The theatre world is abuzz, because tonight is the one-night-only concert of Jason Robert Brown’s musical, The Last Five Years. The musical, which originally played New York city in 2002, had a film adaptation only one year ago. The musical, following a failed relationship from the couple meeting through divorcing (based on Brown’s first marriage), is traditionally performed with only two actors. Tonight’s sold-out concert is garnering so much attention because its cast is two extremely prominent Broadway performers: Cynthia Erivo and Joshua Henry.

The two are both African American, unusual for The Last Five Years, but in the era of Hamilton, Broadway has become bolder with casting with an eye towards diversity. Once Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and James Madison have all been portrayed by people of color (to great success), why on earth can’t you cast anyone talented enough as (semi-)fictional characters? And thankfully, most people seem unfazed by this production, but are simply excited.

“Cynthia and Joshua, even I want to see that,” Brown told Playbill. “Who doesn’t want to see Cynthia and Joshua do pretty much anything?”

He’s right, but perhaps the disappointing aspect of this news is the insistence that Erivo and Henry’s race is irrelevant to the characters. While this is mostly valid, a key element of The Last Five Years is that Jamie Wellerstein (Henry’s character) is Jewish. In fact, his first song in the show, “Shiksa Goddess,” is about his interest in Cathy (Erivo) stemming from the fact that she’s not a Member of the Tribe.

“Not changing the story is part of the point, which is to say that great actors will have a valid take on material,” Jason Robert Brown, who is also directing this production, told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s not that I’m even asking anyone to believe that Joshua Henry is a nice Jewish boy from Rockland County but what Joshua can bring to that part is immensely substantial, and that’s what my job is as a director — to make sure he brings all of his truth to that role without compromising the writing.”

But here’s the thing, Mr. Brown. Why shouldn’t we believe that Henry is a nice Jewish boy? Estimates for the Black Jewish population in America ranges from the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. In fact, just this past year, the Tony Winner for for Featured Actor in a Musical was Daveed Diggs, who is both black and Jewish.

Audiences for this production don’t have to be watch Joshua Henry as though his excellent performance will compensate for him not being what you think Jamie should look like.

We should not be approaching this production the same way we approach the Founding Fathers in Hamilton, with a wink to anachronism and artistic license, as a way to pose questions about fairness and equality in the way we approach history through art. That could be true for, say, a mixed-race cast of Fiddler on the Roof, when you would have a hard time finding Jews of African descent in the shtetl. But a young man who grew up in New York State in the twentieth century, who is both Jewish and black? We should accept that as realistic.

Image via Facebook. By Jenny Anderson

The post ‘The Last Five Years’ and Jews of Color appeared first on Jewcy.

Y-Love is an international rap star who seamlessly blends Judaism, Hebrew, English, and Aramaic into his music. So he was the perfect person to help OMGWTFBIBLE host David Tuchman come up with creative new ways to read Parshat Va’era, the second portion in Exodus.

In this first part of the reading, Y-Love dropped some serious knowledge about how Facebook’s been penalizing people not using their legal names on their profiles (which they kinda-sorta fixed today) and about the Hebrew word “Vayikach”. Check it all out below!

Note: Y-Love sang at the live show. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to record his music well enough to share it online, so it’s been edited out of the podcast. All the more reason to come to the live show if you live in New York. You never know what you’ll miss!

David Tuchman translated the Tanakh as a comedy and called it OMGWTFBIBLE. Each month on his podcast, he calls up a different guest to read as many chapters of OMGWTFBIBLE as they can while they both make fun of it.

Jewcy is the proud (internet) co-host of OMGWTFBIBLE. Read more about the project here, and listen to previous episodes here.

Check back here in a week for the next installment of OMGWTFBIBLE. David will be reading the next live show with Rishe Groner at Beauty Bar on October 27!

Related: Hip Hop Artist Yitz “Y-Love” Jordan Discusses Being Black, Gay, and Jewish

(Image: Schneur Menaker via Wikipedia Commons)

The post OMGWTFBIBLE: Y-Love on Facebook’s “Real Name” Policy, God’s Omniscience, and Exodus appeared first on Jewcy.

At least once a month on Monday morning, Talisha Harrison (aka Tali Adina) wakes up at 7AM, leaves her house, and heads for her local JCC. “I go inside up the stairs to the chapel, get a prayer book off the shelf and take out my tallit” she explains on her blog, Tali Adina’s Days of Future Past, “I say the blessing and wrap it around me; I’m now ready for the minyan service to begin.”

Tali plays an active role in the Jewish community of her Florida hometown, attending minyan because “Not only do you connect with G-D at minyan, you also connect with others in your congregation and community… it’s essential that you participate. Without your participation, the community wouldn’t be complete.”

Reading these words, it is surprising, startling even, to scroll down just two entries later and find, in big purple lettering, the headline “I am a starving writer who has a social phobia.” In opposition to her eloquent descriptions of minyan and religious community, Tali is blunt about her life as an outsider. “I am the only young Jew of color in my area, as far as I know… I’m a starving writer who’s socially phobic with a mixture of anxiety, a little anti-social and a little depression and Graves Disease-hypothyroidism mixed in.”

Interestingly enough, it was this life as the “other” that afforded Tali the opportunity to build a new, international community in the form of Kehila, an online magazine for Jews of color around the world. Unemployed and also sick, she wondered how to fill the extra time: “I thought- what could I do that would include writing (which I have loved since I was little), and doing something to tell people how I felt, because I do blog, and so I thought… a magazine! There isn’t as far as I know, another magazine for Jews of color. Just to have some sort of community connection, since we’re all in different states, all over the place…”

As it turned out, Tali was not the only one feeling like an outsider in her own community. Just three issues in, she has a small but supportive base of readers who log in to read Kehila from Alaska, Maryland, and even Israel. Miriam, a Jew of color from Tsfat, writes “I like [Kehila] because it’s a magazine about Jews of color and the topic is not about racism only!” It seems like an easy trap to fall in to—but because Tali is a self-described outsider in so many ways, she is actually the perfect person to create a wholly inclusive magazine. Who better than a young, female, Jew of color, suffering from a rare disease, searching for work, interested in food and fashion, battling social anxieties, to produce an online magazine with something for everyone?

“We are a minority within a minority whose community is growing and requires more outlets in the Jewish and non-Jewish world to express, share, educate, discuss, debate, and voice the many opinions, topics, and issues that are important to us. I hope that this magazine will be such an outlet,” writes Adina. Feedback already reflects Tali’s goals: “I like that it blends Jewish women’s issues with practical life issues (like how to buy clothes on a budget!)” writes reader Solange Hansen. “In the future I’d like to see her explore issues of mixed marriages, and maybe feature some congregations (Reform, Conservative and Orthodox) that have diverse memberships.  Maybe some traditional recipes from African American homes that have been altered to be Kosher or in-line with other dietary laws would be good too.”

In her last, Hanukkah-themed issue, Tali featured a piece written by Erika Davis, a guest writer who is also an “Ohio transplant, living in NYC… currently in the process of converting to Judaism. Her blog, ‘Black, Gay and Jewish’ charts her progress, insights, thoughts, frustrations, and joy of Jewish learning.” The article was about how, if at all, the couple would be celebrating Christmas that year and forever after. After fighting with her girlfriend over whether presents would be exchanged, Davis finally realizes: “I forgot that what I want and expect and need from my Jewish religion is not what she needs, wants, or expects from her Jewish identity.”

Kehila is a magazine which highlights this idea exactly—we all want, expect, and need something different out of Judaism, yet we are all still Jews. We celebrate the same holidays, we know how to pronounce “yarmulke.” Shais “MaNishtana” Rison, an influential blogger who writes about his experiences as a Jew of color on http://manishatana.net, has already pointed his readers in Kehila’s direction: “I appreciate… the fact that there is a publication out there that–while clear that it is written from the perspective of a Jew of Color– is still mindful of the fact that we are all Jews and can be so without having to be apologetic of our being different ethnically…”

We are all different, but we are all Jewish, and Kehila is about building a community, not just a readership. For her upcoming issue, Tali asked for photo submissions from Hanukkah—one woman submitted pictures from her wedding. She maintains a yartzeit and mishabeirach column, and a community section where wedding and bar mitzvah announcements can be made. There is a lot of space left to fill, and a number of the magazine’s articles are pulled from internet news and information sites, but Tali continues to write, organize, and network every day.

On Kehila’s website, Tali posted a “Hot Topic,” or “Something to Ponder” for her second, Hanukkah-themed issue. “Each of us, according to Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, is a living Chanukah candle capable of spreading our own inner light… Like that little jar of oil which burned longer than anyone thought reasonable, we can live more brightly than we often imagine, even under the most difficult of circumstances.” Meant to inspire others, one can’t help but see her repeating this mantra to herself. For a “socially phobic” starving writer, she spends a surprising amount of time keeping other people spiritually full.

For now you can read Kehila online only at http://kehilamagazine.web.officelive.com/default.aspx until it gets off its feet!

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