All posts tagged as: eric l. goldstein
JewFro: On African Americans and American Jews
Always a place for fairly insightful cultural criticism, Impose Mag has a short piece today entitled “A Continued Hebrew Infatuation With African Music” that cites The Sway Machinery as one contemporary Jewish band that draws heavily from African musical tradition. The piece uses the term “JewFro” to describe bands like Sway and newcomers Fool’s Gold.
Of course, Impose is hardly the first to explore the strong connections between Jewish and African culture. Looking for more? Feminist scholar Rebecca Walker wrote the book Black White and Jewish on her experience as growing up as all 3, while Eric L. Goldstein’s The Price of Whiteness delves into the complicated relationship between racial and ethnic identity using American Jewry as the prime subject. If you’re looking for something lighter, JDub friend Adam Mansbach’s novel The End of the Jews details the shared history of American Jews and Blacks using music and culture as the main vehicles for analysis. This is not to mention the veritable libraries of other books, articles and anthropological journals focused on this very subject.
Need more proof? 2 words: Obama/Emanuel.