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In his latest novel, James McBride defuses the ‘dynamite’ of Black-Jewish relations
(New York Jewish Week) — James McBride’s latest novel began as a book about a Jewish camp, and “ended up being a book about equality.”
Set in the small town of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” opens in 1972 when construction workers discover a body and a mezuzah at the bottom of a well. To unfold what happened, the narrative travels back to 1925 in the Chicken Hill neighborhood of Pottstown, where immigrant Jews and struggling Black families find common cause in a town sharply divided by racial, ethnic and religious differences.
“Anytime you start talking about Black-Jewish relations, you’re dealing with dynamite,” said McBride, who told the story of his mixed-race childhood and his white Jewish mother in the classic 1995 memoir “The Color of Water.” “You say one word and people are ready to throw you out the window. But there was and there remains a lot of love, a lot of getting along that happens. There’s a lot of cooperation, and there needs to be given the times we are living in.”
There’s a glancing reference to a Jewish summer camp near the end of the novel, but, as McBride explained last week at an event hosted by the New York Jewish Week and UJA-Federation, the book was inspired by his experience working at The Variety Club Camp for Handicapped Children, a Jewish-owned summer camp for children with disabilities outside of Philadelphia, while on his summer breaks from Oberlin College. Indeed, its late Jewish director, Sy Friend, receives a grateful acknowledgement from McBride in an foreword.
“The camp was open to everyone,” he told interviewer Sandee Brawarsky at the event. “The camp was very, very integrated… racially and religiously. The way Sy ran things really changed my life. It was a camp for handicapped, so-called ‘disabled’ children. The way he did things was just extraordinary. The staff was like the United Nations; it was very diverse, long before that word became a part of American vocabulary. He loved the kids. He was gay and hid it. He was just a unique person and we all loved it.”
Although Friend does not appear in the book, his spirit infuses its pages. Its central characters, Moshe and Chona (which McBride said is pronounced “Sho-na”) are a Jewish couple who own a theater and a grocery store, which loses money because Chona extends easy credit to her Black neighbors. When they take in a 12-year-old deaf Black boy whom the state wants to put away in a notorious institution for people with intellectual disabilities, they bring together the community at large to protect him.
“I wanted to write a book about that for many years, and I tried unsuccessfully for a long time. Chapter after chapter wasn’t any good,” McBride told the virtual audience of more than 1,200 people. “When I put things together and looked at it, the only chapter that seemed to work was the chapter about this guy, Moshe, who in the book, and in real life, was a Romanian Jewish immigrant and theater owner who donated the land for the camp. So I scrapped all the other chapters and just went dove right in at Moshe. That’s how the book was born.”
A Washington Post review of the novel described Chicken Hill as a place “where Jewish immigrants and African Americans cling to the deferred dream of equality in the United States.” McBride said he long wanted to tell the overlooked story of “poor immigrant Jews and poor Blacks living in the same part of town.”
“That’s an old story that’s happened in America, especially on the East Coast of America, probably from Maine all the way to Georgia. But it’s never really been told in a way that I can tell in terms of how people lived,” he said. “These men and women fanned out into America and they had these experiences that are largely not documented in the commercial literary world, at least in my opinion. I wanted to show how that worked out within the framework of the Black American experience and the immigrant experience overall.”
McBride grew up in Red Hook, Brooklyn, the eighth of 12 children. “The Color of Water” tells the story of how his mother, who immigrated from Poland and was the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi, raised him and his siblings. Born Ruchel Dwajra Zylska, Ruth McBride Jordan and James’ father, Reverend Andrew Dennis McBride, founded the Brown Memorial Baptist church in Red Hook in 1954, where the author is still an active member. His previous book, 2020’s critically acclaimed “Deacon King Kong,” is about the deacon of a small Baptist church in the southwest corner of Brooklyn.
McBride based Chona, who runs the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store and is deeply admired by the Black residents of Chicken Hill, on his Jewish grandmother, who also owned a grocery store in a Black part of town. “My grandmother didn’t have a lot of love in her life beyond her children. She wasn’t really loved in life and her marriage. So I put her on the page and I made her loved,” he said. “I wanted her to have the things on the page that she did not necessarily have in life. And then once Chona became a real person, she simply evolved into this character that moves the whole novel.”
Brawarsky asked McBride about his personal relationship with Judaism, religion and spirituality, and that of his siblings and children. He said that while he does not study Judaism, the Torah — or even the Christian Bible — very deeply, he was raised in New York and had many Jewish role models throughout his life. “I’m more interested in Jewish things than the average Black guy walking around on Broadway,” he said. He added that “I am alarmed and to some degree outraged, I suppose, by the level of antisemitism there has been… let’s be thankful that we all have the same wall to push against, and let’s get to pushing.”
When asked what he wanted people to take away from the book, McBride said, “We are all much more alike than we are different. Those of us who are right-thinking people, we have to be strong in our belief and in our will to show how those of us who want to live right can live. This is proof that we know how to live together.”
Watch a recording of the rest of McBride’s and Brawarsky’s conversation here.
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The post In his latest novel, James McBride defuses the ‘dynamite’ of Black-Jewish relations appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says
A closed Israeli military gate stands near Ramallah in the West Bank, February 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after Arab ministers planning to attend were stopped from coming.
The move, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government announced one of the largest expansions of settlements in the West Bank in years, underlined escalating tensions over the issue of international recognition of a future Palestinian state.
Saturday’s meeting comes ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, that is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood, which Israel fiercely opposes.
The delegation of senior Arab officials due to visit Ramallah – including the Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and Bahraini foreign ministers – postponed the visit after “Israel’s obstruction of it,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the block was “a clear breach of Israel’s obligations as an occupying force.”
The ministers required Israeli consent to travel to the West Bank from Jordan.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in “a provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel,” the official said. “Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud had delayed a planned trip to the West Bank.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity.”
Palestinians want the West Bank territory, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of a future state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
But the area is now criss-crossed with settlements that have squeezed some 3 million Palestinians into pockets increasingly cut off from each other though a network of military checkpoints.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the announcement this week of 22 new settlements in the West Bank was an “historic moment” for settlements and “a clear message to Macron.” He said recognition of a Palestinian state would be “thrown into the dustbin of history.”
The post Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Armed men hijacked dozens of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip overnight and hundreds of desperate Palestinians joined in to take supplies, local aid groups said on Saturday as officials waited for Hamas to respond to the latest ceasefire proposals.
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close but Hamas has said it is still studying the latest proposals from his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the proposals.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
On Saturday, the Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war began 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
At the same time, a separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on the social media platform X.
NO BREAD IN WEEKS
The World Food Program said it brought 77 trucks carrying flour into Gaza overnight and early on Saturday and all of them were stopped on the way, with food taken by hungry people.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” it said in a statement.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Overnight on Saturday, he said trucks had been stopped by armed groups near Khan Younis as they were headed towards a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and hundreds of desperate people had carried off supplies.
“We could understand that some are driven by hunger and starvation, some may not have eaten bread in several weeks, but we can’t understand armed looting, and it is not acceptable at all,” he said.
Israel says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
The post Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Hamas said on Saturday it was seeking amendments to a US-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, but President Donald Trump’s envoy rejected the group’s response as “totally unacceptable.”
The Palestinian terrorist group said it was willing to release 10 living hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. But Hamas reiterated demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, conditions Israel has rejected.
A Hamas official described the group’s response to the proposals from Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “positive” but said it was seeking some amendments. The official did not elaborate on the changes being sought by the group.
“This response aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to our people in the Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that among amendments Hamas is seeking is the release of the hostages in three phases over the 60-day truce and more aid distribution in different areas. Hamas also wants guarantees the deal will lead to a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to the Hamas statement.
Israel has previously rejected Hamas’ conditions, instead demanding the complete disarmament of the group and its dismantling as a military and governing force, along with the return of all 58 remaining hostages.
Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close after the latest proposals, and the White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the terms.
Saying he had received Hamas’ response, Witkoff wrote in a posting on X: “It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.”
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief on May 13, confirming what Netanyahu said earlier this week.
Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
The Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said on Saturday it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
On Saturday, aid groups said dozens of World Food Program trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food after weeks of mounting hunger.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the WFP said in a statement.
‘A MOCKERY’
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on X.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
A separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Israel denies operating a policy of starvation and says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
Hamas denies looting supplies and has executed a number of suspected looters.
The post Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.