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Harry Belafonte, singer and civil rights activist who popularized ‘Hava Nagila’ in the US, dies at 96
(New York Jewish Week) — Barrier-smashing singer, actor and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who once boasted of being “the most popular Jew in America” because of his rendition of a Hebrew classic, died Tuesday at his longtime Upper West Side home. He was 96.
The New York City native was the one of the first Black artists to achieve widespread commercial success in the United States, and while he was raised Catholic, his life frequently dovetailed with Jewish causes, values and people. Among Belafonte’s many Jewish connections — which included brokering a meeting between Nelson Mandela and Jewish leaders in 1989 — was his marriage to his Jewish second wife, dancer Julie Robinson. The couple, who were married from 1958 to 2004, raised two children, Gina and David.
In 2011, Belafonte revealed in his autobiography, “My Song: A Memoir” that his paternal grandfather was Jewish. Belafonte’s parents were both Jamaican immigrants: his mother, Melvine, was the child of a white mother from Scotland and a Black father, and his father, Harold George Bellanfanti, who later changed the family name, was the son of a Black mother and white Dutch-Jewish father. In his book, Belafonte describes his paternal grandfather, whom he never met, as “a white Dutch Jew who drifted over to the islands after chasing gold and diamonds, with no luck at all.”
Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr., in Harlem on March 1, 1927. His father was largely absent during his childhood; his mother, who struggled with finding work, forged a relationship with a Jewish tailor who taught her how to mend garments. “That tailor gave me my first sense of kinship with Jews, which would deepen over time,” Belfonte wrote in his memoir. He spent a portion of his childhood with his grandmother in Jamaica, but he returned to New York to attend George Washington High School in Washington Heights — where Alan Greenspan and Henry Kissinger were also educated — before dropping out.
Following a stint in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Belafonte was bitten by the acting bug when, working as a janitor’s assistant, he was given a pair of tickets to the American Negro Theater as a gift. “It was there that the universe opened for me,” he told NPR in 2011. “I decided with any device I could possibly find, I wanted to stay in this place. What I had discovered in the theater was power: power to influence, power to know of others and know of other things.”
In the late 1940s, Belafonte enrolled in acting classes, where he met his lifelong friend Sidney Poitier. The impoverished pair would often share a single theater ticket, trading places at intermission. He also befriended Jewish actor Tony Curtis, writing in his memoir: “He lived in the Bronx with his family; why live downtown, he’d say, when he could live uptown for free? And who cared if they still greeted him up there as Bernie Schwartz?”
He and Curtis frequently went to parties together, he wrote, sometimes with the actress Elaine Stritch, “who swore more colorfully than any sailor I’d known,” and “the blunt Jewish comic” Bea Arthur, “who’d start matching wits with Elaine until the two of them had everyone in uncontrollable laughter.”
To pay for acting classes, Belafonte began dabbling in singing at nightclubs, and it was there that a true superstar was born. One of Belafonte’s early successes were his performances of the Hebrew dance hit “Hava Nagila” at the classic downtown folk club the Village Vanguard. His rendition, Belafonte joked to The New York Times in 2017, made him “the most popular Jew in America.”
In that same interview, Belafonte recalled the tough uptown streets of his childhood, and how he was drawn to the fast money his uncle’s number-running business earned. “Everybody in that world were role models in how to survive, how to be tough, how to get through the city, how to con, the daily encounters,” he said. “But my mother saw to it that unless I wanted to live life absent of testicles, she wasn’t going to have me follow her brother Lenny. Somewhere in there is a Sholem Aleichem — a rich story to be told of the lore of that time.”
With his 1953 breakthrough album, “Calypso” — which included his most iconic work, “The Banana Boat Song” — Belafonte “almost single-handedly ignited a craze for Caribbean music,” according to The New York Times’ obituary. “Calypso” climbed to the top of the Billboard album chart shortly after its release and stayed there for 31 weeks; it is reported to be the first album by a solo artist to sell more than a million copies. By 1959 he was the most highly-paid Black performer in history, according to the Times.
Known around the world as the “King of Calypso,” Belafonte recorded and performed a wide range of global and folk classics throughout his wide-ranging musical career — Jewish standards among them. In 1959, he performed “Hine Ma Tov” in England, with what appears to be an Israeli military choir; his 1963 album, “Streets I Have Walked,” includes a rendition of “Erev Shel Shoshanim” (“Evening of Roses”), a popular Jewish wedding song.
Belafonte’s greatest passion, however, was neither acting nor singing — it was civil rights activism. There, too, he worked closely with many Jewish activists, as part of the historic Black-Jewish civil rights alliance of the 1950s and 1960s. But, as he recalled in his memoir, it was racism delivered by a Jewish TV executive that first inspired him to take on racial segregation in the United States.
The executive, a Jew from Montreal named Charles Revson, asked Belafonte to stop hosting white dancers on his performance show, citing the preferences of Southern viewers. Belafonte said he rejected the instruction and let Revson cancel the show. He realized, he wrote, that TV could only reflect societal attitudes, not change them. “To change the culture you had to change the country,” he concluded.
Through his civil rights activism, Bellafonte befriended Martin Luther King Jr. in 1956; the pair remained close until King’s assassination in 1968. “My apartment was a retreat for him,” Belafonte told NPR of King and his 21-room apartment in 2008. “He had his own entrance, his own kitchen. The home became, for him, a place where he could think and reside, take his shoes off, have his collar open and be him.”
Belafonte helped provide the seed money to launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and he was one of the lead fundraisers for that organization and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was “deeply involved” in the 1963 March on Washington and helped fund the Freedom Rides.
Belafonte’s commitment to social justice endured throughout his long life and career. In the 1980s, he helped organize the Live Aid concert, and he served as UNICEF’s goodwill ambassador after Jewish entertainer Danny Kaye pioneered the role. He was also a co-chairman of the Women’s March on Washington in January 2017, along with Gloria Steinem, though ill health kept him from attending.
Though primarily famous for his singing, Belafonte continued to make movies throughout his career; in 1970 he produced and co-starred in “The Angel Levine” alongside the original “Fiddler on the Roof” star Zero Mostel. Based on a story by Bernard Malamud, Belafonte starred as the titular Jewish angel. (The “project had a sociopolitical edge,” the Times noted, as the entertainer’s Harry Belafonte Enterprises hired 15 Black and Hispanic apprentices to work on the film’s crew.)
The cause of Belafonte’s death was congestive heart failure. He is survived by his two children with Robinson; the two children he had with his first wife Marguerite Byrd, Adrienne Biesemeyer and Shari Belafonte; and eight grandchildren. After divorcing Robinson in 2004, he married photographer Pamela Frank in 2008; Frank also survives him, along with stepchildren Sarah Frank and Lindsey Frank and three step-grandchildren.
“There’s just so much left that’s in my basket of possibilities,” Belafonte told The New York Times ahead of his 90th birthday in 2017. “I’m not as young as I feel, or as young as I would consider myself to be. The 90 figure is a blur. But I do know that if there’s anything left for me to do, I had best hurry up and do it, because time is not an ally.”
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Ben Shapiro denounces Tucker Carlson at Heritage, urges policing of conservative movement
(JTA) — Ben Shapiro walked onto a Heritage Foundation stage Wednesday and used it to draw a line against Tucker Carlson and a strain of conservatism Shapiro warned is drifting toward conspiracy theories and antisemitism.
For a talk that lasted about an hour, Shapiro, one of the most prominent Jewish voices on the American right, denounced Carlson by name, arguing that the former Fox News host no longer belongs inside the conservative movement and urging the institution hosting him to enforce what he called “ideological border control.”
“A conservatism that treats Tucker Carlson as a thought leader is no conservatism,” Shapiro said. “If conservatives do not stand up and draw lines, conservatism and the dream of America itself will cease to exist.”
The speech was as notable for its venue as for its content. It was hosted by Kevin Roberts, Heritage’s president, who has come under fire in recent months for publicly defending Carlson after Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust revisionist. Roberts’ comments triggered resignations and criticism from Jewish leaders and former Heritage affiliates. Two more trustees of the foundation resigned this week over Roberts’ support for Carlson.
Despite the directness of Shapiro’s message, and his explicit call for Heritage to police the boundaries of the conservative movement, Roberts did not respond to the criticism or address antisemitism on the right during the event.
In his opening remarks, Roberts praised Shapiro as a “patriot,” a “man of faith” and a “trusted counselor,” and described Shapiro’s book as “a truly good book,” without mentioning Carlson, Fuentes or the controversy that has engulfed the organization. When Roberts moderated the discussion that followed, he pivoted to policy topics including immigration, housing affordability and elections, again avoiding any reference to Carlson or antisemitism.
Roberts also did not acknowledge the resignations or public criticism that followed his defense of Carlson, At the conclusion of the event, he broadly aligned Heritage with Shapiro’s message, telling the audience, “Count on Heritage to fight with you.”
In his speech, Shapiro accused Carlson of abandoning free-market principles, rejecting constitutional governance and advancing conspiracy theories that echo antisemitic tropes, particularly around Israel and Jewish influence. He cited Carlson’s repeated criticism of Israel, his suggestion of “nefarious Israeli influence in American government,” and his hostility toward Christian Zionists.
Shapiro also criticized Carlson for repeatedly platforming figures with extremist or antisemitic records, including Fuentes, whom he described as “America’s foremost Hitler apologist,” as well as Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin and revisionist historian Darryl Cooper. “None of this comports with traditional American values,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro framed the moment as a test of the conservative movement’s credibility. “Conservatism means something,” he said. “And if we refuse to stand for it and defend it, it will disappear.”
The post Ben Shapiro denounces Tucker Carlson at Heritage, urges policing of conservative movement appeared first on The Forward.
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Citing Sydney attack, police in London say they will now arrest those who chant ‘globalize the intifada’
(JTA) — Police in London and Manchester, England, say they will now arrest pro-Palestinian protesters who chant the phrase “globalize the intifada,” in a policy change responding to the deadly terror attack on Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney.
Police in London also indicated that they will take more aggressive action to limit protests near synagogues where services are taking place.
The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London and the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police announced the new policies on Wednesday, saying in a statement that they had decided to act even though prosecutors had long advised that “the phrases causing fear in Jewish communities” were not criminal offenses.
“Now, in the escalating threat context, we will recalibrate to be more assertive,” they said, noting that the changes were “practical and immediate.”
The chant “globalize the intifada” is used widely used at pro-Palestinian protests and according to many of its proponents is meant to galvanize worldwide solidarity against Israel. Its critics, including many Jews, charge that it is a call for violence against Jews. “Intifada,” which means “uprising” or “shaking off” in Arabic, was the name of two violent Palestinian uprisings including one from 2000 to 2005 that killed an estimated 1,000 Israelis in terror attacks, including on buses, at cafes and at recreational centers.
The phrase has drawn renewed scrutiny in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack in Sydney, which killed 15 people. Authorities said the alleged attackers, who are not accused of using the phrase, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group. A man who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State staged an attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur in October in which two people were killed.
Among those drawing a connection between the Sydney attack and the protest phrase was British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.
“Why is it still allowed? What is the meaning of ‘globalize the intifada’? I’ll tell you the meaning — it’s what happened on Bondi Beach,” Mirvis told the BBC this week. He added, “We have to be far stricter with regard to what people are allowed to say.”
The British police crackdown on the phrase contrasts with the stance taken in New York City by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a longtime advocate for the Palestinian cause. During the campaign, he declined to condemn the phrase and then, after hearing from Jewish New Yorkers, said he would “discourage” it. But Mamdani, who hires the police chief and sets department priorities, has said he is not comfortable “with the idea of banning the use of certain words.”
In London, police are already acting on their new policies. The Metropolitan Police relocated a planned demonstration on Wedneday away from areas of London where public Hanukkah celebrations were scheduled, igniting allegations from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign that its protest was being illegally banned.
The police department said that was not true. And the statement announcing the new policies emphasized that they are not intended to prevent legal protest.
“All members of society have a responsibility to consider their impact on others – it is possible to protest in support of Palestinian people without intimidating Jewish communities or breaking the law,” the statement said.
The rally on Wednesday night attracted about 1,000 people, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said on social media, including former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The post Citing Sydney attack, police in London say they will now arrest those who chant ‘globalize the intifada’ appeared first on The Forward.
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After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
There is no evidence that Nuno F.G. Loureiro, an M.I.T.-affiliated scientist who was shot Monday at his home in Brookline, Mass., was killed in an antisemitic attack. It’s not even clear that he was Jewish.
But in the hours after his death Tuesday morning, a rumor spread that Loureiro was Jewish — and targeted for his pro-Israel politics. In the wake of a mass killing at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia, prominent Jewish social media influencers pointed to Loureiro’s death as proof that Jews all over the world were under attack.
The claim appeared to originate from Ira Stoll, the author of a conservative-leaning Substack newsletter called The Editors. In the newsletter and on X, Stoll reported Tuesday that Loureiro was Jewish. On Substack, Stoll attached a screenshot of a Threads post in which a user with that name defended Israel and criticized Hamas.
There was just one problem: The Threads account did not belong to the slain M.I.T. professor. But in an online information ecosystem that rewards virality, paranoia and hot takes — and whose most influential voices are rarely beholden to journalistic ethics — the unverified assertion took hold.
“Loureiro has been reported to be Jewish with strong pro-Israel views,” the pro-Israel account StopAntisemites shared with more than 350,000 followers. Quoting that post, pro-Israel activist Eyal Yakoby wrote to his 250,000 followers on X, “Every Jew must arm themselves.”
Influencers who repeated Stoll’s claim stated it as fact, usually without stating their source of information. If they had, other uses might have seen that Stoll deleted the X post, and edited his Substack article to include a clarification that MIT had clarified the Threads account belonged to a different person.
Instead, the unverified claim spread to other platforms.
“It’s Jew-hunting season,” the pro-Israel food influencer Gabriel Boxer, who goes by Kosher Guru, and the Jewish account Community News told nearly 400,000 Instagram followers in a joint post. Marnie Perlstein, an Australian Jewish influencer, asked in a Reel why the media wasn’t talking about Loureiro’s Jewish heritage.
There was a good reason legacy media that covered Loureiro’s death, among them the Associated Press and The New York Times, did not report that Loureiro was Jewish: It’s not yet clear whether he was. Indeed, some evidence suggests he wasn’t.
At around the same time as Yakoby’s post, a man named Joah Santos tried to shoot down the rumor, saying Loureiro, a friend of his, was not Jewish and would have never spoken about Israel or Gaza. (The Forward has reached out to Santos.)
StopAntisemites’ post had been reposted nearly 2,500 times and received nearly 600,000 views as of this Wednesday evening, and remains visible on X. Santos’ opposing claim, meanwhile, has been seen only 150,000 times.
The idea that Loureiro was Jewish eventually found its way into Yeshiva World News and the Jerusalem Post, which called Loureiro “a Jewish and vocal pro-Israel nuclear scientist.”
Authorities have opened a homicide investigation into Loureiro’s death; no suspects or possible motives have been disclosed. Funeral details have not been announced.
It’s possible that Loureiro was Jewish — neither the university that employed him nor his family has stated otherwise. But no one has been able to say definitively that he was.
The MIT media relations team told the Forward it could not comment on a staff member’s ethnicity or religion. MIT Hillel did not respond to a voicemail left Wednesday evening.
Bruno Cappi, who described himself as a close friend of Loureiro’s in the MIT physics department, said in an interview that he had worked with the professor since 2016 and that his friend had never mentioned being Jewish during that time. Many of their colleagues in the department were Jewish, Cappi said, with last names typical for Jewish ancestry like Friedman and Rosen; if someone were attacking Jews, why would they go after someone whose Jewish identity was not widely known? “It’s all absurd,” he said.
More than 24 hours after Santos and others tried to correct the record, the articles from the Jerusalem Post and Yeshiva World News remained online. The posts by Yakoby, KosherGuru and Perlstein — none of whom responded to requests for comment prior to publication — also remain up as of this publication. (Some X posts have pending crowd-sourced Community Notes underneath stating he is not Jewish and linking to Santos’ post, but those notes are not currently being shown to all users.)
Additional evidence that Loureiro was pro-Israel was also thin: An X user claimed that a Google Street view image of the professor’s home showed a “Stand With Israel” sign. If the image did depict his building, it had been taken three years earlier; it also showed a multifamily building, and Loureiro — if he did live in the building at the time — did not necessarily live in the unit with that window.
Nevertheless, the claim continued to spread. Around 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday — several hours after the posts from Stoll and StopAntisemites — a Wikipedia article was created about Loureiro, which claimed he was born “to a Sephardic Jewish family.” That claim remained on the article for four hours before a different editor removed it.
The post After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim appeared first on The Forward.