Journalism
Some of my recent work, organized by category.
Vows, broom jumping and vegan cake: a soulful Hebrew Israelite wedding in Davis
A shofar blast signals the start of the ceremony. The guests, many wearing brightly colored African-style clothing and head coverings, take their seats. A DJ cues up “Grazing in the Grass” by South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela, and the groom two-steps his way to the purple wedding canopy.
Stanford alum Dan Grunfeld shares family’s story, from Holocaust to basketball fame
As a graduate student at Stanford University from 2015 to 2017, Dan Grunfeld paid regular visits to his Romanian-born grandmother, Lily, in Burlingame.
Westside Gravy: SoCal-raised rapper looks to take his career to next level in Israel
Raised mostly in San Diego by a Russian American Jewish father and African American Jewish mother, Westside Gravy (né Noah Shufutinsky) takes pride in belonging to the Jewish and African diasporas.
Adam Mansbach, the ‘Go the F*** to Sleep’ guy, is really f***ing busy
Adam Mansbach is, and possibly always will be, best known as the “Go the Fuck to Sleep” guy. But he is a more protean and prolific — and profoundly Jewish — writer than people may know.
Dungeons & Dragons has united a diverse group of rabbis. But their commitment to social justice has faced a challenge.
“We did not intend to be a demonstration of Jewish pluralism. We just wanted to kill some giants.”
In season 2 of ‘Dave,’ a Jewish rapper struggles to not get canceled
The new season begins with the same question at the center of the season 1 finale: Is Burd a “culture vulture,” someone guilty of cultural appropriation?
After abandoning Instagram in disgust, @MichaelChabon is speaking his mind on Twitter
On Aug. 3, @michaelchabon tweeted the following to his 16,000 followers: “Remember carob? What was that all about?”
‘We are not alone!’ How a new study validates the feelings of many Jews of color
For the first time, Jews of color have a robust, easily accessible and parsable data set that reveals what many have known for generations.
‘Juneteenth sameach’: Local Jews mark newest national holiday with prayer and reflection
This year’s focus on Juneteenth carried even more resonance following President Joe Biden’s signing of a bill on June 17 making it the newest federal holiday.
Outdoor Israeli dancing attracts young and old, Jewish and non-Jewish
Aaron Alpert, an American Jew from Los Angeles, and Latishya Steele, an African American non-Jew from Brooklyn, make a perhaps unlikely Israeli folk dance teaching duo. Neither is Israeli or speaks Hebrew. But both are extremely passionate about Israeli dance.
Israel’s new call to deport African Hebrew Israelites reopens old wounds
In the late 1970s, Israel formed a Knesset committee to investigate the “Black Hebrews cult,” a community of non-Jewish African Americans who had been entering the country on tourist visas and settling illegally in the Negev Desert for almost a decade.
Highly anticipated Philip Roth biography delivers the goods
Through meticulous research, including interviews with Roth’s confidants, former flames and enemies, Blake Bailey reveals a fiercely ambitious, funny and obsessive man who put his commitment to “words, words, words” — one of his mantras — above everything and everyone else.