I did not invite questions from readers for my live interview with Sen. Cory Booker this week because we only had a half-hour, but many of you sent them anyhow. "We don't wait to be asked, we're Jews," I joked to Booker later. Most of the questions that came were on the same topic: the recent spate of anti-Semitic outbursts by Black athletes and celebrities. So I asked Booker -- who while running for the Democratic presidential nomination last year said he would not meet with Louis Farrakhan because of his anti-Semitism -- what he would say to people like Nick Cannon, the reality TV star, DeSean Jackson of the NFL and Stephen Jackson of the NBA, who had been quoting Farrakhan and promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. 


"I'm embarrassed to tell you that I haven't heard of these incidents," Booker said. 

At least he was embarrassed. And this was on Monday night -- I'm sure by now Booker is up to date on, especially, the Cannon chronicles. On Tuesday, ViacomCBS fired the actor and reality-show host over a podcast in which he promoted insidious tropes about Jews controlling commerce and society, and an interview with a rapper who had called Jews "wicked." Cannon at first doubled down, demanding an apology from the network with which he had a decade-long multimillion-diollar relationship, then on Wednesday apologized himself, "to my Jewish sisters and brothers for the hurtful and divisive words that came out of my mouth,"

Cannon and DeSean Jackson both were counseled by rabbis, and now apparently have invitations to visit Israel (Cannon) and Auschwitz (Jackson). They might start with a simple Shabbat dinner, which is how Booker so famously became steeped in Jewish culture and tradition starting when he was a student at Oxford University. "I'm somebody that believes that we have to call this stuff out, we have to call out bigotry of any type, anti-Semisim," Booker said in our conversation Monday (watch the video here if you missed it),  "Silence in the face of injustice or bigotry or hate is complicity in it."

He went on to say it should not be "up to Jewish people" to do the calling out. "It should be black folks who are doing that, Christian folks who are doing that, Muslims who are doing that," Booker said. "In the same way that I don't want to be calling out racism all the time."

This reminded me of something my daughter, who is not yet 13, said as the Black Lives Matter protests came to our town and every town last month. She was thinking about whether she is "a protest person," as she put it, and how to balance her outrage about racism with her commitment to social distancing. She said she felt she should join the protest if she would join one against anti-Semitism; if it had been more directly about her. This, of course, reminded me of Hillel: "If I am only for myself who am I?"

And, now, of Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the surprising hero -- surprising, at least, for a girl who grew up in Boston in the 1970s and '80s -- of the week. "The lesson never changes, so why is it so hard for some people to learn: No one is free until everyone is free," the L.A. Lakers legend wrote in the Hollywood Reporter. "If we're going to be outraged by injustice, let's be outraged by injustice against anyone."
 
We've been covering each of these incidents all week, of course, and this morning Ari Feldman put it all in context and explained how some of the comments are rooted in the theology of the Black Israelites. For your weekend reads, which you can download and print via the blue button below, I went in a different direction, starting with Ari's fascinating look at the Israelis training American Jews to use guns in shul (even without shuls being open); a fascinating story about Woodstock that has nothing to do with music by our art critic Jackson Arn; and my own take on Bari Weiss's distressing resignation from my beloved New York Times.

 

There's also a heartbreaking piece by our friends at the J. Jewish News of Northern California, about a doctor who was shot and killed while off-roading in the Sierras; a profile of Amir Haskel, the retired Israeli general who has become the surprising face of opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; a look at day-schools's dilemmas over reopening; a look at synagogues' high-holiday planning; and the latest from the Bintel Brief, which asks (and answers): How late is too late to do something?

If you, like me, are planning to picnic this Shabbat, check out our latest story on the Urban Archive app for inspiration from the Workers Circle in July 1931. Or maybe try to make this incredible-looking chocolate espresso cake from Carly Pilids's #TweetYourShabbat column, which we publish every Friday. And if you like this newsletter, Forward it to a friend (see what I did there?). 
 
Shabbat Shalom,


Jodi Rudoren
Editor-in-Chief
rudoren@forward.com