The 26-year-old All-Star is in the process of converting to Judaism, according to his Jewish wife, Shashana Sabonis (née Rosen).
“We don’t believe in Jewish religion,” Henry Bens, 52, said during a Bible class he gave on Nov. 8. “There’s no such thing in the Bible as Jewish religion.”
“Black and Jewish relations have been written about ad nauseam, discussed ad nauseam,” the Berkeley writer Adam Mansbach said at a public forum in San Francisco. “The ups and downs of this relationship have been incredibly well chronicled.” And yet, he added, “there is still so much to say about them.”
The recent IUIC rallies give the impression that the radical wing of the Hebrew Israelite movement is large and riled up. Meanwhile, comments by Kanye West, the rapper who now goes by Ye, and Irving that align with elements of Hebrew Israelite doctrine suggest the movement has broad support among powerful Black celebrities.
A growing number of Bay Area Jews are engaging in activism around Indigenous rights, raising uncomfortable questions about their privilege in benefiting from colonialism and the genocide of Native Americans.