Rivkush

J-Rob is a Montreal-based musician, poet, video game streamer and Black Jew. He doesn't fit into any single box—even his music, from track to track, sounds radically different. Balancing these multiple identities fuels his art, some of which he shares with us today. Follow J-Rob on Instagram at @halfwhitefullblack . Credits Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and pro...

At one point during David Ben Moshe's two years in prison, he saw a fellow inmate reading a strange religious book in a foreign language—which he later learned was Hebrew. At that moment, he discovered Judaism, beginning a process that would lead him to an Orthodox conversion, marrying an Israeli woman and raising kids in Israel. At least, that was the plan. But when Ben Moshe tried to become an I...

The ongoing debate over what Jews "are"—a religion? A nationality? An ethnicity?—inevitably gets more complicated when considering the hundreds of thousands of Jews of colour living around the world. Nowhere is this question trickier than in Israel, where a plurality of Jews identify as Mizrahi or Sephardi. Hen Mazzig, an acclaimed Israeli writer of Mizrahi descent, has thought often abo...

In North America, Brandy Shufutinsky might be called a Black Jewish woman, or a Jew of colour. But in Israel, she's just a Jew. It might sound counterintuitive to feel safer in Israel, under threat of geopolitcal tension and terrorism, than in the United States, but that's the truth. Feeling comfortable walking down the street makes a big difference when you were born in a country where anti-Black...

When Matthew Fernandez Konigsberg isn't working his day job as an in-house attorney at a large international law firm, he's actively working within the Puerto Rican and Jewish communities, fighting for the rights of Puerto Ricans and against antisemitism. Over his storied career, which included years as a special counsel for ethics, risk and compliance in the New York State Governor's Office, he's...

Rain Pryor is many things: an actress, singer, performer, comedian, mother, one-time city council candidate in the City of Baltimore... and, yes, daughter of Richard Pryor, the famous comedian. Her mother, Shelley Bonus, a former go-go-dancer turned astronomer, was Jewish; Rain grew up studying torah with her grandfather and learning to make latkes with her bubbe. Rain has been outspoken about her...

Noah Shufutinsky, a.k.a. Westside Gravy, might be the most adamantly Zionist hip hop artist working right now. Raised in California, Shufutinsky is best known for fiery tracks like "Diaspora" and "Angry Black Man"; his music blends identity politics with global politics, calls out double standards and challenges conventional assumptions about what it means to be Black and Jewis...

How should Jews think about race? Some prefer not to think about it at all—but ignoring problems in our community won't make them disappear. Jews of colour routinely fight for visibility and push for white Jews to think twice before making assumptions, especially in Jewish spaces. Tyler Samuels has felt this personally. As a Jew of Jamaican descent, a recent graduate from the University of Toronto...

Rivka "Rivkush" Campbell, a Jew of Jamaican descent, has been one of Canada's most vocal Jews of colour. In this new podcast by The CJN Podcast Network, she interviews fascinating Jews of colour and activists from all over the world, opening a dialogue with the mainstream Jewish community about the diversity of their views, perspectives and experiences. Rivkush is created and hosted by R...