Search This Blog

Loading...

Twitter Updates

Jewminicana You Tube Video Bar

Loading...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Representing...

Bess Greenberg/New York Times
Yosef Abrahamson, 16, right, with his mother, Dinah, and his sister, Sarah, near their home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.



An recent article, "A Young Man From Omaha, Who May Perfectly Represent Brooklyn," by Susan Dominus for the New York Times Big City section portrays an interesting picture of some Jews of Color in Brooklyn. The article follows 16-year-old Yosef Abrahamson and his family. They are new Hasidic transplants to Crown Heights Brooklyn. There are also Jews of Color of mixed German Jewish and more notably, the article points out of African (Egyptian) and Panamian descent. They find acceptance from both the Jewish and African-American communities that have always been at odds in that are of Brooklyn. An African-American passerby proclaimed, "Now, I've seen everything" after watching the family walk home from shul.

If Yosef represents Brooklyn, then perhaps, I, as a Dominican Jewess, represent Washington Heights?