Judaism and the Black Experience: Rethinking Jewish Identity in the Twenty-First Century with Bruce D. Haynes

The Soul of Judaism: Jews of African Descent in America (NYU Press, 2018) offers the first exploration of the full diversity of Black Jews, including bi-racial Jews, adoptees, converts to Judaism, and Black Hebrews and Israelites, who trace their Jewish roots to Africa. Blending historical analysis and oral history, Haynes examines the multiple ways people of African descent encounter and embrace Judaism in America, as well as some of the obstacles they face for complete inclusion as Jews in their communities.

Bruce D. Haynes is a professor of sociology at UC Davis and a senior fellow in the Urban Ethnography Project at Yale University. Haynes’s research includes race and ethnic relations, racial segregation, and urban community organization. He is the author of Red Lines, Black Spaces: The Politics of Race and Space in a Black Middle-Class Suburb and co-author of The Ghetto: Contemporary Issues and Controversies and Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family.

Co-presented by Lehrhaus Judaica and Be’chol Lashon.