I haven't commented on Twitter about #BlackLivesMatter mostly because (a) it's not my story to tell and (b) the last thing anyone needs is a middle-age, white, cis-male, Jewish perspective. Then today, I saw "Jews" and "Nick Cannon" trending. And that ~is~ my story to tell.

So here's the thing: we as Jews, and me in particular, must admit (if only to ourselves) that we part of the problem of racism in America. And then we must ~become~ part of the solution. Full. Stop.

We don't just "pass as white," we enjoy many aspects of #WhitePrivilege. Yes, yes #Charlottesville. Yes, yes, #Pittsburgh. Yes, yes #JewsWillNotReplaceUs. Anti-semitism is a real problem in U.S. and around the world. Now let's arrest the police who killed #BreonnaTaylor.

That our (metaphorical) house is ever in danger doesn't change the fact that Black Americans' (metaphorical) house is aflame. And if members of Jewish communities have not laid some kindling (spoiler alert: we have) we have too often “stood idly by.” https://source.wustl.edu/2011/05/elie-wiesels-2011-commencement-address-at-washington-university-in-st-louis/#:~:text=My%20commandment%20is%2C%20%E2%80%9CThou%20shall,You%20must%20intervene.

Some Jewish communities and their leaders were like those that Dr. King addressed in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail when he wrote to his “Christian and Jewish brothers… I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate" https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

Jewish communities today and historically have been too moderate in support of Black communities and Black leaders. One of the Jewish leaders we can admire is Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. He was a leader among Jews, and follower of Dr. King. Here they are together:

Rabbi Heschel said of Dr. King in 1968: “Martin Luther King is a sign that God has not forsaken the United States of America. His mission is sacred, his leadership of supreme importance to every one of us…[he] is a voice, a vision and a way” https://gendlergrapevine.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Conversation-with-Martin-Luther-King.pdf

The kinship between Black leaders and the Jewish community endures today. I heard @RepJohnLewis address the 2013 @JTSVoice graduating class. He and other Black leaders have before and since been attentive to the threats facing the Jewish community.

Jewish communities must return that generosity of spirit and follow today's Black leaders, both the established ones and those who are emerging. We must answer their communities’ cries for help, even as they answered ours.

We Jews have clamored for education about the Holocaust, demand that the world feels our pain. Nearly every Jew knows the number who perished in that conflagration. But how many Jews know the number of Africans who sunk below the Atlantic waves in the Middle Passage?

We see our suffering as interwoven with the history of the nations that inflicted it. But do we take the time to learn the history of Black communities in America? Do we feel the pain of Black communities? Do we see their suffering as interwoven with ~our~ history?

We know the names of Jewish victims and their tormentors. Do we remember the names of those who bought slaves, who raped them, who sold their children? Here’s one: Thomas Jefferson. And here’s another: Judah Benjamin (remember the spoiler alert?). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_P._Benjamin#Spokesman_for_slavery

For Jews, racism should be seen not only a crime against other humans, but as a crime against God, because it diminishes what God's children can achieve in their time on Earth. Racism robs from the universe the contributions of singular human minds and the work of human hands.

TLDR; @NickCannon: I forgive you for your lapses, and I hope you forgive me for mine.