by Webmaster | Feb 12, 2015 | Identity, Jewish Ritual
The baggage claim at the airport in Gondar, Ethiopia is still by far the most humorous way I have yet to collect my luggage after flying. A massive crate is hauled from the plane and dumped into a heaping pile of blues, blacks and greys, with all the creative markings...
by Shekhiynah Larks | Feb 3, 2015 | Identity, Jewish Ritual
L’chaim, to life, but to celebrate without knowing, would merely divert those from seeing my true being. You see, what you see is nothing short of brilliance, of strength, of success and triumph. But that is something that took decades to discover. My entire life has...
by Shekhiynah Larks | Jan 28, 2015 | Identity, Jewish Ritual
“He (Moses) said: “If you will listen diligently to the voice of HaShem, your God, and you will do what is just in His eyes, and you will give ear to His commandments and observe all His statues, then any of the diseases that I placed upon Egypt, I will not place upon...
by Webmaster | Jan 27, 2015 | Arts & Culture, Identity, Jewish Ritual
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past…” When William Faulkner wrote these words in Requiem for a Nun, I’m pretty certain he didn’t have a formerly opera-singing African-American performer of Yiddish in mind. Nonetheless, for me Faulkner’s words still manage to...
by Webmaster | Jan 14, 2015 | Identity, Jewish Ritual
During my childhood, I never understood why I found myself needing to adapt differently depending on which parent I was walking with: my black mother, or my white father. But then the stares grew longer, the presumptuous comments and questions never seemed to...
by Webmaster | Dec 30, 2014 | Identity, Jewish Ritual
My daughter Maya and I had been walking along 125th Street in Harlem, past the larger-than-life statue of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., pastor, politician, and Civil Rights activist; the Studio Museum of contemporary African art; and the landmark Apollo Theater that...
