Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Passover, "Kosher Gospel," Jewish Diversity
Joshua Nelson one of thousands of nonwhite Americans born Jewish
By Verena Dobnik, Associated Press
NEW YORK - When Joshua Nelson sings the gospel music of his black ancestors, he commands attention.
It's not just because of his fire-and-brimstone voice, the comparisons with the late Mahalia Jackson, or even his discovery by Oprah Winfrey, whom he counts as a friend. It's the places he sometimes performs (synagogues), the word he avoids (Jesus), and his own faith (Jewish).
'Jews for centuries'
"We've been Jews for centuries, as long as anyone can remember," Nelson says. "Why is it that when people of color are Jews, questions are raised?"
In fact, Nelson is one of about 100,000 nonwhite Americans who were born Jewish. Another 300,000 people of color are followers of Judaism through marriage, adoption, conversion or the recent surge of Jewish immigrants from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, according to Yavilah McCoy, director of Ayecha, a New York-based group she founded five years ago to reach out to Jewish minorities.
Nelson's voice rocked a pre-Passover "Liberation Seder" last week that was organized by McCoy and co-hosted by The Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. The evening, accompanied by a seder meal of Middle Eastern, African and East European dishes, accented the Jewish community's diversity in New York.
Among black Jews, "you see the flavor of Jewish culture in a way you might not have seen before, when it was just black and white, so to speak _ as in, Christians and non-Christians," says McCoy, 33, who is black and raised in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, where she studied in a yeshiva with other Orthodox Jews.
For more information, click on the above link.
By Verena Dobnik, Associated Press
NEW YORK - When Joshua Nelson sings the gospel music of his black ancestors, he commands attention.
It's not just because of his fire-and-brimstone voice, the comparisons with the late Mahalia Jackson, or even his discovery by Oprah Winfrey, whom he counts as a friend. It's the places he sometimes performs (synagogues), the word he avoids (Jesus), and his own faith (Jewish).
'Jews for centuries'
"We've been Jews for centuries, as long as anyone can remember," Nelson says. "Why is it that when people of color are Jews, questions are raised?"
In fact, Nelson is one of about 100,000 nonwhite Americans who were born Jewish. Another 300,000 people of color are followers of Judaism through marriage, adoption, conversion or the recent surge of Jewish immigrants from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, according to Yavilah McCoy, director of Ayecha, a New York-based group she founded five years ago to reach out to Jewish minorities.
Nelson's voice rocked a pre-Passover "Liberation Seder" last week that was organized by McCoy and co-hosted by The Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. The evening, accompanied by a seder meal of Middle Eastern, African and East European dishes, accented the Jewish community's diversity in New York.
Among black Jews, "you see the flavor of Jewish culture in a way you might not have seen before, when it was just black and white, so to speak _ as in, Christians and non-Christians," says McCoy, 33, who is black and raised in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, where she studied in a yeshiva with other Orthodox Jews.
For more information, click on the above link.
