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Jonnie Schnytzer

Sep 21, 2023, 2:44 PM

The Problem with our Jewish Bookshelf

I have a dream. It is one we all share - to transform and truly unify the Jewish people. And, I have an idea, which can lead to true unity. I am not talking about pretend. I mean, in...

Sep 19, 2023, 11:04 PM

Bruce Springsteen, “Land of Hope and Dreams”, Grace and Yom Kippur

Introduction: This article is based on a talk I gave at Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell, NJ, on Thursday, September 7, 2023. I would like to extend my gratitude to Rabbi Lucas, Susan Werk, Gayle Wieseneck, Shani Drogin, Ami Talkow, Laura...

Aug 30, 2023, 2:25 PM

Black Privilege: Finding Power Within Myself

In the United States, the concept of “white privilege” permeates the public intellectual discourse. Fundamentally, “white privilege” describes the advantages of whiteness, white skin, and white racial identity. As a black person, it is difficult for me to wrap my...

Apr 25, 2023, 10:00 AM

Spiritual Prayer for African American Communities

I am an African American who converted to Judaism in 1995, then I became a citizen of Israel in 1996. I served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the United States Air Force, and the United States Army. I...

Moshe-Mordechai van Zuiden

Apr 7, 2023, 5:35 PM

After school shooting, Tennessee supermajority expels two Black Representatives

A dictatorship of the majority against any minority is anti-democratic We, humans, can have all the correct reasons for what we feel, think, and do and still be wrong. This is a good example. A low day for the...

Dec 3, 2022, 10:38 AM

A Black Man’s Ode to the Ku Klux Klan

When Kanye Says “Black lives DON’T Matter. History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes — Mark Twain The first Africans to ever set foot on American soil were a small group of twenty people — who were stolen by the British...

Jul 23, 2022, 9:14 AM

Becoming White: What is Colorism? Is it Racism?

The term “colorism” was coined by African American writer Alice Walker in 1983. Walker defined “colorism” as “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their skin color.” When I was a child growing up in Long Beach,...

Todd L. Pittinsky

Jun 15, 2022, 6:30 PM

Power and privilege shields Jews—Until they don’t

Alfred Dreyfus was a well-placed, well-off (i.e., powerful and privileged) French Jew. How did that work out for him? Linking Jews to power and privilege—somehow, always cast as illegitimate when they have it—is a long-standing antisemitic trope, and ought at...

Jun 15, 2022, 6:32 AM

What is Whiteness? Going Beyond Racial Labels

I am a strong black man. I have always been a strong black man. I will always be a strong black man. I cannot change my black race. My heart, spirit, and soul are also black. However, what is whiteness? When...

Timothy L. Jackson

Jun 2, 2022, 7:25 AM

And then the anti-racists came for the Jewish music theorist Heinrich Schenker — and me

Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY) professor Philip Ewell, who identifies as black, shocked the music theory world at the Society for Music Theory (SMT) Conference in 2019 when he indicted Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935), an Austrian Jew, as...

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