herself trapped in his haram. With God’s assistance and a little justified dissimilitude, Abraham retrieves his wife and parlays her beauty into a tidy return. Meanwhile, the darker women of Egypt are left with a skin affliction, a plague of whiteness. This plague, Rashi adds, confounds their ability to have sex but the story ends happily when the white people leave, and the Egyptians are healed.[3]

Shem, Ham and Yefet, Noah’s children

I understand the positive beauty bias which Sara experienced to her detriment in Egypt to be based in a patterning of the world laid out by the descendants of Noah. It traces a broad north-south distinction that maps onto a basic white-black tension. But instead of justifying bigotry and racial bias, I believe this narrative, properly understood, gives us the tools to contend with it.

At high resolution, many impossible to resolve ambiguities, including constant mixing and migration, make mapping the linguistic-racial entities represented by the descendants of Noah futile. Note the sophisticated way the Torah describes these entities, explicitly referencing their language, their bloodlines and separately, their locale.[4] The Torah understood that these were overlapping but non-commensurate and fluid descriptors of peoples. At low resolution, the Torah accurately describes trends we can verify today. Yefet and his descendants, bounded the fertile crescent to the north, including Yavan-Greece to the west and Madai-Medes to the east. A descendent Ashkenaz is traditionally associated with the Germanic lands of the Rhine but perhaps better located in the Caucasus, home of the Caucasians. Ham bounds the fertile crescent to the south with Cush-Ethiopia deep into Africa and Sheba on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Shem finds himself, as always, in the interstitial space between them, balancing and succumbing to forces from all sides. Ham, a word identical in form to the Hebrew word for brown, populates Africa and the lower Arab peninsula. Yefet populates Europe and Asia minor and means beauty.

I understand why people wince at this sort of reading. Ham as the prototypical black person has been a racial slur invoked by bible thumping Christian racist, often to justify the wicked institution of slavery. Part of why Christians misread and misapply the relationships and derivations of linguistic-familial groupings laid out in the early parts of Genesis is because their historical memory is half as old as Jews. They arrived on the scene after the glory days of Africa, after Egypt and Nubia and Ethiopia had relinquished the crown of the most technologically advanced civilization. Fortunately, Jews tend to read the Bible more closely, more fairly and in the original. Ham was not cursed with slavery, it was his son, Canaan. And while the experience of slavery is seared into the Jewish imagination, we view Ham as the father of Mitzrayim–Egypt and hence the prototypical black man is slave master and responsible for mankind’s most impressive engineering projects. The Great Pyramid of Giza, as the tallest manmade structure on the face of the earth held more than 4000 years of architectural pre-eminence until the Eiffel Tower was built in 1887.

Simple Jewish shepherds arrived there looking for sustenance. They found the latest delicacies just invented in the luxury bakeries of Egypt, yeast-raised bread. And while a few of them reached greatness, the rest were destined to occupy the lowest rung in a socio-economic hierarchy from which there was no human escape. Equipped with this long view of history, the reader of the Hebrew bible appreciates the vicissitudes of economic power and how nations can enjoy pre-eminence for a time only to rely on the generosity of others when the wheel of fortune turns. “And you shall love the migrant for you were once migrants in Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). The experience of slavery could engender bitterness and a desire for payback, or it could teach about mercy, kindness and the humble awareness that pre-eminence is enjoyed for a time and then passed on to others. Be careful how you exercise that power when you have it.

The Land of Lavan

With that background, we consider what transpires to the north of the holy land, in the lands between the twin rivers, Aram Nehariyim, Ur and Haran. Without getting too exact, we are discussing Mesopotamia. Somewhere around there are the people that Abraham and his father Terach decided to leave, or reject, or were thrown out from.[5] Whatever the cause of their leaving, they headed south towards the holy land in order to find a suitable home for their newly articulated religion, monotheism. They leave that land, but don’t disconnect from the family still residing around there, returning as they do to find a wife for Isaac, and of course the family drama between Uncle Lavan and Jacob. All the beautiful founding mothers, Sara, Rivka, Rachel and Leah hail from up north.

When Jacob first meets his future wife Rachel, it is love at first sight. This daughter of Lavan is so beautiful that Jacob is lovestruck and works without a care for seven straight years to earn her hand in marriage. When the day finally arrives, Lavan pulls a bait and switch, replacing gorgeous Rachel with soft-eyed Leah. Jacob the romantic, blinded by externals, doesn’t even notice and wakes up married to Leah. On some level, Jacob could not tell the difference between the two white daughters of Lavan. Lavan, you see, means white.

The reader might think I am making too much of Lavan’s name, especially since his whiteness is not often cited as a factor in the Biblical narrative imputing racial overtones. But consider. After Jacob almost finishes building his family, he asks permission to take leave of his father-in-law. Lavan is loath to let this financial genius of a son-in-law go and begs him to stay on, furthering the success of the family business. Jacob reluctantly agrees but instead of taking a one-time payout, he proposes a business arrangement. He will shepherd Lavan’s flock but wants a clear understanding at the outset over what will be his share of the profits and what reverts to Lavan. He suggests the following: Remove all the mixed sheep and goats from the herd along with the brown sheep. And although the Torah gives many exotic words for this motley group, it never describes what is left. I assume Lavan’s flock is pure white sheep and solid-colored goats after the selection. This is implied by the double entendre: “And Jacob tended the remaining flock’s of Lavan,” which also reads “the remaining white sheep.”[6] Jacob is to tend these purely colored flocks for several seasons and whatever turns out speckled and spotted will be Jacob’s to keep but whatever is not speckled or spotted (the text won’t call it white) is considered stolen by Jacob because that belongs Lavan. It’s music to Lavan’s ears because he thinks, if you start with a pure white flock, of course there will be unfortunate exceptions, but the majority remains white like the good pre-selected stock from which it began. Then the text details the confusing manipulations Jacob employs to breed the herd to produce as many speckled and spotted offspring as possible. But the real message, I believe is encoded in the elaborate Hebrew wordplay. Jacob puts poplar branches in the water troughs and strips them exposing the white of their wood. Poplar in Hebrew is livneh, derived from the word white. He also watches carefully when the animals come into heat – heat derives from the word ham, the same as brown and Noah’s son Ham. The ambiguity regarding Lavan’s sheep or white sheep continues through the passage.

How do you beat a Lavan, a white supremacist? Use the myth of racial purity against him. Put your stock in with the brown sheep, the mottled sheep, the mutts, muggles and mulatto. Pure white is fake news. In reality, things are never pure and embracing the diverse, speckled and spotted tapestry of humankind will always be more popular, more successful and more true.

The Original Aryan Nation

There across the twin rivers of the Euphrates and Tigris, lies Medes and the birthplace of the original Aryan Nation. The Persian-Medes Empire, deeply influenced by their dualistic religion that pitted the forces of light against those of darkness, gifted the concept of the noble Aryan to the world. In the lands of Yefet, including Lebanon (also cognate with Lavan) and the entire sweep north of the fertile crescent, a linguistic, fair skinned, Indo-European people are asserting their dominance, proud atop their horses. Aryan is the linguist root of Iran. The concept travels to India, enters Sanskrit and entrenches the fair-skinned Brahmin dominance over the darker, southern Dravidian peoples. A tension alive and well today. German scholars, infatuated with the concept, import it to devastating effect. An Aryan need not be white, just whiter than those he seeks to dominate. A sabre-rattling Iran seeks to reassert that dominance and cannot come to terms with the fact that non-Aryans could enjoy such pre-eminence over them. The concept states that an inherent, incorruptible, noble superiority resides in certain peoples by virtue of their fair birth. Such people are destined for pre-eminence and need to keep their distance from those that are not.

Moses and his Cushite wife

Before William Shatner kissed Lieutenant Uhura, before Lloyd Kramer gave Oprah Winfrey the best romance of her life, even after her hair fell out, Moses married a Cushite, and it was noticed. Sister Miriam and brother Aharon were not pleased. They speak about this Cushite wife of Moses, even though the Torah does not share what they say. Two clues indicate to me that the issue is the interracial union. Cush means black, black as black can be. He is Mitzrayim’s–Egypt’s brother, descended from Ham, the brown son.[7] When the prophet Jeremiah wants a metaphor for the near impossibility of change, he asks, “Can a Cushite change his skin or leopard his spots?”[8] The lover in the Song of Song declares “I am black and beautiful.”[9] Whether these two adjectives compliment or oppose is a matter of interpretation. As is what is meant by calling Moses wife a Cushite. Whatever it means, it relates to being black. The second clue is how God punishes Miriam for her slanderous talk. He strikes her with a similar skin condition to what afflicted the Egyptians after Sara’s abduction. She is touched with tzara’at and turns white as snow.

A White Disease – Tzara’at 

How does the Torah instruct us to handle a perception of beauty that prejudices against the black woman? It’s a complicated answer that I think is encoded in the Torah’s discussion of the white skin disease called tzara’at, commonly associated with leprosy. You can view my more thorough answer here, which includes an investigation into our perceptual apparatus and how it sees white. But the bottom line is this. The Mishna elaborates on the Torah’s laws which detail the affliction, its method of diagnosis, quarantine requirements, and procedures for re-entering the community. The Mishna admits that the medical diagnosis of a white blemish really depends on the racial identity of who is blemished, such that black people are going to be stopped for leprosy more often than white people. In a rather unnerving and prescient read, the Mishna expresses the problem by comparing the outcomes of a German versus a Cushite faced with the critical gaze of the priest, examining his blight. And then Rabbi Yishmael interjects with a pained and horrified glimpse into the Jewish future.

Woe to Israel, he says, for they are neither white nor black, but like the color of boxwood, racially indeterminate. I will serve as their atoning sacrifice for their future sufferings, caught as they will be between Germans and Cushites.[10]

We can’t undo the perceptual biases that define white contextually. We can’t ever arrive at some objective definition of such a slippery concept of whiteness or blackness. It will always be subject to social and political forces that favor the majority. The Jewish way is to remain vigilant and self-aware about the inescapable workings of these prejudices. They cannot be banned by law or force. Black prosecutors, jurist and legislators will not succeed in exorcising the bogeyman from without. We can’t Gerrymander people’s sexual preferences, engineer their choices, or legislate them into law. The work is internal, it requires the development of an awareness of these biases so as to not fall prey to the idolatrous self-righteous protective instincts that entrench them. Black supremacy is no better than white supremacy. What’s required is the supremacy of merit. A Jew stands apart, unprotected, or rejected from such external and self-protecting memberships, relying on his own merits and God’s favor.

Kamala and Doug

In 2016, Doug Emhoff put forth his candidacy to be first gentleman of one Kamala Harris and she voted in favor. Today, Kamala puts forth her candidacy to be President of the United States, opposite a very white man and the America people are being asked to state their preference. That white man is grandfather to cute religious Jews, a fact the Republican party did not wish to spotlight this convention. Instead, it put the once powerful Ivanka Kushner on the back bench and gave the stage to another granddaughter, properly adorned with her crucifix. In fact, Jews are first degree relations to both Presidential candidates, creating quite a dilemma for the anti-Semitic voter. Jared Kushner, a good Jewish guy, made himself attractive enough for the likes of Ivanka Trump, so attractive in fact that Ivanka fell for the man and the religion. Doug Emhoff, not offering much in the way of Judaism, still made himself attractive enough to win the heart of, potentially, the most powerful person in the world. It’s a fragile moment representing an apex of Jewish success and a moment most Jews tend to look away from lest they invite the evil eye. In fact, I spit three times, tu, tu, tu, before writing that line. It is the type of success that invites the ire of both the children of Yefet, sitting on the right and the children of Ham currently on the left. Once again, the Jew is beset on all sides.

[1] Curington, C. V., Lundquist, J. H., Lin, K.-H. (February 9, 2021). The dating divide: Race and Desire in the Era of Online Romance. University of California Press.

[2] Perry, Samuel L. (July 10, 2016). “Religious Socialization and Interracial Dating”. Journal of Family Issues. 37 (15): 2138–2162

[3]  See Genesis 12:10-20 and Rashi on verse 17.

[4] Genesis 10:20 states: These are the sons of Ham according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, by their nations.

[5] Genesis 11:31. Before Abram receives the call of lech lecha, he is already underway with his father.

[6] Genesis 30:35

[7] Genesis 10:6

[8] Jeremiah 13:23

[9] Song of Songs 1:5

[10] Mishna Negaim 2:1. I elaborate slightly to make the sense clear.