Seeing two rapping Orthodox Jews shake their groove thing on Conan O'Brian earlier this month was surreal enough... But surreal took another turn when a tall, lanky black rapper came out, also dressed to pray, and broke it down, in Yiddish...

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by Rose-Anne Clermont

Seeing two rapping Orthodox Jews shake their groove thing on Conan O’Brian earlier this month was surreal enough.   Despite their full orthodox garb: long black coat, tall black hat, prayer belt and beards that reached their chests, the Jewish homeboys even managed to get on the floor and start break dancing.  But surreal took another turn when a tall, lanky black rapper came out, also dressed to pray, and broke it down, in Yiddish.

They were performing Erran Baron Cohen’s Dreidel from his recently released CD “Songs in the Key of Hanukkah,” the Jewish holiday that was celebrated this year from December 21 – 28.  Cohen took classic Hanukkah songs and re-mixed them with every imaginable music form, including hip hop.  Y-Love, the black Orthodox Jew who raps not only in Yiddish but also the ancient Semitic language of Aramaic as well as Hebrew, Latin, Arabic and English, collaborated with Cohen on the album. 

“I rap in all the holy languages,” says Y-Love.  “So as long as you believe in something, we’re going to connect on some level.”

Yitzchak Jordan, his real name, started learning Hebrew when he was seven, from lessons he got from a kid in his class in exchange for lunch money.   ”I was jealous of the kids who got to go to Hebrew school,” he remembers.  Jordan’s defining moment, though, was seeing a public service announcement on TV wishing the audience a Happy Hanukkah.  “It was maybe a five second clip.  There wasn’t even much imagery, maybe some Matzoth and a cup of wine.  It was just an instinctive thing.  I knew there was a group of people called Jews and I wanted to be a part of them.”

But it was his Puerto Rican maternal grandmother who bought Jordan his first Menorah at the age of nine.  “She had a lot of positive interaction with Jews,” Jordan says.  “She was my translator for the family.  When my family (his mother was Puerto Rican, his father was a non-Jewish Ethiopian immigrant) asked, ‘Why is he wearing a yarmulke?’ Or when my mother got upset because I threw away bread during Passover, my grandmother explained that I was trying to get rid of leavened bread.”

Although he always wore a yarmulke or a prayer belt, Jordan officially starting converting to Judaism at 21 and travelled to Israel to attend a yeshiva.  It was there, after meeting an emcee named David Singer, that he began rhyming to text from the Talmud.

“My mother always said, ‘They’ll never accept you.’   True, racist Jews never will.  But I’ve had more headaches from black non-Jews than white Jews.  For so many black people, Jewish equals white.  A black man saw me with a yarmulke and said, ‘You Jewish, man?  I didn’t think that was an option for our people?’  Another said, ‘Wipe that white man’s beard off your face!’”  

While America is on the brink of proudly inaugurating the first bi-racial and bi-cultural president, many hurdles still remain for people who defy racial, ethnic and religious confines.  While blacks and whites of all religions voted for Obama, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Obama too dealt with criticism from some African-Americans as not being black enough, or uppity.  Most minority groups scream for more diversity yet when it happens within their own ethnic, religious or racial group, it’s often first met with resistance. 

Jordan has dealt with this resistance from Jews as well.   He hears more often from other Jews of color, that they too experience problems with exclusion from white Jews.  Jordan explains that some white Jews would rather not go to the synagogue at all then go to one in Flatbush, Brooklyn, for example, where he lives.  “I keep wondering how it’s possible that I’m always the first black Jew white Jews have met when I keep meeting more and more Jews of color?”   

But Y-Love’s music has managed to bridge, somewhat, this gap between race, religion and music.   His debut album, “This is Babylon,” released early this year, was met with acclaim from XXL magazine to the Jerusalem Post; both claiming him to be “revolutionary” and a “successful crossover artist.” 

His appeal to a diverse range of listeners (including a dean at Penn State) could also be attributed to Y-Love’s influences, which are as varied as his rhyming languages: Chuck D, Mos Def and Common, rank top on Jordan’s list because of the political commentary in their music.  Jordan grew up listening to political punk rock and remembers his mother -who was active in the Congressional Black Caucus -listening to Gil Scott-Heron.   Today, Jordan remains politically active by lecturing, blogging and rapping about racism, anti-Semitism and Islamaphobia.

“I’ve always listened to political music,” he says.   ”Recently I was watching that Sistah Souljah video where the white people are yelling at Mayor David Dinkins (The Hate that Hate Produced) and it only occurred to me today that all the white people in that video are Jewish!  I thought, aww, am I fighting an uphill battle?”

This story is filed under: Entertainment