2 hours ago
2
The path from Compton to Jerusalem isn’t typically considered a straight line, but an innovative trio of thought leaders was determined to bring the cradle of hip hop to the Holy Land to strive for rare notes of unity amid stark division.
Given the friction between black and Jewish communities in a hostile post-Oct. 7 climate, a New York progressive “Zioness,” a Bel Air rabbi and a black pastor from Compton hatched a bold idea: bring two dozen black influencers from the Los Angeles inner city to Israel to “bridge divides across race, faith and history.”
Bound together by the promise of collective liberation, the curious civic, political and cultural leaders traveled thousands of miles — and years in time — to experience “From Compton to Jerusalem: A Covenant for Justice,” a mission planned around Sigd, a sacred Ethiopian Jewish festival that symbolizes communal renewal and longing for Jerusalem.
The 10-day trip promised a walk “in the footsteps of prophets, pioneers, and peacemakers, seeking not only to remember the past, but to rebuild a future grounded in solidarity, dignity, and collective liberation.”
Not an easy sell to a group that’s been fed a steady diet of misinformation and distortions about Jews and Israel.
“The perception of Israel is that it’s an apartheid state oppressing people of color,” Bishop Michael Fisher of the Greater Zion Church Family in Compton bluntly told The Post of the dangerous misconceptions about the Jewish state exacerbated by bad actors on social media.
Fisher’s objective? “To make people wrestle.”
“In Compton there was such a level of mixed emotions,” said the bishop who sensed the urgency to stem the simmering tensions. “I knew we had a short window to grab these influencers and change their minds now — before everyone else who had influence over them would drive the nail in the coffin.”
An ambitious idea indeed, but Bishop was up for the challenge.
“I knew the messaging about Israel and the black-Jewish relationship needed to come from Compton,” the bishop said about the hip-hop capital home to Snoop Dogg, NWA and Dr. Dre.
Compton luminaries including Aja Brown, the city’s former longtime mayor, and Angie Fisher, Grammy-nominated singer (and the bishop’s cousin), beheld the majesty and mysteries of Israel, transcending ancient and modern.
For Amanda Berman, founder and CEO of Zioness, a progressive organization, the natural affinity — not tension — between the groups felt like a natural fit. “Our stories are not the same, but they rhyme,” she said.
A visit to the Sheba Medical Center, ground zero for recuperation of injured soldiers, was as illuminating as it was heartrending.
What apartheid state? Meeting with Arabs — doctors and patients alike — revealed that 40% of the hospital staff are Arab, a “mind-blowing” number Berman said gave participants pause.
The incredible tapestry of the Jewish state, with various skin tones, languages and cultures crammed into one tiny country, upended prevailing perception.
“What many of them had in their head before they arrived was not what they experienced,” said Berman.
“It’s like a big melting pot,” R&B singer Angie Fisher told The Post.
Replete with soul-stirring scenes, like a baptism in the Jordan River for nearly every participant, the trip created genuine spiritual experiences.
And painful, yet powerful, moments, like visiting the Nova music site, where nearly 400 young people were murdered and another 44 abducted Oct. 7, 2023, became a “deeply meaningful” experience from a geopolitical lens, according to Berman.
“They saw how many people from LA were killed at Nova,” said Berman, noting how close to home a music-festival site nearly 8,000 miles away can actually feel. “They said it’s just like Coachella.”
Meeting powerful pioneers like Sharon Shalom, Israel’s first Ethiopian rabbi and lecturer at Ono Academic College who was born Zaude Tesfay, was a spiritual highlight.
His story, about emigrating from a persecuted North Ethiopia at age 8 as a young shepherd and going on to become a rabbi and professor of Jewish philosophy, was an inspiration.
But it was the sheer exhilaration of Sigd, the holiday celebrated by the Ethiopian Jewish community called Beta Israel that reaffirms the commitment to God and the Torah, that cemented the covenant.
Celebrating with 20,000 newfound friends dancing feverishly with the Torah, and joined by President Isaac Herzog, the group took a pause to behold the sight of that many black Jews in one place.
It didn’t take long before the calcified perceptions melted away.
“The walls of Jericho — pun intended — came crashing down,” asserted Bishop Fisher, noting the group had to come to grips with “being lied to.”
Touring Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial institution to the Holocaust, will be seared into their souls on many levels.
Fisher’s father, Pastor Emeritus W. Jerome Fisher, served in an all-black infantry unit in the US Army during World War II as a medic who liberated the Dachau concentration camp.
“He saw evil firsthand,” said Fisher, whose dad described seeing hell up close.
“You have shared pain with these people,” the elder Fisher told his 10-year-old son, a commitment that still echoes.
“My relationship with the Jewish community has never been marred by public opinion,” said Fisher, noting that when his brethren “hollered along with the Hamas agenda,” he couldn’t sit on the sidelines.
“I felt this need to stand up for people who I heard to be an ally to at 10,” he said. “Now at 46, I have a seat at the table.”
During the solemn day learning about eugenics and the Nuremberg laws — the relationship between eugenics in America and Nazi racialization laws, references to Jim Crow and black history — Fisher reminded the group: “It isn’t about comparison; it’s about compassion.”
The group left the museum “with their hearts ripped open,” said Berman, noting the realization that “white skin never protected Jews from antisemitism” was eye-opening.
If the trip’s goal was to “allow people to embrace the complexity and say, ‘Wow, this is much more complicated than I was led to believe on TikTok,’ ” said Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback, senior rabbi at LA’s Stephen Wise Temple, then it was a success in spades.
“To embrace the nuance — to show stories of this vibrant country with its broad story” — with Israel’s makeup of Druze, Palestinian Christians and Muslims, North African Jews — “is incredibly powerful,” said Zweiback.
So are there two dozen newly minted Zionists?
“They haven’t named it, but they’re on that path,” quipped Fisher. “Some came out and have a Zionist flair on them.”
For Fisher, the real mic drop moment is the unassailable rejoinder: “Everybody is ending their statement with, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re talking out of ignorance — I was there.’ ”
At the very least, they’re all “wrestling” with the concept — “a total win” for Fisher, and lightyears away from the preconceived notions that boarded the plane with the other baggage.
The proof is in the pudding: Fisher talked of “showing up for one another” at beauty salons and barbershops — “defending the Jewish community defending the black community and stereotypes.” The return on investment is “service and conversation.”
For Fisher, “They went in with those stereotypes, but they came out free thinkers.”
The concept of “factual ammunition” came up repeatedly.
Lance Riley, a popular Compton pastor, relayed he“didn’t have anything to add to the conversation, so when the conversations were coming up, I kind of ignored it.”
He would avoid engagement altogether — but no longer.
“Now I’m telling people they don’t know what they’re talking about, and they’ve never been there, never seen it, and they should not be having conversations about things they don’t understand,” Riley defiantly told The Post.
Berman recalled Riley expressed both pride and frustration that he hadn’t recognized the depth of the divisiveness before.
“I had zero relationship with Israel up until this point — and with the Jewish people” save for a few friends and figures in his life, said Riley, 46.
The life-changing visit “helped me understand their plight and what they’re actually struggling to achieve, politically and socially,” he said, blasting the “narrative people have about a community of people that they really don’t understand.”
After visiting — and crying with — communities ravaged from Oct. 7, Riley cultivated a deep sense of connection that caught even him by surprise.
“The injustices that we have suffered as an African-American community, we can understand the sufferings of the Jewish community in a more profound way,” he said, determined that the communities be “allies for each other. Together we can overcome this ugliness.”
Quoting Martin Luther King Jr., Riley internalized the rousing declaration, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Together, “we can overcome the pain that the past has caused us and now figure out how to begin to heal from it as two communities,” Riley added. “We can all heal together.”
For Angie Fisher, these newfound bonds are unshakable: “This is our Jewish family. We’re family,” she said after an emotional beat. “The way I see life is different.”
English (US)