What Books About Jewish Culture Should I Read to Be a Better Human

Apropos of, well, everything, we decided it was well past time to requite you a listing of books past Black Jewish authors to read. From memoirs and novels to poetry and YA, these books deserve your attention not only now, as anti-Black racism is at the forefront of discourse in America, merely as part of your ongoing reading practise.

This entire list is shoppable on Bookshop, a platform that supports independent bookstores. Y'all tin likewise consider buying directly from one of these Blackness-owned contained bookstores. Besides, this list is in no waycomprehensive. It is just a first. Happy reading!!

Memoir

1. The Color of Beloved: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl past Marra B. Gad

"Jew­ish boys didn't want to explain my brown skin. And blackness boys could not under­stand up or cover my Judaism," Marra Gad writes in her powerful memoir The Color of Love. Built-in in New York City in April 1970 to a white Jewish female parent and a Blackness non-Jewish dad, she was adopted by a white Jewish family unit in Chicago 3 days afterward her birth. Largely focused on her childhood in Chicago, she writes well-nigh the racism she encountered from her customs and extended family akin.

"Oft, people desire me to give answers I can't give and to tell them that things are meliorate now than they were in the '70s, '80s, '90s. Often proud grandparents show me photographs of their gorgeous bi and multiracial grandchildren and want me to hope that their grandchildren won't experience the things that I accept," Gad said in an interview. "I pray that someday, I will be able to do just that. But sadly, I cannot yet."

Fun fact: Marra Gad is a film producer! Notably, she producedGirl Well-nigh Probablestaring Kristin Wiig and Annette Bening in 2012.Go The Colour of Honey here.

two. Black White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Shelfpast Rebecca Walker

Rebecca Walker is the girl of famous Black writer Alice Walker and Jewish lawyer Melvyn Rosenman Leventhal. Mel and Alice divorced when Rebecca was 7 years sometime, and she grew up splitting her time between her dad's community in Riverdale, a Jewish neighborhood in the Bronx, and her mom's predominately Blackness customs in San Francisco. Her book details the early years of her life in Mississippi (Alice and Mel were active in the Civil Rights Movement) and growing upward with very different parents.

Fun fact: At historic period 22, Rebecca Walker coined the concept "Third-moving ridge feminism." Get Black White and Jewish here.

3. The Last Blackness Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish

Tiffany Haddish met her dad, an Eritrean Jew, for the first time when she was 27 years old. It ultimately sent her downward a journey of understanding her Jewish and Eritrean heritages, and this past Dec, she officially became a bat mitzvah. (Her bat mitzvah was a powerful affidavit for Black Jews everywhere.) T he Last Black Unicorn, Haddish's memoir, takes us through her babyhood and her journeying into comedy. Like many other Jews of Colour, Haddish has experienced her fair share of racism and discrimination when entering predominantly white Jewish spaces. But, as she told Alma this past winter, "I have no problem saying: This is where I'chiliad supposed to exist."

Fun Fact: Baton Crystal had an aliyah at Tiffany's bat mitzvah, and nosotros'll honestly never be over it. Get The Terminal Black Unicorn hither.

4. The Color of H2o: A Black Human being's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride

First published in 1995, James McBride'south memoir tells the story of his mother, Ruchel Dwajra Zylaska (later Rachel Deborah Shilsky, then Ruth McBride Jordan). Ruth immigrated to American from Poland; she was the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi. In 1942, Ruth, a white woman, converted to Christianity and married James'southward father, Rev. Andrew Dennis McBride, a Black human. Ruth and Dennis would proceed to have 8 children, including James; after Dennis's expiry, she remarried, and they had four children. The Color of H2ois James's attempts to sympathize his female parent and how she raised 12 Blackness children; growing up, he would ask her where she was from, and she'd reply, "God made me." He writes near how his mom sent her children to schools in Jewish neighborhoods, and how through teaching, she "conveyed her Jewishness to u.s.." On James's ain Jewish identity, he explained, "I'm proud of my Jewish history. Technically I gauge you could say I'yard Jewish since my mother was Jewish…just she converted [to Christianity]. So the question is for theologians to respond. It doesn't cause me ane drop of blood, sweat or tears. I just get up in the forenoon happy to be living."

Fun fact: James McBride professionally plays the saxophone! Become The Color of Water here.

5. Lovesong: Becoming a Jew by Julius Lester

Julius Lester is perhaps best known for his children'south books, but his memoir,Lovesong, should absolutely non be overlooked. But let's support: Lester was born the son of a minister in St. Louis, Missouri in 1939. Lester largely grew up in Kansas Metropolis, Kansas and Nashville, Tennessee. During the Civil Rights Motility, he was involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Blackness Power movement, and performed every bit a folk singer. In 1982, Lester converted to Judaism, and served as lay religious leader of Beth El Synagogue in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Lovesong begins with this powerful bulletin:

Fun fact: Julius Lester hated Hanukkah. Become Lovesong hither.

vi. Jokes My Begetter Never Taught Me: Life, Love, and Loss with Richard Pryor by Rain Pryor

Pelting Pryor is a successful actress, writer, and comedian. Oh, and she'due south the daughter of legendary comedian Richard Pryor — Jewish extra and go-go dancer Shelley Bonis was Pryor's second wife. In her memoir, Rain writes all most her childhood split between her father and mother'south families and homes. Here, have a clarification: "In this intimate, harrowing, and oftentimes hilarious memoir, Rain talks about her divided heritage … In her male parent's business firm, she bonded with Richard's grandmother, Mamma, a one-time whorehouse madam who never tired of reminding Pelting that she was black. In her mother'south house, and in the home of her Jewish grandparents, Pelting was a 'mocha-colored Jewish princess,' learning how to melt everything from kugel to beef brisket." It'due south messy and loving and raw.

Rain also explores her Black Jewish identity in her solo testify Fried Chicken and Latkes, talking about racism in the 1960s and '70s as she was mainly raised by her white Jewish grandparents. As she explains, "Fried Chicken and Latkes is derived from my being born a product of an iconic father, Richard Pryor, and a social activist/Jewish mother, Shelley Bonis, who believed my birth was going to change America."

Fun fact: Rain is also a jazz/blues vocalist. Become it here.

7. Soul to Soul: A Black Russian Jewish Woman's Search for Her Roots past Yelena Khanga with Susan Jacoby

A remarkable family history is detailed in Soul to Soul. Yelena Khanga's great-grandfather, Hilliard Golden, was born a slave. Her granddaddy, Oliver Golden, studied agronomy at Tuskegee Institute, and served in the Army during World War I. After returning abode, he was unable to find employment — and ended upwards joining the Communist Political party. Arrested during a union demonstration, he met beau demonstrator Bertha Bialek, a Jewish adult female born in Warsaw. Oliver and Bertha soon married. In 1931, they left New York Urban center for the Soviet Union, where they welcomed a girl, Lily. Lily Golden grew up in the Soviet Union and became the first Black pupil at Moscow State University, and went on to teach at the African Institute in Moscow. Lily married Abdullah Khanga, a Zanzibari politician, and they had one daughter, Yelena. A few months later Yelena'due south nascence, Abduallah returned to Zanzibar in 1962. He was executed in 1969. Yelena grew upwards with three generations of women living nether the same house — Bertha, Lily, and herself. "Chronicling iii generations of racial and ethnic pride, Khanga turns a critical heart toward racism, feminism, Communism, and democracy, and examines these ideas and institutions every bit they relate to her experiences in the Usa and abroad," Kirkus Reviews writes.

Fun fact:Afterwards Yelena Khanga published her memoir, her mom, Lily Golden, too wrote a memoir called My Long Journeying Home. Get Soul to Soul here.

Fiction

8. Ariel Samson: Freelance RabbibyMaNishtana

Orthodox rabbi Shais Rishon writes under the penname MaNishtana, and Ariel Samson is his semi-autobiographical novel. Ariel is a 20-something Blackness rabbi navigating life and work in the Jewish community in NYC. Equally JTA explains, "many of the racist experiences Ariel faces within the Jewish community are either based on his own life or stories told to him by other Jews of color. 1 episode, in which Ariel confronts an Orthodox New York assemblyman over wearing a greasepaint costume on Purim, is a 'verbatim' recollection of a conversation that Rishon had with a real local politician who did that."

Rishon grew upward in a Black Jewish family in the Chabad movement in Brooklyn — though he no longer identifies with Chabad, only as Orthodox — and he is a powerful writer and educator. "I'm an African-American writer, yep, and a Jewish-American author, yes — both. To put the Jew of colour entry into Jewish American fiction." Hell, yes.

Fun fact: Rabbi Rishon's twitter, @MaNishtana, is amazing. If y'all're on Twitter, follow him. Get Ariel Samson here.

9. Small Island by Andrea Levy

Andrea Levy'sSmall Islandtells the story of four Jamaican immigrants in 1948 in England. The novel was adjusted into a BBC evidence in 2009, and for phase in April 2019. Levy, herself born in London to Jamaican parents, focuses on British Jamaican identity in her work.

Levy's grandfather was an Orthodox Jewish man who later on converted to Christianity later on World War I. However, Levy claims her Jewish heritage. Equally she told Haaretz in 2006, "I don't know that side of my family and I'grand now desperately trying to trace beyond my grandad, into that Jewish line, simply I oasis't had much luck so far. I honey having these wonderful levels of identities, I think they're coming from Jamaica, which has and so many different people from different places. I think I accept every single person that ever lived in Jamaica roaming around my genes somewhere."

Fun fact: Levy's other famous novel, The Long Song, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize in 2010. Get Modest Isle here.

10. PeaceSong DC by Carolivia Herron

Subtitled "A Jewish Africana Academia Epic Tale of Washington Metropolis,"PeaceSong DCis an admittedly epic read. "Shirah Shulamit Ojero has four loves: her African American civilization, her Jewish heritage, academic written report — especially the study of literary epics — and her city, Washington, DC. Peacesong DC displays the interconnection of these iv loves every bit Shirah grows up," explains the book clarification. "Although all of the stories told in Peacesong DC are based on actual events in the writer'southward life, the book is classified equally fiction rather than non-fiction because the stories bend toward the arc of storytelling rather than that of rigid facts."

Herron, herself born in D.C. in 1947, converted to Judaism at age 47. She explained, "When my mom, who had originally been less enthusiastic, saw me in synagogue with the Torah, she told me, 'You've been Jewish all your life. I just didn't know information technology.'" In researching her family history, she found that she was descended from Sarah Shulamit, a Sephardic Jew.

Fun fact: Carolivia Herron is actually best known for her children'south books, like Nappy Hair and Ever an Olivia. Get PeaceSong DC here.

xi. Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid

Alma contributor Nylah Burton writes about Lucy in "ix books to read by Jews of Color": "Kincaid converted to Judaism in 1993, after over a decade of existence married to the Jewish composer Allen Shawn. TellingTablet Mag of her decision to convert, Kincaid said a rabbi told her that she and her children wouldn't be buried in the same cemetery if she didn't. Kincaid remembers thinking, 'What if there'southward a Jewish heaven and I'g in the other heaven and I'd have to transport them messages?' I couldn't bear to be separated from them.' Afterward her divorce, when people asked Kincaid if she would return to Christianity, she thought it was ludicrous, proverb, 'People ask me if I'one thousand nevertheless a Jew and it's like, practice you recall Judaism is a fashionable skirt?'"

Kincaid's work may not be explicitly Jewish, but information technology's firmly rooted in an experience that many Caribbean Jews of Color can identify with. Themes of colonial legacies, complicated familial relationships, racism, and class ripple through her writing. There are so many books of Kincaid'south to read and they're all worth information technology, but I would propose starting with Lucy, a story of a West Indian girl who leaves her home to work for a white family. The story is loosely autobiographical, mirroring Kincaid's ain experiences."

Fun fact: This is not a fun fact only just my favorite Jamaica Kincaid quote: "The inevitable is no less a shock just considering it is inevitable." Become Lucy here.

12. Deacon King Kong by James McBride

McBride is on hither twice, sad non sorry!!! I'm just gonna grab the text from Junot Díaz's review in The New York Times Book Review: "Deacon Rex Kong is many things: a mystery novel, a criminal offense novel, an urban farce, a portrait of a projection community. There'due south even some western in here. The novel is, in other words, a lot. Fortunately, it is as well deeply felt, beautifully written and greatly humane; McBride'south power to inhabit his characters' foibled, all-too-human interiority helps transform a fine book into a great one. He has written beautifully earlier, in his honey memoir, The Colour of H2o, and, with terrifying blasphemy, in his National Book Honor-winning novel, The Skillful Lord Bird. But Deacon King Kong reads like he's tapped a whole fresh seam of inspiration and verve. It'south clear that he'southward having a blast, and his spirit of funning irreverence supercharges the entire narrative like home-brewed black lightning."

Fun fact #ii: He's written ii films, Miracle at St. Anna (2008) and Cherry Hook Summertime (2012). Get Deacon King Kong here.

13. Like shooting fish in a barrel Rawlins serial by Walter Ellis Mosley

Walter Mosley, a Black Jewish crime author, is perhaps best known for his "Easy Rawlins" series. Easy is a Black private detective in Watts, Los Angeles. Easy is the subject area of his first published book — and the first in the series — Devil in a Blue Dress(fun fact: made into a picture show in 1995 starring Denzel freakin' Washington). There are now 14 novels, plus a collection of short stories, starring Like shooting fish in a barrel Rawlins.

What does information technology mean to be Jewish? Mosley explains: "In a way, to exist a Jew is to exist a part of a tribe," he said. "Being a office of a tribe, you can never really escape your identity. You tin exist anything inside, merely in the finish you're ever answerable to your blood."

Fun fact:His Wikipedia says he "started writing at 34 and has written every twenty-four hours since." Omfg. Get the first in the Easy Rawlins series here.

14. Sophie Katz mysteries past Kyra Davis

Kyra Davis grew up in Santa Clara, California, raised by a single Jewish mom. She translated her own upbringing as a Black Jewish woman into her delightful heroine, Sophie Katz, who is a Blackness Jewish mystery writer and amateur sleuth. She began writing equally she was dealing with her own divorce, maxim, "my life was falling apart and I wanted to go lost in a fictional globe." There are now seven (!!) Sophie Katz mysteries, and each one is simply as fun and engaging as the concluding.

Fun fact: "Occasionally, when people enquire me where I'm from, I'll brand up some country in Africa and human activity really offended if they say they never heard of it," Davis joked. Become a Sophie Katz mystery here.

Young Adult

15. Colour Me Inby Natasha Díaz

Natasha Díaz'south debut YA novel, Color Me In, fictionalizes her childhood and tells the coming-of-age story of Navaeh Levitz. Navaeh is a Black Jewish teenager whose begetter forces her to accept a belated bat mitzvah at age 16. Navaeh'due south parents are in the midst of a divorce, and the bat mitzvah is her father's way of having her stay connected to his Jewish family. Meanwhile, Navaeh is struggling to figure out her identity, her relationship to her blackness, her privilege, a blossoming relationship, and both sides of her family unit. Information technology's a compelling and timely read, and rooted in Díaz's own lived experiences; Díaz has a white Jewish male parent and a Liberian and Brazilian non-Jewish mom.

When I chatted with Natasha for Alma final year, she told me, "I promise that anyone who reads it, who has felt othered, or who hasn't felt comfy in themselves for whatsoever reason, or other people don't accept them for who they are, knows: They have a correct [and] a pride in who they are and there'due south nothing wrong with taking ownership of that."

Fun fact: When Natasha was 9, she and her mom were on Oprah to talk about the experience of existence a multiracial family. When Oprah asked her a question, young Natasha froze up (you can watch the video here). Get Colour Me In hither.

Essays

16. Impenetrable Diva: Tales of Race, Sex and Hair by Lisa Jones

Lisa Jones is the girl of poets Hettie Jones and Amiri Baraka (known as LeRoi Jones). Jones (née Cohen), a Jewish writer, and Baraka, a Black nationalist writer, had ii children, Kellie and Lisa. Lisa recalls, "I grew upwards thinking that I was a part of a very healthy American family unit and it has always amazed me when people respond to it as if it is an oddity." Bulletproof Divais a collection of essays, all of which were originally published in the Village Phonation as part of her "Peel Trade" column. "Everything I know nigh American history I learned from looking at black people's hair. It's the perfect metaphor for the African experiment here: the price of the ticket (for a journey no one elected to take), the toll of slavery, and the costs of remaining. It'southward all in the hair," Jones writes.

Fun Fact: Lisa is not merely an achieved essayist, merely she's as well a playwright and co-wrote three books with Fasten Lee! Get Bulletproof Diva here.

Nutrient Writing

17. The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old Due south by Michael Twitty

Michael Twitty is a Black Jewish writer, culinary historian, and educator. In 2010, he began blogging on Afroculinaria, a culinary history web log, and in 2011, began a project called the "Cooking Cistron" which eventually became this remarkable book. Every bit our sister siteThe Nosherwrites, Twitty "might be the only person correct at present who could write such a book: Arguably the earth'southward simply blackness, Jewish, gay culinarian, this 'yid of a different color' (his words) has resisted any attempt to categorize his piece of work into hands digestible bites. Instead, he continues to ready a rich repast of complex ideas that claiming and aggrandize the boundaries of our traditions — and our palates." The Cooking Factorwon the 2022 James Bristles Award for Best Food Writing & Book of the Year; it takes u.s.a. through Southern food and food civilisation from Africa to America.

Fun fact: His favorite Jewish food is kasha varnishkes. Why? "I think sometimes people don't have the time with these heart-of-the-road, classic Ashkenazi dishes. You've got to utilise fresh herbs and real schmaltz, I'm talking about globules of chicken fatty in there. When you exercise, they become really awesome. It makes my center sing." Go The Cooking Factor here.

eighteen. Do What Feels Expert: Recipes, Remedies, and Routines to Treat Your Body Right past Hannah Bronfman

Hannah Bronfman is a woman of many talents — DJ, entrepreneur, founder of HBFIT, influencer, and writer — and her first volume, Do What Feels Practiced, brings it all together. Information technology's office-cookbook, part wellness how-to, and part memoir. Hannah is vocal virtually creating infinite for Blackness women in the predominately white wellness space, and making health attainable to all. In Practise What Feels Good, she gets existent on her ain personal journey into health and eating well.

"Growing up in NYC from a prominent Jewish family, with a very potent black mother who grew up during segregation in the south side of Chicago from a middle-course family," Bronfman told me final year, "from a young age, I was very aware of both of these sides of myself. It can be challenging beingness mixed, especially in the 90s and 2000s — obviously now as well — only as a immature girl, trying to effigy out your identity and it being a little more complicated than most…"  She trails off, soon calculation, "I won't say it was hard, and I won't say it was like shooting fish in a barrel."

Fun fact: Hannah's Instagram is an crawly follow. Get Exercise What Feels Skillful hither.

Poetry

xix. Yarmulkes & Fitted Caps by Aaron Levy Samuels

Aaron Levy Samuels is the co-founder and principal operating officer of Blavity, a digital community for Black millennials. Samuels was raised in Providence, Rhode Isle past a white Jewish female parent and a Black non-Jewish begetter, and his poems often swoop into his identity. One poem, "Which Keeps Me (blackjewish)," is incredibly striking. It begins:

The black is the stain on me that anybody feels more comfortable
ignoring. The Jewish is that too. The water is the thing that keeps
me here; I am not sure if that is a practiced thing. When I say rope,
I hateful that which coils and unfurls.

Read the full poem hither.

Fun fact: Yep, he knows he shares a proper noun with Aaron Samuels of Mean Girls (2004) fame — lookout man his response. Get Yarmulkes & Fitted Capshither.

20. Collywobbles in Fields of Corn by Dr. Tarece Johnson

Dr. Tarece Johnson is a womanist, author, activist, abolitionist, and so much more. She's a leader in her local NAACP in Atlanta, Georgia, Alliance for Black Lives, and March on Georgia. And, yes, she writes verse; Butterflies in Fields of Corn is her outset volume. Simply she didn't terminate there; not seeing her own experiences in the traditional Jewish prayer volume, she decided to write her own. She's written a haggadah, and Ahava, a book of poetry, meditations, and affirmations for Black Jews.

"When I made the conscious determination to convert to Judaism and as I searched for ways to connect with my new Jewish lifestyle, I needed sources that mirrored my personal choices and experiences. In the traditional liturgy, I did not find Shabbat meditation books that were focused on conversion, social justice, and the Black Jewish adult female experience. So I did what Jewish women take done through the generations: I wrote a volume of prayers and meditations, calledAhava," she explained. Whatcan'tDr. Tarece exercise!?

Fun fact: Dr. Tarece has a TikTok (@medicotarece) and it's amazing. SERIOUSLY Amazing. GoCollywobbles in Fields of Cornhere, and go Ahava hither.

Got kids or nieces and nephews? Check out this Jewish antiracist reading list for children of all ages from our partner site, Kveller.

newtoncouttepore.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.heyalma.com/20-books-by-black-jewish-authors-you-should-read/

Share this post