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From Moses to Memphis, the work of liberation remains unfinished
(JTA) — Rereading Exodus this month in synagogue reminds me of when I first learned about Moses’ role in freeing the Children of Israel who had been enslaved to Pharaoh. I grew up in Monsey, New York. My mother was Black and my father was white; my family identified with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. I discovered the Passover story through ultra-Orthodox coloring books that depicted the liberation of the ancient Israelites from bondage in Egypt.
One illustration depicted Moses as an 18th-century Hasidic Jew clad in a shtreimel (fur hat) and long kapote (robe), with abundant sidelocks flowing down to his shoulders. I brought home my masterpiece, fully crayoned in purple, and showed it proudly to my mother. She gave me a puzzled look and said, “You know, Moses didn’t look like this. He had brown skin like mine.”
It was an enlightening idea that hit me like a thunderbolt. Seeing Moses as a Black person changed my whole idea of Jewish history and religion in one fell swoop — it made me feel my Black and Jewish roots even more profoundly, and that I was a descendant of great Jewish and African men and women who founded our tradition.
As time went on, though, and I went “all in” and studied to become a rabbi, I realized that Moses’ skin color mattered much less than his role as a liberator. Although many Jews do see in color, Judaism does not. The way to follow in his footsteps, I grasped, was to become an educator, a leader and a champion for freedom. I’ve devoted my career to empowering Jewish communities across the continent to become more welcoming and inclusive, to overcome racism and prejudice, and to create a more just, equitable and loving society.
The Biblical narrative of the Exodus is a call to stand for freedom and against tyranny in every generation. It says, in effect, “You are able to speak, and to be carried away on the wings of words from millennia ago, bound to no Pharaoh’s story, but liberated by your own.”
Neither my Black nor Jewish forebears could have imagined how far their descendants would come in terms of participation and even leadership in our society. As the Black visual artist Brandon Odums has reflected, “We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams.”
But there is, alas, still so far to go, as last month’s brutal killing of Tyre Nichols at the hands of the police in Memphis reminds us. Both Black History Month and the Book of Exodus teach that we can only fulfill our destiny if we fight for the liberation of all peoples.
Earlier this month, we celebrated Shabbat Shira, in which we read about the Children of Israel’s miraculous escape from Egypt by crossing the Red Sea. I was reminded of what the late 20th-century Slonimer Rebbe, Sholom Noach Berezovsky, said about the ancient Hebrews wading into the water because they had faith not just in their hearts and minds, but in their bodies — in their very bones, he said.
What does it mean to believe with your bones? The Prophet Jeremiah declared that the word of God was like “fire shut up in his bones” (20:9). Dr. Martin Luther King quoted Jeremiah in his last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” saying, “Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around, he tell it.” King gave that speech on April 3, 1968 — in Memphis — on the night before he was assassinated.
Early in the speech, King imagined “God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across, the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the Promised Land.” He concluded with these uncannily prescient words: “I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So, I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
Our commitment to creating a better world — making it to the Promised Land — must always be so much more than merely skin deep. Only when we believe in our bones that change is possible, and that we can be agents of that change, will fear melt away and we will be able to defeat the Pharaohs who seek to deprive us of our dignity, whether in Memphis or anywhere in our land.
We shall reach the Promised Land — someday. We shall recognize that we are all God’s children—someday. We shall overcome — someday.
May that day be very soon and may we all unite in joy, peace and celebration to usher it in.
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The post From Moses to Memphis, the work of liberation remains unfinished appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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UK PM Starmer Says There Could Be New Powers to Ban Pro-Palestinian Marches
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media statement at Downing Street in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor/File photo
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government could ban pro-Palestinian marches in some circumstances because of the “cumulative effect” the demonstrations had on the Jewish community after two Jewish men were stabbed in London on Wednesday.
Starmer told the BBC that he would always defend freedom of expression and peaceful protest, but chants like “Globalize the Intifada” during demonstrations were “completely off limits” and those voicing them should be prosecuted.
Pro-Palestinian marches have become a regular feature in London since the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Critics say the demonstrations have generated hostility and become a focus for antisemitism.
Protesters have argued they are exercising their democratic right to spotlight ongoing human rights and political issues related to the situation in Gaza.
Starmer said he was not denying there were “very strong legitimate views about the Middle East, about Gaza,” but many people in the Jewish community had told him they were concerned about the repeat nature of the marches.
Asked if the tougher response should focus on chants and banners, or whether the protests should be stopped altogether, Starmer said: “I think certainly the first, and I think there are instances for the latter.”
“I think it’s time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect,” he said, adding that the government needed to look at what further powers it could take.
Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe” on Thursday amid mounting security concerns that foreign states were helping fuel violence, including against the Jewish community.
“We are seeing an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in the UK,” the head of counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement, adding that police were also working “against an unpredictable global situation that has consequences closer to home, including physical threats by state-linked actors.”
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War Likely to Resume After Trump’s Rejection of Latest Proposal, Says IRGC General
Iranians carry a model of a missile during a celebration following an IRGC attack on Israel, in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – A senior Iranian military figure said that fighting with the US was “likely” to resume after President Donald Trump stated he was dissatisfied with Tehran’s latest proposal, regime media reported on Saturday.
The comments of General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, one of the top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, were relayed by the Fars news agency, considered as a mouthpiece of the the powerful paramilitary body.
“Evidence has shown that the Americans do not not adhere to any commitments,” Asadi was quoted as saying.
He further added that Washington’s decision-making was “primarily media-driven aimed first at preventing a drop in oil prices and second at extricating themselves from the mess they have created.”
Iranian armed forces are ready “for any new adventures or foolishness from the Americans,” he said, going to assert that the Iran war would prove for the US a tragedy comparable with what was for Israel the October 7 massacre.
“Just as our martyred Leader said that the Zionist regime will never be the same as before the Al‑Aqsa Storm operation [the name chosen by Hamas leadership for the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel], the United States will also never return to what it was before its attack on Iran,” he said. “The world has understood the true nature of America, and no matter how much malice it shows now, it is no longer the America that many once feared.”
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Trump Says US Navy Acting ‘Like Pirates’ to Carry Out Naval Blockade of Iranian Ports
A view of Iranian-flagged cargo ship M/V Touska as the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer USS Spruance conducts its interception in a location given as the north Arabian Sea, in this screen capture from a video released April 19, 2026. Photo: CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Friday the US Navy was acting “like pirates” in carrying out Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports during the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
Trump made the comments while describing the seizure by US forces of a ship a few days ago.
“We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump said in remarks on Friday evening. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates but we are not playing games.”
Some of Tehran’s vessels have been seized by the US after leaving Iranian ports, along with sanctioned container ships and Iranian tankers in Asian waters.
Iran has blocked nearly all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz apart from its own since the start of the war. Trump has imposed a separate blockade of Iranian ports.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
The war has raised oil prices and led to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Trump, who has offered shifting timelines and goals for the war that remains unpopular in the US, has faced widespread condemnation over his comments on the conflict, including when he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilization last month.
Many US experts said last month that American strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure.